Some Thoughts on the Zimmerman Trial

The George Zimmerman Trial became one of the biggest trials in U. S. History so far, and I say "so far" because at this rate there might be many more of these spectacles.  In light of all the murder and mayhem across the country and world, this one should not have been rated so important, which is why I say it "became" big.  A first thought is one you've already heard with which I agree, that is, this non-crime shouldn't have gone to trial in the first place.  There was no evidence of either second degree murder or manslaughter.  There was only evidence of self-defense.  It only went trial because of race baiting opportunists, who exploited this tragedy for personal or political gain.  This country is already in steep decline, but if we continue to allow this type of circumstance to continue, we'll slide even faster to total demise.

It's got to be really tough to lose a child like the Martin's did, no matter what their personal condition, and I thought about being in their shoes.  I have one son.  If I were in their shoes, I know how I would react to it.  If it were reverse, and Zimmerman was black and my son was the one who died, I'm saying I know how I would be.  First, I would understand that I had totally blown it as a parent.  I would have seen it as mainly my fault.  I would have seen it as my fault that I had a child that was just allowed to run in a way that he was far too unaccountable.  I would have seen it as my fault that I didn't even know where my child was at.  I would know that I did not bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord for whatever reason.  The parents weren't together and perhaps it would be because of the condition of my marriage.  There were many bad decisions these parents made that resulted in their child's death.  I would have already seen myself as largely at fault for that.

At this point, the country has seen the pictures of Trayvon proudly puffing on the marijuana and posing in all sorts of rebellious ways.  We know about his filthy mouth.  We know about the kind of people with whom he kept company.  All of those were a recipe for disaster.  I know that not doing enough about those or not doing anything about them would have been enough for me to understand why this happened to my son.  I would know that.  I would understand that.  I would blame that on no one else.  I would be sad, but I would point the finger straight at myself for that.  Sure, I would wish that Zimmerman had done better at the gym in getting in shape and learning out to defend himself that he didn't need a gun, but I would completely understand his use of the gun.  People can carry a handgun.  You know that in Florida.  If you know that, then you stay out of the kind of trouble that could get you shot.

Second, I would accept why my son died.  I wouldn't like it, but I could accept it.  You can't get away with all foolish behavior.  All of us get away with a certain amount in our lives, where we could have or even should have been killed.  Our lives could have ended suddenly.  The more of that type of behavior, the greater the opportunity to have our lives terminate sooner than what we would like.  We have a responsibility to train our children in that.  Eli didn't warn his sons Hophni and Phinehas enough, so they both died, and he knew it was because of him.  This was a case when the wrong decisions resulted in his death.  Really one different decision out of several different decisions that night could have been enough for him to still be living.  I would have wished for a different outcome, like I have wished for a different outcome when I'm caught speeding, but I know I deserve it, so I accept it.  I'm hoping for mercy, but I understand when I don't get it.  I could hope for mercy for my son, but I would understand why that didn't happen.  We don't deserve mercy.  If you can't learn to walk away from certain situations, or just run away from someone you are twice as fast as, then you are going to get in trouble.

What I'm saying is that if my son died that way, and at the hands of a black Zimmerman, I would believe my son deserved it.  I wish he didn't have to pay such a price for a few bad decisions, but I would have understood why he died.  I wouldn't feel bitter about Zimmerman.  I wouldn't expect the justice system to do anything.  I would fully conceive of why it shouldn't and wouldn't go to trial.  I would not try to force the justice system to give me a trial.  It would be very apparent why the event transpired.

Trayvon Martin didn't die because he was walking through a neighborhood at night in the rain.  He didn't die because he bought Skittles and an Arizona ice tea.  He didn't get killed because he was black.  He didn't lose his life when he didn't do anything wrong or when he was just going about his own business.  He didn't pass away because of his hoodie.  Every single one of those could have happened and he still easily would have made it back to his dad's house safe and sound with no possibility of dying that night.  This was not a complicated case.  Anyone that had just certain basics of the case knows that everything I'm saying is true.  I believe the main race baiters of the left know this to be true.  They are either lying or they are of such destitute minds that they are able to convince themselves that their lies are true.

If someone were taught just basic civilized human behavior, he would have known how to have survived that night in that neighborhood with George Zimmerman.  One, learn how not to look suspicious.  You look suspicious when you take a shortcut through a neighborhood in the dark in the rain with a hoodie covering your face and talking on a cell phone.  That's just common sense.  If you don't think so, then get some common sense. Get.  Some.  Maybe you don't have that ability.  Your average lifespan is probably going to be shorter then.  Don't be surprised at an early demise.  You say, "He was just a kid."  True, which is why he shouldn't have been out at all after dark until he was taught some common sense.  If the parent doesn't have common sense, then it's easy to understand how the child doesn't have it.  This has nothing to do with being black, white, Asian, or Hispanic.  Common sense is, well, common.

I know what it's like to be young, athletic, fast, and scared.  When I felt that way, I ran.  If there was a potential threat, I ran.  I ran until I was in a safe place.  I remember running through a dark woods on my walk home after late away sporting activities.  We lived near the school, and I walked across a field, a woods, a railroad track, and then to home.  I often ran when I got to the woods and there wasn't even moonlight.  When you are scared, you run.  If I looked at a Zimmerman looking guy, and I wasn't sure about him, I would run home.   I would train my kids not to have been there in the first place, but at that point, they would have known that it was time to run.  Run home.  If you are really scared, use the cell phone and call 911.  Why aren't we hearing this type of instruction coming from the folks related to Trayvon?  It might be your right to walk through the neighborhood, but that doesn't mean that there aren't dangerous people around.  Don't risk it.  Run.  Trayvon Martin was so much faster than George Zimmerman, and as the evidence showed, he didn't need to get close to him.  How could he have ever gotten close enough to Zimmerman to break Zimmerman's nose and cut and bruise the back of his head, and put abrasions on every side of his head, if he was trying to avoid Zimmerman before he got shot?

The prosecutor started his closing argument with, "He didn't do anything wrong!"  I understand he was trying to win the case by saying something other people have also now said.  You shouldn't be able to win a jury, and I don't think you do, by lying and insulting its intelligence.  Of course Martin did something wrong.  He punched Zimmerman in the nose.  That should have never happened if Trayvon Martin was minding his own business, was afraid, and just wanted to get home.  Please.  Don't insult our intelligence with that.  Others have said, the injuries on Zimmerman weren't that bad.  Right.  He had a broken nose, lacerations on the back of his head, abrasions all over his head, and Martin had no injuries before the gunshot wound.  Using only a little available intelligence tells you that the injuries to Zimmerman could have been worse had Martin lived in order to keep going.  When you are taking a beating, and the beating stops because you shot your assailant, you can't say how bad the beating would have been.  What degree and length of beating are you required to take before you stop it with your gun?  Do you have to go unconscious?  At the moment it is happening, do you really think that Zimmerman can judge what is the correct amount of assault to endure before he stops it with his gun?

You don't carry a handgun for self-defense only in case someone else has a handgun, so you can win a gun fight.  You carry a handgun too in case you could get mugged or beat up by a more skilled or stronger or more athletic fighter.  In those cases, you shoot an unarmed man.  Landing a fist in your face and slamming your head on the ground is a physical threat.  It is a reason someone carries a handgun.  If I'm walking in New York City at night, and I am confronted by someone, who throws me against the wall, punches me, knocks me to the ground, and then starts slamming my head against the ground, and I have a gun, what do you think I should do?  Really.

If someone took the best case scenario for Trayvon Martin, there still wasn't evidence of a murder.  The best case for Martin would be that we don't know who was screaming on the 911 tape, we don't know who started the fight, that Zimmerman was in fact following him, and that Zimmerman had "profiled" him.  The problem with his best case scenario is that there is much better evidence that it was Zimmerman who was screaming, that Martin punched Zimmerman first in the nose, that Zimmerman wasn't following him in the manner that the prosecution tried to persuade the jury, and that there wasn't anything illegal for a private citizen to profile someone.  Who is a neighborhood watchman supposed to be watching for?  This goes back to common sense.  He watches for suspicious people.  If he sees anyone, and I mean anyone, he thinks is suspicious, he has now profiled someone.  Everyone profiles other people all the time.  If you hire someone, you've profiled that person.  If you don't hire someone, he's been profiled too.

I feel very little sympathy for George Zimmerman.  If I had a son, he wouldn't look like George Zimmerman, is what I'm saying.  I'm not even utilizing any kind of unique Christian experience or leadership or wisdom that I might have with this.  What I'm writing here relates to basic common sense.  Is that missing much more because of a lack of true conversions in the United States?  Absolutely.  But it doesn't take supernatural discernment to come to the same conclusions that I'm stating here.

Some said that they thought it was at least manslaughter, if not second degree murder.  Anyone who says that doesn't know what he's talking about. Stephen Curry, the guard for the Golden State Warriors, tweeted that.  He said he watched it closely and thought at least manslaughter.  Watching it closely doesn't explain a manslaughter possibility.  It wasn't easier in this case to get a manslaughter charge than a second degree murder charge.  The defense for both was self-defense.  If you decide it was self-defense, neither of those charges would stick.  Saying it was manslaughter doesn't understand manslaughter.  The only reason for manslaughter here would be if the jury wanted Zimmerman to be punished in some way because Martin was killed.  I think that's where most people are today who want Zimmerman in jail.  It's not justice they want.  They want revenge.  When they say there wasn't justice, they don't understand justice or a just system.  In our system, to be guilty, that guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.  For those who question this jury, they wanted the jury to come back with a verdict based upon a low degree of probability.  The idea is that if it was even possible that Zimmerman was guilty, then he should be punished, and that's what a manslaughter charge should be for.  The existence of manslaughter was in case that the prosecution could convince the jury purely on emotional grounds.  If there was no proof for second degree they could split the difference with a manslaughter.  In this case, the jury followed the law, which disappointed people who have little respect for the law.

Some are saying that the reason for the injustice here is because it was 5 white women and 1 Hispanic woman.  Those people are not racists, right?  They aren't sexists either, right?  When the experts said the prosecution was trying to sway the jury with emotion because they were six women, where was the outcry?  That's discriminatory, right?  Women aren't more emotional then men, or at least you can't say that, or you're sexist, I've been told.

Al Sharpton said they always had "plan B," if this didn't work.  Plan B is a federal civil rights suit brought against Zimmerman.  You get your trial, but you don't get your guilty verdict, and so you have another alternative.  Al Sharpton is twisted.  He's got some kind of outlook or attitude that disallows him from seeing  the world accurately.  Zimmerman never even mentioned whether Trayvon Martin was black, until he was asked whether the suspicious person was black, white, or hispanic, and he said he thought he was black.  If it's illegal for a citizen to profile, then why is that racial question asked?  Isn't everyone profiled then when there is a question about race on even government applications?

You reader might think this is insensitive to black people, that black people are far less likely to get justice and this Zimmerman trial only reinforces that conception.  Everyone -- red or yellow, black or white -- needs to know what and why this happened.  The instinct to blame these situations on others is against what is necessary to prevent more unnecessary deaths.

This country should not put up with the riots and the misbehavior stemming from this jury decision.  All criminal reaction should be dealt with according to the full force of the law.  No one should be excused.  If our country does not, it's only going to get worse.  Finally, the solution always comes back to the true gospel.  The only answer for America is a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

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Here's an article on this that adds the tell-tale statement by the main detective investigating the case when he interviewed Zimmerman, feigning that the whole incident was caught on surveillance tape, and Zimmerman replied, "Thank God." Zimmerman had said that he was being straddled and beaten by Martin, and he was confident that a surveillance tape would back his story.

We also now get an interview of prosecution witness Rachel Jeantel on CNN by Piers Morgan in which she says that Martin didn't think he was being followed by a racist, but he profiled Zimmerman as a predatory gay cop who wanted to rape him and then his little brother.  If this is true, and Jeantel is actually credible, then Martin attacked Zimmerman because he was gay.  If this scenario is correct, then the media is defending Martin's attempt at brutally beating someone for showing a gay interest in him.  According to Jeantel, Martin beat Zimmerman out of homophobia in the truest definition of that term.