"SICK OF IT" Trayvon Martin and the End of Excuses-By Charles P. Pierce

[kpete]

"I am glad that not only is the Justice Department looking into this, but the governor of the state of Florida has put together a task force."

Translation: Make it a good one, Rick, because your ass is in this jackpot, too
.
Well I certainly don't feel calm and measured, and it's not because my kids "could have been Trayvon." No, they could not have. My kids are white. They lived in the suburbs. They could wear their pants anyway they liked. They could have worn hoodies to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and nobody would have looked askance at them, let alone blown them away with a handgun. (As I recall, I once wore a black hoodie to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.) The worst threat to my children's lives in the big wide world was that some suburban matron who couldn't see over the steering wheel would run them down in the family SUV. They didn't have to worry about running into some trigger-happy, half-mad wannabe on the way home from the convenience store. And that's what keeps me from being calm and measured.

I am sick to death of people who celebrate "the family" making excuses about why other people's children are expendable. I am sick to death of politicians who are more concerned about protecting zygotes than about the teenagers on whom they seek to balance their budgets and advance their careers. (Barney Frank's line about conservatives's believing that life "begins at conception and ends at birth" was not entirely a joke, although it's always been treated as one.) I am sick to death of opportunistic yahoos who can look at this country's unhealthy attachment to firearms and declare that the actions of George Zimmerman, while unfortunate, were pretty much what the Founders had in mind. I am sick to death of the steady drip-drip-drip of all the topical anesthetics we mix up whenever something like this happens. Had Emmett Till been killed in 2012, there'd be at least three people sitting in the CNN Green Room right now — and probably 15 of them sitting offstage at Fox — waiting to explain how unfortunate it was that the lad so transgressed against local custom that circumstances dictated that he be beaten to a pulp and tossed into the river tied to a cotton-gin fan. I am sick to death about how we can argue about anything simply to argue about it, and then move along to the next argument, as though anything at all has been settled.

I think this controversy has some legs to it. What alarms me is not that Zimmerman hasn't yet been arrested, but the awful feeling that the Florida legislature, with the approval of the people of Florida, may have passed a law so idiotic that it prevents local law-enforcement from arresting him at all. (I can't imagine what the good cops in Sanford must be feeling today. The dispatcher told this clown not to pursue Martin, and he did it anyway. They must simply be angry at the world at this point.) And what makes me angry down to my soul is not that my children could have been Trayvon, but that, because of the way we have ordered our politics and our society, only someone like Trayvon could have been Trayvon.


Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/trayvon-martin-news-7552519#ixzz1pxsVMmT7

[HockeyMom]

1. It certainly was a culture shock for me moving to Florida

but it a very good thing that the entire country is now becoming aware of how draconian the gun laws of a tourist state like Florida really are.

You do know that they tried to use these right to carry laws to apply to Disney too? Disney fought them and did win, BUT even there it is not all it seems. While Disney can refuse their employees to carry at work, and the general public at large, I have heard people here in Florida BOAST that if you keep your gun hidden, you can bring it on to Disney property. They can kick you out of the park, but only if they find out about it. Great mentality. Mickey Mouse and people packing heat.

[movonne]

3. Our gov should have to put out warnings for every

state that has these laws....sign when you enter into the state warning people to be careful.... I for one would not go to a state that has these laws....but if left up to the NRA it will be in every state so we won't have a choice...

[xxqqqzme]

2. Excellent,

Thanks for posting.