Should we go to the store to buy food?

Yes.

Should we get off our couch?

No.

Trial for manslaughter.

As for the rest of that, that's kind of the breaks.  You don't have to kill someone for that to happen.  Speech is still relatively free in this country, even on blogs.  That's not a consequence so much as an inevitability.  But while I realize it may make it hard for Zimmerman, it also makes it hard for Lindsay Lohan and Octomom and anyone else who gets in the public eye.  That's just life, and the only way to avoid it is to outlaw speech.

I'm a lot more outraged about the press and "leaders" inflaming passions on things like, say, the Iraq war.  The consequences are far greater and more devastating.  I kind of feal bad for Zimmerman, but I understand why Trayvon's parents brought the press in, otherwise their son's death was never going to be investigated.  Now it almost certainly will be.

The burden of proof at that point is on Zimmerman.

Oh my god!  He's pulling something out of his waistband!  It must be a gun!  Talk about seriously paranoid logic.

We know he was following Martin, we know Martin had in fact every right to be there.  So based on that, he must have had a suspician for some reason, and I'm sorry but the hoodie defense isn't buyable or acceptable, and neither is the skittles/gun defense.

Actually, it is.  At least, legally.  The whole case is based on whether or not Zimmerman had a right to invoke self-defense and this was a "justified" shooting.

JBINDC:

Have you made up your mind as to whether or not this was racially motivated?

CST:

as to the racial motivation question (5.00 / 1) (#8)
by CST on Mon Apr 09, 2012 at 01:14:16 PM EST
that's a bit harder to answer

JBINDC:

It IS hard to say (none / 0) (#10)
by jbindc on Mon Apr 09, 2012 at 01:30:12 PM EST
Especially since we don't know other things, such as if Trayvon threw the first punch. But my question, I think, gets to the heart of the vehement disagreeements here on this board and elsewhere.  The media have helped fuel this with and made it strictly about a racial crime, when NO ONE, save for Zimmerman, knows that.

I wasn't discussing the legal aspects of the shooting.  As you note, we don't have enough information, and that is best settled in court.  I'm not part of the mob calling for Zimmerman's head.  All I want to see is a fair airing of the facts.  

If we're speculating about the racial aspect (which I thought we were) when Martin may or may not have hit Zimmerman is not when race was potentially first brought into play.

As you and I discussed earlier, we DON'T know what Trayvon was doing that caused him to seem "suspicious" at the point he began to be followed.  Whatever it was, absent evidence to the contrary, it's not a huge leap to assume he was a law abiding citizen walking home.

A discussion about the racial motivation (if any) IMO, at this point, has to be totally separate from one on the legality of the shooting.