- I must say that, for those of us who live in Central Florida, headlines that talk about a "child" being dead are a bit frustrating. When we see "kids" today and their willingness to, if not proclivity for, committing violence, age needs to be somewhat dismissed - especially among adolescents. These are not helpless children and our society cannot put itself at the mercy of them; this morning on the news I saw pictures of three "children" who mercilessly beat another child on a school bus, leaving him with a broken arm (because he reported that one of them tried to sell him some form of drugs). Nothing will happen to them except some charges that will mean they will resort to violence again later.
- I would have wished that Zimmerman had shown the wisdom to not get himself into this, but the idea that, just because he is an "adult", he should somehow have been magically capable of physically overcoming a 17 year-old who is taller and heavier, younger, probably more fit, and well-trained - more experienced in fighting - and truly more willing to resort to violence , is stupid. If you are killed by a 17 year-old you are just as dead as when killed by a 25 year-old. In fact, there seems to be some disparity of force in Zimmerman's favor.
- This stupid picture of the cherubic, innocent teenager, whether Martin (and they continue to use pictures that portray him as a little kid - kind of the reverse of when the papers made the pictures of OJ look more menacing) or any other, whether black or white, is a luxury this society can no longer afford given that we are encouraging a generation of social piranha. A large number of our children, for whatever reason and in whatever way, have been trained up to easily commit violence without remorse and they live within a system that seems to suggest it will be without consequences. Many of these are not the innocent flowers we used to imagine. We cannot afford to justify such behavior because people "are too young to know any better" or because "they have been mistreated". We can no longer afford to make such excuses for people and allow them to continue.
- Of course, we (well, I was not) were not angles when teenagers (and I'll not put in print some of the foolish things I did), but there was a line we would not cross, we lived in a world where we knew that false bravado and "bowing up on someone" could get you shot. If we keep teaching kids that there are no consequences for their actions, for how you choose to dress and behave, we will just see more of this; including all of those who think they are going to hit the streets and intimidate others. As I have noted in other posts, seems to me that the tweeted threats from one identifiable group of people to another are evidence that supports the reasonable fear that someone might later feel.
- If I am approached by a group of two or more "gangstas" I will not be willing to discuss the vagaries of self-defense with them nor wait until I am being beaten down. Via these tweets and threats they have profiled themselves and anyone would be a fool not to take them seriously.
Sorry for any lack of paragraph breaks - for some reason they are in the composition but not in the post itself when posted.
