This post isn’t about George Zimmerman or Sammy Hagar. It’s an observation about each generation’s first experience with Federal overreach, the serious evil of witch burners, and the silly mystery of yellow pants.
When I was young and naïve, the Federal Government crammed the 55 MPH speed limit down America’s gullet. This is when I learned that a small city a thousand miles from my home could insert stupidity in my life and that of everyone around me. I never fully recovered.
The 55 MPH speed limit was originally sold as a means to reduce America’s consumption of foreign oil. Based on its stated goal it was a total failure. (Free market fracking on private land in North Dakota is how it’s really done!)
I remember the debate leading up to it. Nobody seemed to notice that that Washington D.C. was meddling where it ought not. A scope of influence well suited to military action and treaty negotiation was involved with the speed at which a Chevy cruises to Grandma’s house? I didn’t have any particular attachment to foreign oil. What I was attached to was liberty. Screwing around with the balance of powers made me nervous. It still does.
Good intentions do not justify doing wrong to attain them. I was just a kid but it seemed obvious to me. Even now, I won’t let ends justify means. I have to sleep at night.
Like many really bad ideas, the 55 MPH limit came to pass. People in (to pick examples at random) Hanksville, Utah (population 215) and Boston, Massachusetts (population 625,087) were now under the same thumb. Residents where the nearest dentist might be a two hour drive and six cars is a parade were supposed to crawl around like a city commuter who thinks ten miles to the grocery store is excessive? Wars have been fought for less.
It played out as you’d expect. Americans simply didn’t obey. Nobody, and I mean nobody, drove 55 MPH. Little old ladies who wouldn’t swear if you set them on fire exceeded the limit. Earnest law abiding uptight wimps exceeded it. Off duty cops and devout priests exceeded it. Hookers, librarians, plumbers, and accountants all shared one thing in common, they drove faster than 55 MPH. The only people who took the limit seriously were cops and they only took it seriously while writing tickets. Any police car going anywhere for any reason on any road would exceed the 55 MPH limit. Laws are only for the little people.
That’s the definition of overreach. I was appalled. I lived in a world where the people inexplicably put a yoke on their own backs and then did nothing but break their own rule and bitch about speeding tickets
Sammy Hagar played “I Can’t Drive 55”. I hummed along. He wore, for no reason, strange yellow pants. I can’t explain the pants.
Apparently yellow pants are the appropriate attire for defending individual liberty?
Overreach is one thing and witch burners are the other. The matter of George Zimmerman is where the witch burners came out of the woodwork. Rather than the usual problem of overreach; this particular orgy of suck was caused by witch burners. The event was exactly what it sounded like at the onset; a violent confrontation where a person (who was not a choirboy) attempted to beat the living crap out of an unfortunate victim (who was doing his civic duty as a volunteer). That’s pretty straightforward. Alas there are witch burners out there who decided it was time to play.
There’s one industry built around controversy, another built around racism, and a whole lot of people who like to inflict suffering (or enjoy it from a distance). Together they chose Zimmerman. Crowds (presumably in the thrall of a good old fashioned mob mentality) screamed that Zimmerman should be punished. They were livid because he survived. I know this because if he had died, none of us would have heard about it. I have proof. I looked it up and 43 people were murdered in Sanford Florida in a decade. (2002-2011 source.)
So lets ponder the 43 deaths that weren’t Trevon Martin. Go ahead, name one. No takers?
The witch burners don’t care about the other 43 deaths… only one. Only one because the would be victim had the temerity to live another day. Every death is a tragedy. Every murder is a loss. So let’s read the heated rhetoric around the other 43 documented muders. Let’s recall the riots. Let’s read what the president had to say about those poor tragic souls. Let’s read the CNN interviews. Lets wallow in the theorizing and the arguments and the opinions and the many events that followed those 43 horrible deaths. What does the world have to say about the 43 others?
Nothing.
Hollow. It’s a hollow thought that Martin’s loss ruled the world but others can be gunned down and it won’t even pop up on a Google search. I decided to light a candle. I’d find a few names of other people who have been shot in Sanford Florida. With roughly one murder per quarter it should be easy. After all, they reported everything about Zimmerman but his favorite breakfast cereal and we got to see adorable ten year old photos of the deceased Martin from when he was a child.
It’s not as easy as you’d think. The which burners only cared about Martin as an excuse and Zimmerman as tinder. They have no sympathy in their world view for the continuing unremarkable loss of life surrounding Sanford Florida. Roughly one person every three months is gunned down and they don’t give a shit.
Finally I found a photo about a murder near Sanford Florida from this March.
That’s a picture of shooters Tracey Cashe III and Aaron Riggins (top left and right respectively). They were charged with the homicide of Phillip Hunt and Nathaniel Hall respectively (bottom left and right respectively). (Click for source.) Riots? Presidential commentary? Interviews on CNN? No. Why?
Did you know that Stevie Wonder boycotted Florida because of the Zimmerman verdict? Apparently it’s totally ok that Phillip Hunt and Nathaniel Hall died of gunshots. They don’t matter, only Martin did. Classy!
I found another article about an attempted murder form the Sanford Florida locale in April. A 50 year old guy was beaten with a hammer until he would up on life support. I didn’t find his picture. I couldn’t even find his name. It appears that Julius Ricardo Bender and Yahaziel Isaac Israel were charged with attempted first-degree murder, burglary with assault or battery and armed burglary. Apparently they dragged him from a car. One held the victim while the other beat him in the head with a hammer. No pictures of them either.
You probably guessed that Al Sharpton had something to say about Zimmerman and Martin. Apparently his words about justice don’t to a man beaten nearly to death with a hammer. Sharpton doesn’t care about him. Classy!
Imagine that! Two assailants versus one victim. A hammer! What happened to all those folks who second guessed whether Zimmerman was really in duress. Is winding up on life support noble? Is it better to get hit with a hammer than fists. Is it superior to be attacked en masse? If witch burners were apoplectic about Martin getting shot why don’t they care if a guy beaten with a hammer pulled through? I guess it’s irrelevant. No speeches by the president. No riots. No interviews. Nobody cares.
Only Martin’s blood can cause the dance and only Zimmerman’s torture benefits the burners.
Zimmerman was treated as if he had an obligation to die. He alone was used as a tool in a presidential speech. He alone went through a legal wringer. Apparently that’s the mathematics of the situation. It’s better to die than live and prosecuting a neighborhood watch volunteer who survived is worth more than the loss of 43 others from the last decade.
I disagree! I’m not going to swallow that pill! It is never in the service of justice to ruin an innocent man. It is never inherently noble to be beaten to death.
Likely it’s not over. The witch burners didn’t have their day but the next turn of the page might be overreach. The president has already spoken. Now perhaps the Federal Department of Justice will decide that Martin was special and unique. Possibly, in a way that totally ignores 43 other deaths, the Department of Justice will decided it’s the special business of the Federal Government to ruin a neighborhood watch volunteer.
Imagine having the full force of the Federal Government carefully pondering your financial and personal ruin… because you didn’t die when it would have been convenient and forgettable. Who deserves that?
I’m glad Zimmerman lived. I hope he survives the forthcoming financial and legal attacks. I hope he comes out strong and whole and has a long and productive life. In retrospect my generation got off pretty lightly with only a few speeding tickets and the disturbing memory of Sammy Hagar’s yellow pants.
In an effort to avoid getting worked up and agitated like i have been during this whole fiasco, i have one thing to say about this post: you are correct! I am glad that finally someone can see the reality of current events and not just the bullshit fed to them through TV and social media. I think that all of the supporters who are turning a blind eye towards the real facts and sticking by the fact that Trayvon was not the perfect little angel that they made him out to be, are just as bad as the people who go commiting the crimes that these people choose to ignore to further their cause of scapegoating an innocent victim.
I hope Zimmerman sues the ever-loving dogs**t out of the Sanford PD for Malicious Prosecution and the network news for the libel? slander? defamation of character? whatever it was they did with the doctored 911 calls.
It may generate enough money to cover the lawyers when the “Justice Department” (that’s a euphemism) comes after him for violating Mr Martin’s civil rights.
Absolutely agree.
But to be completely fair to the Sanford PD. They released Zimmerman after he turned himself in immediately and cooperated fully. The police said that there was little evidence that conflicted with the self defense.
It was a special prosecutor appointed by the government that eventually “investigated” “again” and brought the trumped up charges.
Thank you, AC. You explicitly say what I have been thinking… which is amazingly unpopular among my social and professional set, so I’ve stopped bothering.
I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog. As an unavoidable recent transplant from a more-or-less free state to a nanny state, I find you refreshing.
(Let’s have a faceless photo of you in yellow pants. It will only increase the strength of your argument!)
Thanks for the compliment.
I do not wear yellow pants.
I’ve been watching all this for a while, and we may have reached a tipping point. I can honestly say that I do not know where we go from here. No place good, I suspect, and it concerns me deeply.
And then there is the 76 year old genius in Wisconsin who, the day after his guns were stolen, confronted his 12 year old neighbor and (apparently) wrongly accused him of stealing his guns, whereupon he proceeded to fatally shoot the child in the chest at a distance of 5 feet. The Yahoo news article states,”In a case that bears some striking similarities to George Zimmerman’s, a 76-year-old Milwaukee man is set to stand trial this week in the 2012 shooting death a 13-year-old boy he had accused of stealing from him.” This statement begs the question, exactly what are the striking similarities? Umm, let’s see–the old man was not under attack, he was not threatened, the victim was actually 12, the victim was not high, the victim did not have prior arrests. . . Striking similarities . . . Oh. . . I get it. The shooter was white and the victim was black. Ah . . . and now enter the witch hunters who will say, “I told you so!” Enter Al and Jesse, and the President, and Eric Holder.
The truth about interracial murder is, to use, Al Gore’s expression, inconvenient. Blacks are 7 times more likely to commit murders than whites. Most murders are intra-racial. Blacks kill blacks. (94% of black homicide victims are killed by blacks. 86% of white homicide victims are killed by whites: whites kill whites. The when we look at interracial murders, blacks are almost 3 times more like to kill a white person than a white person is to kill a black. When we look at stranger murders, where the offender is a stranger to the victim, blacks are 4 times as likely to kill whites as vice versa. You can hear the deafening, thunderous silence of the press on these stats that come from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htius.pdf
The OJ trial came to our attention only because the accused was a celebrity, not because he was black. When the jury acquitted him, there were no cries of foul play, no calls for a DOJ investigation, no riots. But in the far rarer instance when a white is the offender, the media calls for blood. And they won’t be happy until they have incited a full-scale race war. A New York city rag recently featured paged a heavily Photoshopped picture of Zimmerman doctored to look sinister with cross-hairs over his face. Another Photoshopped picture circulated by the media shows an adorable 12 year old Trayvon in a hoodie. Perpetrate lies. Yell fire in a theater. Let’s see some mayhem! We aren’t going to hear about black on black murders in Sanford, and we for sure aren’t going to hear racial homicide data coming out of Chicago or Flint Michigan, where progressive liberals have run the shop for the last 60 years.
Wow!
It never was about the murder. It’s only about what one can do to profit.
The media don’t care about one person shooting another when they look the same (black or white) There is dozens of murders every month in north america. There controversy that they can exploit to sell papers only exists when differences exist. The same is said for a poor person killing a rich person… who cares, but when they can defend the downtrodden?
Sharpton et al profit in the same way. Their entire income comes not from producing something useful,… but by being perpetual grievance collectors. No white on black hatred…. no paycheck.
Likewise many social service jobs depend on the same.
Obama didn’t care about the other murders… why would he? But one where he can whip up his base and save his majority in the senate? Maybe push a favorite agenda like gun control?
Almost 50 homicides a day in the US. They don’t matter. The only thing that matters to the powers that be is just how much they can spin and profit from it.
Self defense is now characterized as vigilante action. Racism & gun control have converged. The tipping point a previous comment referred to occurred in 2008. We are now on a luge ride to the destruction of our economy and republic. That is why I live debt free in rural fly-over country, burn wood for heat (mostly), have a good sized garden, a modest apple orchard, laying hens, prepay for my hamburger from a neighbor caretaker, and have installed a modest solar power system. But I don’t wear yellow pants (mostly).
Self reliance really is it’s own reward. (Though my apple trees aren’t doing so hot.)
Well done on yellow pant avoidance. I think we can all agree that yellow pants are a bad sign.
Orange chaps are totally acceptable provided they’re chainsaw protection gear. Though I wouldn’t wear them to a formal occasion.
Agreed. I come from a long line of self-reliant individuals in Northern Appalachia. Even now, sadly living in a rented home on the Illinois/Wisconsin border, I have a huge garden, have apple trees bearing well this year, shagbark hickory trees loaded with nuts, and many fruit plants. I’ve already canned and frozen much of the winter’s food.
I can’t wait until I can get back to my previous state of intensive homesteading.