Trayvon Martin

[Silkie]

I'm kind of thinking about people who are killed by the use of knives, switchblades, claw hammers, bricks, broken bottles, etc. who are never discussed anywhere, even though it happens everyday in cities across America.  They are someone's children.

I wonder how the kids who put other kids up to baiting, and so forth feel when something happens.  I used to watch them on street corners, and when the light turned green one on one corner would make noise to distract drivers, while on the other corner another pushed a wheelchair with a person in it, in front of oncoming traffic, so that a big stink and lawsuit could happen if the chair got hit.  They were all someone's children.

[FreddyE1977]

The town Starling left was Sanford, Florida.

Sanford does have a rather racist history from what I understand.
But so does the Deep South in general.  Not to mention I can think of a couple
of towns in Ohio and Michigan that could give them a run for the title.

Every day, 16 to 20 year old young black men are being killed on the streets
of our cities at a horrific rate.  That is the true tragedy.  And it goes on with nary
a mention in the media, because it does not have the tabloid headline appeal.

[Ermi Roos]

OJ lawyer and Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz thinks that the charges against Zimmerman will not get past a judge for trial for second degree murder because the prosecutor has not shown probable cause.

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Besides, what good is "the nature of a 'forum'" if one side is continually and always 'discussing' DOWN AT the other people, not WITH them? Don't shortchange the importance of "actual discussion," which includes listening as a more important aspect than talking [bloviating, blathering, etc.].

I certainly appreciate and treasure the kind words about my participation:  discussing down,  talking AT people rather than with them, the ability to avoid actual discussion, bloviating and blathering.  

Rather than say to a forum participant:  You are stupid and wrong!  (which does not often lead to good healthy conversation)  Instead of saying to someone:  I totally disagree with you, thus I am right and you are wrong,  I have cultivatred the concept of asking questions that steer the conversation away from fixed "talking points".  Get both of us out on a fresh mowed playing field of conversation and see what comes of honest two-way conversation.  Most of the day, and most days,  it works pretty well.  I was on the road for five days and ran into people at the lodge, at the funeral, at the convenience store, at the McDonalds and we have pleasant conversations where in some cases we probed each other and found that we did not agree on everything,  but we had pleasant and at least slightly productive conversations.

Let me repeat the obvious.  

We can see from Cable Television in particular, that our "Friends of Color" see this event as an event of racial discrimination by the police department of Sanford and maybe by Mr. Zimmerman.

We can see from the news reports the people on both sides of the gun-control debate in this country see this event as a landmark event on where we will go with "righ to carry",  "right to defend" and other issues.

We can see that people are divided on what is the proper role for the "information industry otherwise known at The Media.

We can see that the legal profession has bones to pick about the rather rude comments from the original lawyers who went very public with "We are walking away because we can't represent a guy who is hiding from us."

I don't assume to know what your view is.  That is why I posed so many questions.  I thought maybe it would help you define your view so you could express it for us to agree with, disagree with,  comment on, or ignore.  But you assume you know what my view is and you dismiss my view as "bloviation" and other warm and fuzzy sentimental desrciptions.   Get the chip off your shoulder, Hoss, and lets discuss the debacle in Sanford.

Tell us what you think the the heart of the issue,  and tell us why the other issues that the rest of us have posed or asked about don't merit discussion.

[Silkie]

If you really understood my frustration, GRC, you wouldn't assume to know what my view is, and you wouldn't use that assumption to base a list of sophistic questions for the world to peruse. And then you also probably wouldn't assume what I meant to say, or what I should have said, or how I could have been bludgeoned into saying it better, more to your liking.

Why can't someone just mean what they mean to say, in the words they use? Why can't there be any issue for which there are clear, concise answers, easily stated? Givens, even? Why does every question need to be answered with a SERIES of other questions? [Because of assumptions, I guess?]

For every issue there is in this world, we could form up a million tangential questions for people to "sift through, evaluate and maybe even investigate." That would lead nowhere. Just a bunch of unanswered questions on the internets.

Besides, what good is "the nature of a 'forum'" if one side is continually and always 'discussing' DOWN AT the other people, not WITH them? Don't shortchange the importance of "actual discussion," which includes listening as a more important aspect than talking [bloviating, blathering, etc.].

Listening is also something that people who are all outraged about this case do not seem prone to do. They'd rather think something and run with that, instead of letting other people with more information sort it all out. My preferred outcome is for the trial to be fair, and for people to not "get justice" on people who had nothing to do with anything in Florida.

Well said.

[quadraphonic]

Besides, what good is "the nature of a 'forum'" if one side is continually and always 'discussing' DOWN AT the other people, not WITH them? Don't shortchange the importance of "actual discussion," which includes listening as a more important aspect than talking [bloviating, blathering, etc.].

I certainly appreciate and treasure the kind words about my participation:  discussing down,  talking AT people rather than with them, the ability to avoid actual discussion, bloviating and blathering.  

Rather than say to a forum participant:  You are stupid and wrong!  (which does not often lead to good healthy conversation)  Instead of saying to someone:  I totally disagree with you, thus I am right and you are wrong,

Nobody said that had to happen. It's nothing personal against you, just the method of questioning. I imagine you're a fine, witty, urbane scholar, bon vivant, and raconteur, or whatever your goal in life is kind of person.  
But we're discussing the idea of discussing ideas.

"I'm right, you're wrong" is typically implied when the questions turn into lists. Socrates taught his students with questions, because he was already there at the end goal of the learning. He was trying to lead them to where he was, without telling them where he was beforehand. If you don't have an end goal for a list of questions, then why not just drop them one or three at a time?

I have cultivatred the concept of asking questions that steer the conversation away from fixed "talking points".

But with the lengthy list of questions, many of which have  no answer, and many of which don't really apply to what the other person said, you only set yourself up to do the steering. Especially if you're telling the other person what words would be better. If you take out the other person in the turn and drag their body 100 feet before you stop to check on the thumping noise in your wheel well, then that's not "steering the conversation" that's "bludgeoning the discusser."

Get both of us out on a fresh mowed playing field of conversation and see what comes of honest two-way conversation.

How honest "two-way" is it, really? When one of the sources in the conversation only responds with more questions, not really an exchange of ideas, isn't that kind of "not discussion?"  Doesn't that seem like one side might be purposely stonewalling, in order to help the other side "define their view" more to the one side's liking?

Most of the day, and most days,  it works pretty well.  I was on the road for five days and ran into people at the lodge, at the funeral, at the convenience store, at the McDonalds and we have pleasant conversations where in some cases we probed each other and found that we did not agree on everything,  but we had pleasant and at least slightly productive conversations.

Maybe part of the problem is that (as has happened many times before) you asked a list of questions on the internet here that you would never think to accomplish stringing together in personal conversations at the lodge, a funeral, McDonald's, or a convenience store, without someone taking a chance to explain their answers to you? You would probably not get through asking two questions about tangential things before someone at the funeral/McDonald's/anywhere in person got a chance to "steer the conversation" on their own for a minute.

The in-person motif also makes for a more congenial conversation. Maybe it's not so much "probing each other" in person as it is "discussing." Here, it just reads like "condescension" a lot of times.

I don't assume to know what your view is.  That is why I posed so many questions.  I thought maybe it would help you define your view so you could express it for us to agree with, disagree with,  comment on, or ignore.  But you assume you know what my view is

never said that I know or care about your view
Probably, after being probed and corrected, I know or care less.

and you dismiss my view as "bloviation" and other warm and fuzzy sentimental desrciptions.

"Bloviating, blathering, etc." wasn't a description of your view.
"Bloviating, blathering, etc." was about the way you talk down to people, talking without listening, filling up space and saying nothing except that there are a myriad of unanswerable questions in every topic and situation. And then you list a lot of them.  

Get the chip off your shoulder, Hoss, and lets discuss the debacle in Sanford.

We were discussing the debacle in Sanford. Then, when I asked a question, you corrected my word choice. I wouldn't say I have a chip on my shoulder as much as I have a low tolerance for passing off one-sided, wide-ranging sophistry as "discussion."

Tell us what you think the the heart of the issue,

There are many hearts to this issue. All I was asking was what would happen if Zimmerman gets exonerated. And Alan Dershowitz thinks 2nd Degree Murder is a pretty high hill to climb.  So it might happen.

The main heart of this issue is that people read into things the way they want to read into things. It doesn't matter what is there, it only matters what they infer, or are told to infer. We're all a lot better served, like others have said, if we wait for justice to be served before we make up our minds what constitutes "justice."

But there are those who will respond to an acquittal as if it were exoneration. They will take out their frustrations, imagined and exaggerated in a lot of instances, on people who have nothing to do with anything in or around Sanford, FL. And they probably won't get charged with Murder 2 when they do it. Racism is another tangential heart of this issue, but only in the sense that many racists are revealing themselves, and George Zimmerman seems to not be as much of one as many of them are.

and tell us why the other issues that the rest of us have posed or asked about don't merit discussion.

Never said that either.
"Discuss" all you want. Just don't drop condescending question bombs, then retreat, only to answer a few choice pieces and bits of the replies, and that answer is usually in the form of more questions...