Zimmerman: Key Witness “Dee Dee” Tweets a Lot!

An epic post on the identity, frame of mind, and other details associated with Trayvon’s alleged girlfriend DeeDee.  Kids these days apparently twitter every single thing they do, every emotional twist and turn, everything!  I can’t relate to this at all.  Yet this does make it much easier to get to know people and check their alibis.  Turns out DeeDee was probably not Trayvon’s girlfriend, not too traumatized (out shopping and picking baby names with new boyfriend days after Trayvon’s death), not hospitalized, not concerned about Trayvon’s dropped call, and not doing any of the things nor was she at any of the places described by Benjamin Crump.

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Zimmerman: Bail Hearing

I thought O’Mara managed this situation brilliantly.

One, he humanized Zimmerman.  His soft voice on the witness stand, his calm conviction, and the bullying treatment of prosecutors will generate a great deal of sympathy simply based on the arrogant tone of the prosecutors.  While Angela Corey pretended to be objective (while threatening Zimmerman with 30 years), the trial prosecutors’ tone would have been more appropriate for a Ted Bundy; their emotions far outstrip the evidence.  Two, O’Mara tore major holes in the prosecution’s case, not least in showing their use of loaded language like “profiled” had no real defense, in showing that they had no evidence to contradict Zimmerman’s account of how the fight started and what happened, and in showing their affidavit was skewed completely and included what can only be called lies by omission.  Also, the prosecutors showed some real weakness in  making such a huge deal about Trayvon’s “right to be there,” which is true, but does not include a right to start wailing on people.  They also made a big deal about Zimmerman’s very minor run ins with the law over seven years ago, which sound perfectly explainable as either youthful hot-headedness or mistaken identity and, of course, would not ordinarily be admissible in trial.

And, of course, the bloody skull picture came out.  It fully supports Zimmerman’s account and is quite dramatic. This story is as much about the media as anything else, and it would be interesting to know how long ABC sat on this one:

This is an injury that one could die from. You see bleeding and a contusion.  People get punched in the face and die all the time, sometimes after one or two punches.  People certainly get stomped and pounded into concrete and die. Remember Reginald Denny.  If the beating recipient doesn’t die, often they’re injured for life, paralyzed, or a hell of a lot dumber when the whole business began. Zimmerman did not have to endure that.  Indeed, it sounds as if he endured quite a bit before he pulled the trigger based on the minute or so of screaming on one of the 911 calls.  But even if these particular injuries are not that bad–and they don’t seem so, quite yet–they appear to be the product of a serious beating with a seriously dangerous feature:  head meeting concrete.

This story will get dropped or ignored as the evidence starts to support Zimmerman.  Even black and liberal national opinion prefers a more clear cut “good guy” and “bad guy” than all this.  They didn’t go to bat for Crystal Magnum and they won’t here either.  Some of the hardcore agitators may continue to bitch and moan, but even many blacks, particularly black opinion makers, will say, “we only wanted an arrest, and this is what happens when you act like a knucklehead.”

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Zimmerman Case: Lies by Omission?

In addition to its overall sloppiness, the state’s attorney’s affidavit in support of murder charges has a number of fairly egregious omissions, in particular the eyewitness account of Zimmerman being beat up, Zimmerman’s own testimony of being beaten up and attacked, and other factors supporting his self defense claims.

Florida criminal lawyer, Kevin Moot, writes the following, which seems directly relevant regarding “lies by omission” in a charging affidavit:

[T]he affidavit omits material evidence, as well as misstates a known fact. For instance, the affidavit claims that a police dispatcher “instructed” Zimmerman not to follow Martin. However, in the recorded phone conversation, the police dispatcher merely tells Zimmerman: “we don’t need you to do that.” While this may seem like a minor discrepancy, it is clearly inaccurate to state that the dispatcher “instructed” Zimmerman not to follow Martin. At a minimum, this misstatement of fact evinces a disregard for accuracy. What’s worse, the affidavit never makes mention of the 911 caller, who claimed that (1) Zimmerman yelled for help; and (2) that Martin as on top of Zimmerman, “beating up” on Zimmerman.While the affidavit claims that Zimmerman “admitted [to] shooting Martin,” the affidavit omits that Zimmerman claimed to have shot Martin in self-defense.

These omissions potentially render the Probable Cause Affidavit legally insufficient, and entitle Zimmerman to an evidentiary hearing on the sufficiency of probable cause. As the Florida Supreme Court held in Johnson v. State, 660 So. 2d 648 (Fla. 1995), if omitted material is added to an affidavit and thus defeats probable cause; and if the omission resulted from intentional or reckless police conduct with the intent to deceive, then a defendant is entitled to an evidentiary hearing.

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Obama’s Miscalculation

Pat Buchanan says what I tried to say a few weeks ago though with a more practical focus on electoral politics than I did:

Obama foolishly inserted himself into this volatile case weeks ago, and injected the issue of race. Expressing empathy with the family of Trayvon Martin, Obama flashed a signal of racial solidarity:

“If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”

Obama also implied that he shares the liberal perspective that America is a country where black kids must walk in daily fear of white racist vigilantes.

“All of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.”

Translation: The death of Trayvon tells us something is wrong with America.

“And if Zimmerman, Trayvon, race, guns and stand-your-ground become voting issues this fall, how good is that for Barack Obama?”

Let’s hope, like the Cambridge Cop incident, he alienates the right kind of people and screws up his election.  For better or worse–much worse for Zimmerman–this case ain’t going anywhere for a while.

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Some Big Unanswered Questions in the Zimmerman Case

Why Didn’t Martin Family Know What Happened Earlier?  Trayvon was supposedly buying tea and skittles for his little brother.  He went to store and never came back.  Later that night–but earlyish, 7:30–there’s a shooting in the complex.  Tons of cop cars appear and likely stick around for hours.  People mill about and talk about what happened.  His father and his fiancee, according to some reports, come back from a date later that night. In other reports–including their words the day after the shooting--it sounds like they were there all along.   But they don’t find out he’s dead until the next day.  Now they say they were looking all night.  Regardless, whether early or late, they come home or they are home and there is no Trayvon.  How old is this little brother? Why didn’t Traci Martin say, “Hey little man, where’s your brother?” Why didn’t little brother say, “Hey dad, Trayvon didn’t come home, and some crazy stuff went down here earlier tonight.”  It doesn’t make sense.  I read here it’s Brandi Green’s kid, Chad, and he’s 14.  He should have known what happened or at least been concerned by Trayvon’s absence, no?  My guess is some combination of Chad, Brandi, and Traci were not there, didn’t come until very late or the next day, or were getting high, or Trayvon was gone a few days and unsupervised, or they were doing something else embarassing which is why they didn’t really look for Trayvon that night, whether they were there or not.

Who Commits a Murder When He Knows the Cops are Coming Because He Called Them?  Zimmerman calls cops and knows they’re on way. Why in hell’s name would he also proceed to intentionally kill Travyon in accord with the second degree murder charge?  Does that make sense?  And does it make sense he’d start a fistfight under those circumstances, if his aim was to kill, and he had a gun on him the whole time?  If he started fight–since we’re all analyzing the depth of his head gash on the jail video–how many contusions, bruises, gashes and the like appear on the angelic Trayvon in his autopsy?  In other words, did Zimmerman land any punches?  And, if no, can he in any world be called the aggressor?

The Top Secret 7-11 Visit.  Travyon supposedly went to the store to get “tea and skittles” for his younger brother.  Where’s the video of him at that store?  Why isn’t the “last scene of his young life tragically cut short” not being played on endless loop on the TV news?  Why hasn’t clerk been interviewed?  Does this information exist? Is something embarrassing on the tape? Did he shoplift?  Was he home with his Dad “watching NBA” or home alone, since other accounts say folks on a date, or home with this unnamed younger brother? See above.  Is this story–which originated with Benjamin Crump, the occasionally dishonest family lawyer–a  bunch of nonsense to make the 17 year old Trayvon appear both noble and childlike?  Don’t know.  Some say the video’s been turned over to investigators.  But the media should be looking into all this, but they’re so lazy and prejudiced on this it’s not even funny.

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The Zimmerman Affidavit

This thing is a joke and shows what  a weak case the prosecution has.

It reveals nothing that was not already in the public domain, and the affidavit does not even attempt to address the evidence already known to contradict the Martin narrative.  For starters, it makes a big deal about Zimmerman’s “profiling.”  This is not illegal.  He can think what he wants, call the cops when he wants, and ask whomever he wants what they’re doing in his neighborhood.  Not only is none of this illegal, but none of this implicates “stand your ground,” which is a nonissue in this case, as Zimmerman claims he was on the floor getting pounded to death after being suckerpunched by Martin and, in addition, that the struggle came to be over the gun he lawfully had on his person.  No possibility of retreat there, and thus no “stand your ground” issue. Traditional self defense law never required one to “avoid all confrontation” or “not ask questions” or “not think evil thoughts” as implied by the irresponsible Angela Corey’s affidavit.

The worst part of this affidavit centers on the physical confrontation Zimmerman and Martin had.  This is the heart of the matter.  Under the law of self defense, it is highly relevant who initiated force, how much force was used, and what the situation was immediately before Zimmerman pulled the trigger.  Instead, we get “Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued.”  This is so deliberately unclear as to suggest the totality of physical and eyewitness evidence points in favor of Zimmerman’s account.

The affidavit is equally weak with respect to the mens rea components, i.e., the defendant’s mental state.  Second degree murder requires intentional unpremeditated killing or killing with a depraved mind not showing regard for human life.  Manslaughter is killing through “culpable negligence” or, alternately, “[w]hoever shall unnecessarily kill another, either while resisting an attempt by such other person to commit any felony, or to do any other unlawful act, or after such attempt shall have failed, shall be deemed guilty of manslaughter . . .”  So, when you have a fight or someone suspecting another of crime, that use of force may be illegal or potentially legal, but only if nondeadly.  If in the course of such a fight your use of deadly force is unreasonable, unnecessary, or disproportionate, it can be a case of manslaughter.  Man shoves you and calls you a jerk, and you shoot him:  not justifiable deadly force. Nowhere in this affidavit is the usual requirement of showing intentional killing, depraved mind, or the other hallmarks of murder.

This affidavit is being released six weeks after this killing took place.  Indeed, no eyewitnesses to the struggle are named, though the girlfriend and mother of Trayvon are given top billing.  This, even though we know at least one real eyewitness, John, saw Zimmerman crying for help, underneath Martin, in a great deal of distress.

What a totalitarian world we live in where a completely reasonable suspicion of a stranger acting strangely coupled with some possible deviation from a 911 dispatcher’s instructions is treated as a real crime–when it’s not–and where Maritn’s alleged aggravated battery is only mentioned in the passive voice, i.e., “a struggle ensued.”  I hope that a courageous judge dings this under Fla. Rule Crim. Pro. 3.113, which allows a probable cause determination within 21 days after an arrest by information or Rule 3.190, which allows a pretrial motion on the basis of the special immunity afforded under Florida’s self defense laws.  In my experience, such courage is short supply.

Such diverse observers as Alan Dershowitz and former prosecutor Andrew MacCarthy have noted the grave defects in this affidavit.  They all flow in my view from the same source:  Special Prosecutor Corey’s deep identification with the Martin family–the sweet people with whom she prayed–as well as her identification with Trayvon Martin himself and the various agitators who have gathered around this case.  She said at her strange press conference that she was seeking “justice for Travyon” even though, in a case like this, the question of justice must be a global one, justice simpliciter, as justice for Zimmerman depends a lot on the alleged bad acts of Trayvon that led to the shooting.  In other words, by self consciously “seeking justice for Trayvon,” she already prejudged the most central event of this case.

According to Zimmerman’s account and that of the only eyewitness to the actual fistfight that preceded the shooting, it was Trayvon who started this and continued this as an aggressor.  That makes Zimmeran’s acts self defense.  Corey should be ashamed of herself for pursuing this case under these circumstances.

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Thank God for High Profile Cases

I’m basically happy with our justice system.  For the most part it works and, even in the worst of times with the craziest of prosecutors, you still get your day in court before a jury.  It’s good for people like me, who lean towards law and order conservatism, to occasionally see someone like me in the dock.  Zimmerman could be me or a brother or a friend.  Even people in bad neighborhoods who make mistakes are not always guilty of what they’re charged with.  They get off some times . . . because of juries.

The criminal courts should punish the guilty and protect the innocent.  This is why juries work so well in criminal trials; most people feel this way.  Sometimes tribal loyalties undo this, as in the twin extremes of the Jim Crow South or the modern day Bronx.  But mostly they work, and the demographics of Seminole Country are such that Zimmerman should be able to get  a reasonably favorable jury.  Prosecutors are part of this process, but they often fail.  But their word is not final, the jury has the final say.

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A Sacrificial Lamb

George Zimmerman is being prosecuted to appease the tribal forces of hatred unleashed by media lies, the propaganda of Al Sharpton, and a totally unjust sense of identification by the “black community” with violent thugs like Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman was a man any of us would want as a neighbor.  He volunteered in his community and took a stand when most people do the bare minimum.  Seeing a suspicious individual he called the police and looked into what was happening.  Seeing him flee, he continued to gather information so the cops could find him.  Facing a violent beatdown by a young man with a well-documented attitude problem, he shot the perpetrator in the chest after screaming for his life for over a minute.

Wanting to be a cop some day, he trusted law enforcement, interviewed with them at length the night of the shooting, the day after the shooting, and, according to his former lawyers, as recently as this week.  Knowing he was innocent, he thought that the truth would surely move the special prosecutor in the same sensible direction as the original prosecutor.  He forgot that America of 2012 does not care about him.  He’s a second class citizen at best, not because he’s Hispanic, but because he’s non-black, a gun owner, and has become the object of organized hatred.  Hence, mutatis mutandis, this minority man, a registered Democrat, who volunteered to mentor black kids becomes a “white Hispanic” racist overnight.

This woman Corey is demented.  She somehow thinks it’s her job to hug and kiss Trayvon’s parents, ignore the “reasonable doubt” standard that applies to self defense, and push this weak case in spite of its manifest flaws.  Her supersilious smile shows a woman without proper moral instincts.  She talked about this prosecution the way you’d tell a class of third graders they’re going on a fieldtrip.  She’s all about praying with Trayvon’s parents and hugging and kissing these “sweet people” and all sorts of other bullshit.  No discussion of what tipped the scales that might make the public think:  hey, maybe it wasn’t a real case of self-defense.  Facts be damned, second degree murder here we come.

This ain’t about Trayvon’s parents who clearly were failing at raising this kid.  This ain’t about how much Corey loves her staff and fellow lawyers. She was frankly somewhat dishonest, pretending to maintain an aloof neutrality, even as she has set in motion a process that already threatens George Zimmerman with a 30 year minimum  prison sentence, and even as she showed an inappropriate emotional identification with the “victim’s” parents.  She doesn’t represent them or victims for that matter; she represents the state of Florida and its laws, not Trayvon’s grandstanding divorced parents.

She is Zimmerman’s enemy.  She is the enemy of anyone and everyone that, faced with a violent assault, would use a firearm in self defense. She is the enemy of common sense and justice and real victims of real criminals.

For her, and many other prosecutors, “criminal” is not a type of person or someone committing a certain type of behavior.  Rather, it’s anyone she can by hook or by crook nail with a conviction.  I saw this with my own eyes while clerking for a federal judge:  prosecutors who “push the envelope” with people who were so far from criminal it was mind-boggling.  The only people I’m praying for in this drama are Zimmerman and the future jury; God just let them have a modicum of common sense and decency.  For God’s sake, if Casey Anthony can get off on reasonable doubt, surely this guy can!

I’m so pissed off about this I can barely talk.  But if there’s one lesson to anyone that may shoot someone in self defense it’s this:  shut up.  Don’t yap to the cops.  Once you’re standing over a dead body, they are not your friends; they and the prosecutors seek to rack up points above all else.  If they’re not that way, good for you, but you have to assume the worst.  For the most part, this is the human type involved.  Think Nancy Grace.  They can’t be trusted, and they’re not your friends at that moment.  You probably think criminals are one group, and you are in another group. “Hey cops, I’m like you; I hate crooks, that’s why I just shot one!”  But once you’re on their radar, anyone who can possibly be prosecuted is in the same group, the criminal group, the group that has much to fear from prosecutors.  Get a lawyer, and shut your trap.

The credulous Zimmerman, believing in law enforcement that he idolized to the end, likely sealed his own fate with some slight discrepancy in his story.  That’s all it takes.  With his belief in race blindness and the American way, he forgot that the special prosecutor was out for blood to prevent a riot, to show their politically correct bona fides, and because prosecutors really don’t give a shit about you once you are anywhere near a crime scene.  If there’s a dead body, get ready to be cuffed, no matter what.  Indeed, Zimmerman had faced exactly that from the much-maligned Sanford PD.  But prosecutors are supposed to create an additional layer of professionalism not focused on winning, but rather on  pursuing the truth.  In reality, like most advocates, most just want to win.  Why else are you always seeing them exposed for some violation or another of their ethical mandate to share exculpatory evidence and the like?

Zimmerman’s about to learn the meaning of the old adage, “It’s better to be judged by twelve, than carried by six.”  Let’s hope to God the jury realizes what a raw deal this guy has gotten and is continuing to get in this case.

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Why Wasn’t Zimmerman Charged?

In all the endless talk of hoodies and race and skittles and “white privilege” and other assorted nonsense in the Zimmerman/Martin case, it’s more and more obvious how useless the mainstream media is.  In all of the discussions, not one source (other than blogger David Kopel) has talked about a special Florida law that makes the usual cop approach of arrest-and-figure-it-out-later different in self-defense cases. Instead there was a big focus on “stand your ground,” which really has no bearing on this case.  However, under Florida law, if there is a colorable self-defense claim, charges are not allowed until probable cause exists; because of Florida’s (majority view) requiring proof of the case and disproof of any affirmative defense, there must be probable cause both that deadly force was employed and that it was unlawful.  In some jurisdictions the self defense claim is an affirmative defense on which the claiming party has a burden of proof, but in Florida the prosecutor must disprove that too “beyond a reasonable doubt” once evidence of self defense is raised.   In other words, if there’s a toss up in Florida, there cannot be an arrest and prosecution.  The statute below simply reiterates this requirement.

Florida Stat. Sec. 776.032 says, “person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force . . . A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.” The statute also, unusually for a criminal matter, allows the award of attorneys’ fees to defendants wrongfully arrested or prosecuted when they have the statutory immunity.

It would have been nice if someone had spoken intelligently about this 2005 statute before we all wondered why in the devil the prosecutor might have been extra cautious in this (and similar) cases and before we heard the anti-stand-your-ground propaganda, even though that allowance not to retreat is the law in many states either through their common law or as a statute.

On another note, the media is finally learning the value of maps.* The NY Times at its interactive feature, unfortunately, neglects to highlight the one and only eyewitness of the two fighting (a man named “John”) who saw Martin pummeling Zimmerman, heard Zimmerman crying for help, and corroborated the bulk of Zimmerman’s story.  Instead, post-shooting eyewitnesses, the boy who lost sight of the fight, and the “earwitness” who “felt it was Trayvon” screaming are featured as being of equal value.

The Wagist blog has does a better job analytically of addressing the 911 calls, physical scene, and various witnesses, and it does not seem as results-oriented in its editing.

* I noticed in the NY Times map was oriented North down.  Huh?  Is this some new way of not showing the dominance and ethnocentrism of Europeans and the Northern Hemisphere.  Who the heck does that?  Anyway, I confirmed on google maps that there is indeed a 7-11 in that shopping center where indicated; it’s a pure convenience store without gas pumps.  It’s curious, of course, we’ve not seen surveillance footage of Trayvon nor an interview with the “last person to see him alive!” Was he shoplifting? Did he even go to the store?

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The Jaundiced Eye

One of the most insidious kinds of lies, a “lie” that is only apparent when seen in context, is the propaganda technique of giving disproportionate attention to an outlier event while downplaying the more dominant and numerous trend.  We see it in the media’s obsession with American war crimes, while paying little attention to those of the Taliban.  We saw it a great deal in the Cold War, as in the left’s continuing obsession with the crimes of Pinochet (who killed about 3,500) while ignoring those of the Communists (who killed 100mm plus).  But nowhere is this lie more salient today than in the intersection of race, crime, and disorder. 

Blacks commit 7-10X more violent crime than whites on a per capita basis.  This is a fact, and that is a big difference in crime rates.  It is 700% to 1000% more.  It wasn’t always such, but it’s gotten this way.  This is a problem for America.  It is a problem for blacks, the most decent and vulnerable of whom are often victimized by violence.  But it’s a problems for whites too, who are subject at times to unusual cruelty, which surely has some relationship to their nonstop demonization.  It is the reason so many of our cities are “no go” zones and so much money must be invested in fleeing to “safe” communities with “good” schools.  It’s the reason so many people are in prison, and it’s the reason so many people’s lives are damaged by violence.

But why then does the “man bites dog” story of George Zimmerman get so much attention?  White on black crime is miniscule today.  It’s not a trend and, taken as a class of crimes, it is not a problem. The goal of such attention is to create a misimpression, indeed, one of a sacred victims and a demonic perpetrator class. Why else the misleading photos and audio and tales of Trayvon the drug dealer being an honor student. Regardless of Zimmerman’s guilt or innocence, it’s all so hamhanded and insulting to the intelligence!  It’s as if our WWII curriculum spent weeks and weeks on the alleged war crimes of the Finns during their 1940 spat with the Soviet Union, while the cruelty of the Nazis (and the Soviets as well), and indeed, the entire terrible confrontation of Allies and Axis, were treated as a minor affair worthy of a lesson or two and much less attention than the crimes of the Perfidious Finns!

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Some Trayvon Updates

Turns out NBC doctored the 911 audio to make Zimmerman look racist and bad.  Great job mainstream media that is so critical of bloggers and their pajamas!

ABC also obscured Zimmerman’s head in their post event video.  Do these bastards have any shame?!?

An interesting series of maps re: the event.  Author puts events into a timeline as well.

Audio experts turn out to be egregious hacks.  Seriously, even if not sure of “match,” how can you say definitely not same person.  What standards exist in this field?  This is why I’m glad the law requires the Daubert screen on scientific evidence; it’s too easy to get bamboozled otherwise.

Overall, I feel the tide is shifting to a more balanced account, which is what one would expect in the murky world of self-defense.  It’s not like the TV or movies with an obvious situation. Most people’s impressions of how things should go probably come from this; they forget people can be beaten to death or near-death in unarmed combat, that things don’t involve the long posturing often seen in the movies, and that violence, even legally justified violence, often has tragedy and ugliness involved.  This is why the law rightly has a reasonable doubt standard in cases like this.  It would be too easy to throw otherwise good people into the jail on the basis of 20/20 hindsight and confused evidence that points in multiple directions.

The one thing that has become clear–and has been clear for a long time–is the bad faith and totally transparent agenda of the mainstream media and their leftist counterparts in politics, including President Obama.  They have taken an unusual unrepresentative case and made it a cause celebre, with Zimmerman as the Alfred Dreyfus figure subject to the worst and most sensationalistic smear campaign of recent memory.  Meanwhile, black on black and black on white violence continues, and it garners no attention from anyone.  Indeed, in Sanford an egregious assault took place recently.  I don’t know the race of the victim, and it hardly matters.  It was a brutal crime and, if I may say, the two suspects look, like Trayvon, to be Sons of Obama.  But we won’t hear their names.  No patterns will be observed.  No 100 year old crimes will be resurrected to fashion nonexistent patterns. It will be one more in a meaningless series of random, unfortunate, meaningless, and unteachable (indeed, unspeakable) moments.

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Trayvon Martin, Victim?

Let’s see, “talks like a thug.“  Dresses like a thug. Acts like a thug at school.  Acts like a thug right before he’s shot.  Beats up bus drivers.  Sells drugs.

But he was getting Skittles! And people who need to eat and drink (i.e., every human being) never ever ever do anything wrong!

This story is melting down faster than the Duke Rape Hoax.

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Our Courageous, Consistent, and Totally Useless Libertarians

Yes, we know, the government’s too big. But this only begins to explain how we should live, what ails our country, and what to think about something like the Trayvon Martin case.  Simply shrinking the government won’t fix the rot brought about by a combination of government subsidies and loosening of mores. Shrinking the government’s necessary law enforcement apparatus certainly won’t sort out the problem of crime and disorder.

Historically, law enforcement was a minimal imposition upon American lives. Even now, very few crimes are thwarted in progress.  Self-help mattered a lot on the frontier, whether in 19th Century England or the American West, and it still matters. Libertarians, once upon a time, rested their belief system on a great deal of respect for rugged individualism and concern about the dangers of the lower classes.  They knew in the era of Ron Paul’s newsletters that “big government”  had an obvious constituency:  it has historically bribed the poor with promises of wealth transfers from the middle and upper classes.

Guns and self defense figured prominently in this libertarian narrative, as did annoyance at the various social engineering programs whereby we’re forced to associate with low class people we’d rather avoid.  In any case, people shooting bad people in self defense is at the heart and soul of a real free society.  It’s a a “feature not a bug.”  We’re not Europe.  We don’t think the government has a “monopoly on force.”  It’s use of force is something shared with the people, who can do everything from detain shoplifters to expel trespassers under the Anglo-American common law.  And we can also blow away bad people that mean them harm, who assault without justification, and who engage in every other malfeasance that appears to be true (or at least not obviously untrue) in the Trayvon Martin case.

Oh well, I’m glad today we’re relieved of evildoers like Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell in favor of the Agitator, who has never found a puppy or a drug dealer he doesn’t like, and who is now showing his high regard for liberty, federalism, and common sense by weighing in on the side of the “unarmed black teenager,” and, implicitly, the federal government’s all-too-typical intrusiveness in local law enforcement in the name of “civil rights.”   In this curious argument from a libertarian, he is asking for more arrests by a local law enforcement agency, even though he is always accusing them in nearly every other situation of being overbearing and incompetent.

Radley’s problem–and the problem with many of the official libertarians outlets like IJ and CATO–is that they have yet to learn the old truth that liberty and equality, other than minimal equality before the law, are fundamentally incompatible principles.  Being as much liberal as libertarian, they  can’t help but show off their egalitarian bona fides in cases like the Trayvon’s through omission, silence, and grandstanding about their outrage.  How admirable!

Let’s not forget the older truths:  liberty has little to do with and much to fear from equality and democracy.  Or, as John Randolph of Roanoke said, “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty, I hate equality.”

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Fair Fight?

Here’s a simple truth:  you have no moral or legal duty to let someone pummel you into a pulp and possibly death.  If Trayvon Martin rushed George Zimmerman and started beating him, and continued beating him as reported by an eyewitness, then Zimmerman reasonably feared he was in danger of great bodily harm (or death) and was within his rights to use his firearm in self defense.

James Fulford (at vdare) spells this out pretty well:

We’re hearing that the deceased was “unarmed.” This implies that it’s not a valid act of self-defense if the person who is sitting on you, trying to beat your head in, is “unarmed.”

This, however, is not the law, in Florida or anywhere else.

The standard for the use of justifiable force is the victim’s reasonable belief that he’ll be killed or seriously injured if he doesn’t respond with lethal force. If you get punched in the head by 6’2” inch football player—as Martin was reported to be—you are likely to get brain damage.

Cage fighters, who spend a lot of time in this position, do in fact get brain damage. And they would die more often if the matches were held on cement rather than a padded octagon—or if they had merely ordinary levels of fitness, as Zimmerman does.

It is actually possible to kill someone with your bare hands—the US Armed Forces spends a lot of time teaching white and black teenagers how to do this in boot camp.

The 2012 Statistical Abstract Of The United States has a table of Murder Victims–Circumstances and Weapons Used or Cause of Deathwhich includes the statistic that an average of 877 people every year are killed by “Personal Weapons” by which the Census means “Hands, fists, feet, pushed, etc.”

PS Barack Obama, if you had a son, and someone killed him, the killer would almost certainly look like Trayvon.  If I may quote your own DOJ’s statistics, “From 1976 to 2005 . . . 94% of black victims were killed by blacks . . .”  So this national soul-searching you’re inviting us all to participate in should mention this little factoid if there is the least bit of concern for reality.

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Obama’s Forays Into Pressing National Issues

A lot happens in our world, and our President doesn’t say much about it.  This is to be expected.  There’s simply too much material, it evolves too quickly, and he has nothing to do with most of it.  I don’t fault him for that. But let’s think about those times over the last four years when we have heard from Obama.

First, he condemned a Cambridge Cop when a Harvard Professor, Louis Gates, acted like a clown and was arrested.  Obama overstepped, most people sympathized with the cop, and he invited them all over for an awkward Beer Summit.

Two, he spoke out in favor of the Downtown New York Mosque that was to be built within spitting distance of Ground Zero. He hemmed and hawed eventually, started talking about religious freedom, and backed away.

Three, no real respecter of religious freedom, he criticized the Florida Pastor who wanted to burn the Koran.

Four, he spoke out for the Jena Six who beat a white boy senseless in Louisiana, back when he was a presidential candidate.

Five, he recently hollered at the professional activist for birth control, Sandra Fluke, whom Rush Limbaugh called a slut.

Finally, he asked for national “soul searching” after the Trayvon Martin shooting in Sanford, Florida.

So what do all these cases have in common? Well, the victims are always preferred liberal victim classes, such as women, minorities, and Muslims.  Also, Obama reacts in an unusually predictable way, taking the sides one would expect, and doing nothing to challenge his preferred constituencies.  These forays into the pop culture zeitgeist do not necessarily do him any favors politically; they all seem from the heart.  And they seem to reflect his “speaking truth to power” Marxist background, insofar as he seems very aware that as President it is almost impossible that he wouldn’t be described as selling out, so avoiding that perception is very important to him.

All in all, he is the liberal college professor ex-Marxist described by his critics with thoroughly conventional, boring, and unimaginative views about how the world works.  And, by his various silences, he revels himself as morally obtuse with no sympathy for anyone but people just like him.

In other words, all Obama’s bitching about power and racism may rightly be described as projection of the worst sort, because he, like the racist whites of his fantasies, does not give a fig for anyone but himself and his people.  His love of his tribe is just an extension of that narcissistic self-love.  While a healthy regard for one’s own is a normal human feeling, without some admixture of universalism and magnanimity, it is merely primitive, juvenile, and ugly.

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