Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few weeks, you know about the death of a 17 year old boy named Trayvon Martin in Florida where a neighborhood watchman named George Zimmerman got into an altercation with Mr. Martin, shot him and killed him. The details are still coming to light and you can see the details here and there will be more developments over the coming days.
Let me state for the record that if Mr. Zimmerman is charged with murder in a court of law then I’ll be the first to volunteer to throw the switch on the electric chair or lock him up in a cell for life. If you seek out and kill a kid based on his race then you are scum and deserve to be removed from society.
But we don’t execute people orput a bounty on their head based on rumor or emotional charged anger. In the United States we have a means of punishing our criminals and people are still innocent until proven guilty. If we lose that premise then we have lost our country and we are no better than a tyrannical dictatorship.
There is a hashtag on twitter called #TeamDueProcess that has captured many of the death threats on Mr. Zimmerman and I’ll show a few of these below.
And of course our President has taken the low road and sown seeds of racial division with his recent comments.
“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” Obama said, underscoring how the issue affected him on a personal, and not just a political or legal, level. “I think [Trayvon’s parents] are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves, and we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”
“Obviously, this is a tragedy,” he said. “I can only imagine what these parents are going through, and when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids, and I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”
“I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen,” said Obama. “And that means we examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.”
I agree with Obama that we should investigate this tragic death and find out the truth but to take the knee jerk reaction that this is a case of race based violence doesn’t help the country deal with this tragedy. Let’s understand the facts before we rush to judgment. Like I said, I’ll be the first to grab a pitchfork and torch to persecute this witch but before I join the mob I want to make 100% sure I’m actually going after a witch.
The Florida police need to gather the details and bring Mr. Zimmerman to trial and let our legal system determine his guilt or innocence. Our legal system is not perfect but I dare you to find a better one and let’s hold off the talk of lynching until we get the facts. If we abandon this legal system then be aware that the mob might be coming for you tomorrow. Is that what we want?
cosmoscon 
hurray Wild wild west is back……. nice way to go.Moneky see moneky does, 😦 .Oh I wish If Dr. king is alive..
http://alien360.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/i-wonder-why/
Is it that they want to sell more papers, or get more veiwers, or as in the case with WGBR, get more hits on their new news website? What is it that makes the media rush into these things the way they do.The Duke lacrosse team story should have taught them something…but it didn’t.Even my local small town AM radio station, WGBR 1150, had to get into the act this morning by booking an interview with the president of the North Carolina NAACP who are of course holding rallies to whip up reaction to the incident. The name of the organization tells you that that was going to be an objective conversation.You knew the Rev. Dr. William Barber wasn’t going to address the problems with crime in the area, or Zimmerman being on the ground being pummeled by the little boy with the Skittles, about the broken nose and head wounds suffered by Zimmerman, or the witness who saw the altercation and heard Zimmerman screaming for help.You knew Barber wasn’t going to talk about Zimmerman’s racial associations, a Hispanic with a white father who has black relatives and interacts with blacks regularly.You knew Barber wasn’t going to address the troubled teen’s history as enumerated in the articles below and, shock, there’s even one from ABC News. The others are from local newspapers and the UK.No the NCAAP president didn’t mention those things but then, neither did the WGBR news jock!
If we are going to start putting bountys out on people (a very bad idea ), then we should start with The New Black Panthers. Those who would deprive anyone of the protections of due process, should be treated the same way that they are advocating. If I were Zimmerman’s family, I would make it clear to the Panthers that anyone trying to hurt George, will find themselves lying dead in the street, put down like any other rabid dog.
1. (a) As a society born out of ritelby and freedom, we have a right to privacy that the government cannot infringe. By restricting who can use certain forms of encryption, the government is taking away our first amendment rights. If the government restricts our use of encryption, it becomes more tyrannical and oppressive. (b) While one group of criminals is using encryption to send information, another group is breaking encryption to steal information. If we law-abiding citizens are forced to rely on weak, breakable encryption, we are exposed to those criminals who know how to break our encryption and are therefore able to harm us.2. (a) If the government cannot wiretap the communications of criminals, it becomes much harder to find and stop crime. Therefore, to aid our government, it is safer if we all settle for breakable encryption because the government will not bother us law-abiding citizens. (b) While we might run the risk of identities and information being stolen if everyone relies on breakable encryption, it will also be very easy for the government to catch the thieves in such a case. Therefore, criminals will actually be deterred from crime in the first place because taking advantage of weak encryption leaves them exposed to the pitfalls of weak encryption.3. Of course, e-mail has become far more common than snail mail. In fact, traditional postal services are almost becoming obsolete. Governments make use of the internet for many offices, though voting is still done in person and probably will be for a while (Vanderbilt student elections, however, have moved to an online format). And the internet marketplace is thriving more than ever. Almost anything can be purchased online quickly and conveniently. This trend has continued to grow with things like Netflix and iTunes quickly replacing Blockbuster and CD stores.4. This is a tricky question. At points in the chapter, PGP is referred to as a weapon. A gun salesman is not held responsible for a murder committed with a weapon he sold, but international arms dealers are almost always considered criminals, so it is hard to draw parallels to non-cyber crime. And software such as Limewire is not illegal in and of itself, but it can be used to steal music, which is illegal, but Limewire remains easily available without legal restrictions. Ultimately, I believe the software will become available to criminals and unfriendly regimes, if not from a friendly source than from an unfriendly one. In the latter case, we will not know for sure who has access to what. It is better that our government knows that such weapons are out there and widely available.
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