BF2S Forums You be the judge! Trayvon Martin vs George Zimmerman

Jay wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

I don't think quoting a philosopher or academic is that that much more a sign of intelligence than quoting an ESPN analyst. Anyone can parrot with enough practice. I also don't think intellectualism is inherently better than tuning out. I really hate it when people try to use the fact that they read more than others or can name some academics as proof of their superior intelligence or worth.

There was some political scientist from Yale I think that I once read who made the point that for the average person engaging the world beyond their local news at night wasn't worth the trouble. The majority of people are completely insignificant and would have no political power outside of terrorism. The time and energy cost of absorbing information about larger political movements both domestically and internationally wasn't worth it since they couldn't possibly affect it. So their time would be better spent working on their careers or doing things they enjoy before they die. I have to agree. It is why I don't begrudge someone from tuning out. I really like learning about the world around me but still find my own inability to change anything frustrating at times. Why should someone who has no interest or inclination towards civic or international engagement frustrate and anger themselves about things they couldn't possibly change? It is why low voter turnout doesn't bother me either. Stuff like that should be left to true believers and the interested rather than someone struggling to get with it just because they are told by people who claim to be their betters that they are failures otherwise.

you only speak for yourself when you raise tokenism. you are no better than jay in that regard.

the humanistic idea for a millenia or so has been that if you read, it enriches your mind and balances your viewpoint. not a pithy surface-level ability to quote a 'wise' philosopher or apothegm. the idea is that reading great philosophy, or science, or poetry, actually tempers your mind. lengthens your attention span. deepens your mental reserves. not just gives you another pointless constellation of reference points, other than pop-cultural ones. you are an idiot. you are supposed to be at a good school. please try actually engaging with something.

oh and yes, cite some patrician prof from yale that says it's best if the little people don't bother themselves with lofty, difficult matters. that's a typical ivory tower professor. that is a repugnant attitude. the fear in established society for time immemorial has been that the lay people will get access to the culture's scripture. once you can read and consider, the orthodoxy becomes replaced with doxa. people don't like that. it complicates policy-making. trust the crusty at yale to recommend people just put up and shut up.

What IS the point though? The further into my career I've moved, and the further away from school, the more I've come to realize how little what I believe politically matters. I have no influence on who runs for office, and I certainly don't have the time or the desire to join a political party's machinery. I don't watch the news. I don't read a newspaper. I read snippets here and there on the internet, but I largely don't care. People in general are much happier, and much less frustrated, when they stick to caring about things they generally have some control over.

You'll write some reply saying you pity me or something, but come back and tell me how you feel in ten years after you're married with a career and a family on the way.

Edit - And what's the point of knowledge Uzi? Unless you're going to regurgitate it down on a book, or lecture in a classroom, or it applies to your job, there's really not much point to it. I've read countless military history books and then a few years ago I decided it was utterly pointless. The only person I could ever have a discussion about such things about was my father, and I loathe talking to him more than I have to. So I stopped. I switched to biographies and light history, stuff that allows me to learn more about people, and add bits of conversational knowledge here and there.

You know what? All of what I said is wrong. Having a wide, broad, knowledge base is infinitely useful. When you have tunnel vision it blocks you from understanding interactions that are important.

Macbeth wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

so about zimmerman...

well the evidence is strongly in favour of self defence, only shot the kid one time, possible warning shot. it'd be more tilted towards murder if zimmerman just unloaded on him.

Still shouldn't have gotten out of his car and stalked him. He needs to be punished somehow for starting the confrontation.

how did he start a confrontation? he asked trayvon what he's doing around. a normal person would say "fuck off" "none of your business" or "i live around here." Yeah going full MMA and beating the shit out a dude isn't exactly a normal response. No matter how big you are, if your nose is getting pummeled in you'd be on the ground pretty quick.

Shit if zimmerman got done for "stalking" good bye every single neighborhood watch.

Cybargs wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

so about zimmerman...

well the evidence is strongly in favour of self defence, only shot the kid one time, possible warning shot. it'd be more tilted towards murder if zimmerman just unloaded on him.

Still shouldn't have gotten out of his car and stalked him. He needs to be punished somehow for starting the confrontation.

how did he start a confrontation? he asked trayvon what he's doing around. a normal person would say "fuck off" "none of your business" or "i live around here." Yeah going full MMA and beating the shit out a dude isn't exactly a normal response. No matter how big you are, if your nose is getting pummeled in you'd be on the ground pretty quick.

Shit if zimmerman got done for "stalking" good bye every single neighborhood watch.

How do we know all he did was ask him what was up? The only person who claims that Trayvon attacked Zimmerman was Zimmerman. Of course he is going to say he attacked him. The one indisputable fact of the whole case is that if Zimmerman didn't follow a guy while loaded up with a gun, the guy that was being followed would still be alive.

Jay wrote:

Jay wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

you only speak for yourself when you raise tokenism. you are no better than jay in that regard.

the humanistic idea for a millenia or so has been that if you read, it enriches your mind and balances your viewpoint. not a pithy surface-level ability to quote a 'wise' philosopher or apothegm. the idea is that reading great philosophy, or science, or poetry, actually tempers your mind. lengthens your attention span. deepens your mental reserves. not just gives you another pointless constellation of reference points, other than pop-cultural ones. you are an idiot. you are supposed to be at a good school. please try actually engaging with something.

oh and yes, cite some patrician prof from yale that says it's best if the little people don't bother themselves with lofty, difficult matters. that's a typical ivory tower professor. that is a repugnant attitude. the fear in established society for time immemorial has been that the lay people will get access to the culture's scripture. once you can read and consider, the orthodoxy becomes replaced with doxa. people don't like that. it complicates policy-making. trust the crusty at yale to recommend people just put up and shut up.

What IS the point though? The further into my career I've moved, and the further away from school, the more I've come to realize how little what I believe politically matters. I have no influence on who runs for office, and I certainly don't have the time or the desire to join a political party's machinery. I don't watch the news. I don't read a newspaper. I read snippets here and there on the internet, but I largely don't care. People in general are much happier, and much less frustrated, when they stick to caring about things they generally have some control over.

You'll write some reply saying you pity me or something, but come back and tell me how you feel in ten years after you're married with a career and a family on the way.

Edit - And what's the point of knowledge Uzi? Unless you're going to regurgitate it down on a book, or lecture in a classroom, or it applies to your job, there's really not much point to it. I've read countless military history books and then a few years ago I decided it was utterly pointless. The only person I could ever have a discussion about such things about was my father, and I loathe talking to him more than I have to. So I stopped. I switched to biographies and light history, stuff that allows me to learn more about people, and add bits of conversational knowledge here and there.

You know what? All of what I said is wrong. Having a wide, broad, knowledge base is infinitely useful. When you have tunnel vision it blocks you from understanding interactions that are important.

you are completely wrong. knowledge is not only instrumental (that's dilbert's view of life: positivistic truths and instrumentalism only). that doesn't work in a socially-constituted universe and culture. works in a science lab or engineering project, sure. but that's not life. life is enriched by wide reading, knowledge, culture. it leads to self-fulfillment and a breadth/depth of understanding - not just inert topics or abstrusely theoretical or arcane and esoteric facts, but in understanding other cultures, other human beings. it's never 'useful' to read hindu scripture or the great epics of ancient greece, but it'll give you a framework and useful analogies/metaphors for understanding human scenarios you find yourself in every single day. culture is full of myth and tradition, which stick around for useful reasons (think of parables, fables, psalms, legends). the inherited knowledge of your entire culture (and the human species, more generally) is passed down in culture. not just stuffy history books or difficult academic monographs. in every-day speech and common idioms, turns of phrase. it's a rich tapestry. it'll make you infinitely more balanced and engaged as an individual. it'll make you far more compelling as a human being and social subject that interacts with, empathizes with, and has relationships with other people. instrumentalists are not interesting. note that dilbert is single, and alone, and posts vituperatively about young people on an internet forum all day. note the 'hipsters' reading poetry and engaging in their culture have fulfilling social lives. it is inherently not interesting to interact or be around someone who only knows about his work-specialism, like a technical automaton, and takes no interest in culture or wide-learning. all they have to talk about is their work, or else a grunt and "what's the point". that's not a human being. that's an inefficient machine with an obsolete emotional cortex.

also the seeming-intractability of politics is a separate issue. don't use that as a reductive excuse to dismiss reading and self-improvement. the problems you face in the political process are a historically specific set of problems facing modern america and the democratic system you have. reading is far more general and universal than that. political apathy is something generational. it requires political solutions. don't dismiss reading spivak or dipping into moby dick because you feel like you can't make a difference in civic society. they are separate issues. only a conservative demagogue (like a yale professor) would tell you to keep to your daily, basic affairs and not worry about 'lofty discourses'. "leave it to the specialists" is just a veiled-form of bureaucratic managerialism. the 'specialists' and elite have done a really good job of looking after the worker/everyman's best interest in the last decade or so, huh?

oh and if you stuck with your original 'so what?' line, i wouldn't condescend to you. nor would i expect to be condescended to about 'family and adulthood' (so what if people are more free and idealistic in their 20's; may as well use that damn time then). all i would to you is: it's your life. 'get by' with a functional level of knowledge and engagement if you will. it won't make you any more or less happy. you set your own goals for personal fulfillment. i find engaging with culture and the human tradition enlivening as a subject (in both senses of the word). it makes me feel like a more fulfilled and realised person.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-07-20 08:01:43)

there is no evidence, that's the problem. the jurors' wording was they "kept to the law". it's a literal definition of an archaic law. a law, furthermore, that has a history of precedent in allowing slave owner's and local vigilantes to shoot escaped blacks and fugitives. it is never okay to shoot someone at point blank range because they are beating you up. jesus christ how do you think people deal with street-brawls and drunken fights in every other western country of the world? that shit is not okay. zimmerman's injuries were not life-threatening. he had a mildly mashed nose and two bumps on his head. hardly being curb-stomped. i'm sorry but that is not okay to kill someone. HE GOT HIMSELF into that fight, let's remember. he wasn't maliciously jumped and attacked in an alley-way. he invited it upon himself.

really not sure what western system of justice you are reading about here, but it's not the common law system as practiced in most of the UK/US. proportionality and reasonability are key tenets in western justice. show me a justice system where the punishment meted out for 'felony battery' is death and i'll start agreeing with you that zimmerman's actions were justified. either that or he has to have a "reasonable fear for his life". that's a shaky one. from the extents of his injuries i would say it's pretty obvious a wiry 17 year old trayvon was not going to literally beat the MMA beef-patty to death.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-07-20 07:48:44)

its funny because black people were happy OJ won. they be all like JUSTICE WE WIN THIS ONE! but when a black kid dies and a white sounding name is involved, everybody gets their panties in a twist.

Blacks are the most racist people in America.  That's a damn fact.

i really don't care about the race angle, and never have. i am glad i live in a country without guns and stupid gun laws that complicate public life and endanger people.

the jurors' statement made it quite explicit that they just followed the literal interpretation of the law. that is unfortunate. some juries in murder cases end up convicting people based on emotion. this lot just went for the printed-word. juries are not an infallible system. they are not 'legal experts', either, EM. most of them probably know a lot less about the law than someone that has taken a law course or spent solid time doing courses/research. that is the reason why most wily lawyers will appeal to jurors' emotions, rather than technical legal expertise. hence why all the court-room dramatics and speeches and fine posturing in courts, rather than giving them a long lecture on legal precedent.

Jaekus wrote:

Apparently jurors never make mistakes, and the wrong judgements are never made. Who would've thought?

They tried him twice. Police didn't even arrest him in the first place because there wasn't enough evidence against him.

edit: they actually didn't use any "stand your ground" self defence law in this case. pure self defence, nothing to do with stand your grand. kinda hard to "retreat" when your face is getting bashed in while your head is against concrete. If I was in that situation I'd definitely shot more than just one time. Zimmerman is pretty disciplined to fire just once.

Last edited by Cybargs (2013-07-20 09:00:27)

They only tried him once.

Macbeth wrote:

Case is just another example of why people shouldn't be allowed to walk around with guns.

or maybe not to beat the shit out of someone in a concealed carry state.

tell to to all the people sitting on death-row because of emotional-reactive judgements from juries. jurors are human beings. it is not a computational consideration of the facts w/r/t the law. of course they seldom produce a perverse judgement (and that is just redone, anyway, if the judge feels it necessary). but often jurors convict on emotion, and, yes, bias. it is far from a perfect system. just probably the best we have.