We can go back and forth on this for another ten pages, but nothing I say will change anyone's mind....
That's because what you've said thus far doesn't comport with the facts and evidence of the case.
....and nothing any of you say will change my mind.
Which is why many, if not most, perhaps even all of the participants in this back and forth with you feel that there's something besides evidence or the rationality of the verdict driving your unjustifiable intransigence in evaluating the case. You don't care that you got some of the evidence wrong. You don't care that of the things you (maybe) got right, they are irrelevant to the fight in which Zimmerman had to decide whether to keep on taking a beating or fire.
You've said a time or two that you just see things from a different "perspective." That's bunk. We all have the same perspective; we're all outsiders looking in who have to evaluate evidence, testimony and proven facts to the best objective abilities we can muster. When someone ignores the evidence and proven facts in favor of standing defiantly on unsupportable grounds against the facts and evidence, then that is different than "perspective," that falls within the definition of
bias.
The fact is, you guys see the evidence one way, and I see it a totally different way.
And this "you guys" stuff is just another way of expressing bias. It's no different than if I said "you people" will never allow Zimmerman a break because he killed a black kid, and even though the jury determined it was justifiable self defense, that's not enough to overcome the one and only variable that would cause you to take a stand against that verdict; the kid was black.
"Us guys" see the case many different ways. Some of us acknowledge that Zimmerman made a lot of mistakes that night. Some others of "us guys" think that following, getting out of his car, not identifying himself etc. was just normal activity for a concerned citizen just trying to keep his neighborhood safe. I don't see how any of "us guys" who feel one way about those things could possibly be lumped in with "those guys" who feel the other way, unless it's just rank bias that makes up that lump.
Aside from that though, you say you see the evidence differently than "we" do. You said GZ lied about TM seeing his gun. I proved that he didn't lie, he expressed a perception. Yet I'm willing to bet that you still would say he lied about it. That is
refusing to see the evidence, not seeing it differently than others.
You say GZ lied about Martin being in bushes. I point out that he said bushes sometimes, and it was dark, I don't really know where he came from at other times. That's not a lie. At worst, it's a mistaken impression, and since the incompetent prosecution never proved where Martin was hiding anyway, it's completely, 100% irrelevant where GZ thought he must be hiding. The proven
fact is that he was either hiding or he ran around a building and came back to the same area to
confront Zimmerman. You are
refusing to see the evidence, not simply interpreting it differently than the rest of "us guys."
You said he lied about Trayvon covering his mouth and nose. The
only rationale offered by the prosecution for this being a "lie" was that none of Zimmerman's blood was on Martin's hands, but none of his
own blood was on his hands either, because the first cops on the scene ignored protecting the evidence in favor of trying to bring Trayvon back to life. The rain and other environmental influences washed
all the blood that presumably should've been on his hands away. You are
refusing to see the evidence, not simply interpreting it a different way.
Take a vote if you want to. What's it gonna change? GZ is a free man (and I use the term "free" loosely in Zimmerman's case) and TM is still dead. What this verdict, and indeed this discussion show, is just how deeply divided the country is on this issue.
Actually, and sadly, what it shows is just how divided races are in this country. I have kept the racial "issue" out of everything I've had to say, because I honestly believe that it is not a real issue at all
in this case. The blacks who are planning demonstrations and petitions to try to get Holder to file a civil rights case against Zimmerman don't care at all that Zimmerman's whole life has been as
un-"racial" as any human being's alive today. They apparently are oblivious to the months-long FBI investigation that turned up exactly
zero evidence that race had anything whatsoever to do with the shooting.
The fact is, this was a run-of-the-mill self defense case. In nearly
all self defense cases, you can find mistakes that the shooter made that contributed to the situation getting out of hand, but the law deals with those kinds of factors as well as it can without demanding that
anyone be forced by the law to get killed or severely injured just because of simple, though wholly legal, mistakes they made leading up to the confrontation. Such is the evidence in this case. You don't have a different perspective, and you don't see the evidence differently than "we" do, you simply
refuse to even scrutinize the evidence and apply the law to it. That's called bias, plain and simple.
Blues
