In Reply: Avoiding torture and cruelty has nothing to do with who they are or what they do... It's about who we are...

In reply to the following comment at the Lawyers, Guns & Money post "...nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

Anonymous says:
April 29, 2014 at 10:58 pm

You dolt. This barbarous:

“A jury found that on June 3, 1999, Clayton Lockett and two co-conspirators, Shawn Mathis and Alfonso Lockett, broke into the Perry, Oklahoma, home of Bobby Bornt. They assaulted Bornt before burglarizing his home for drugs. While they were at Bornt’s home, two 19-year-old women arrived. The men repeatedly raped and assaulted one woman, whose name is withheld as a victim of sexual assault, before loading Bornt, Bornt’s 9-month-old son, Stephanie Nieman, and the other woman into Bornt’s and Nieman’s trucks and driving them to a rural location in Kay County.

Bornt testified that he heard Clayton Locket say, “Someone has got to go,” before he put Nieman in a ditch dug by Shawn Mathis and shot her twice. He also testified to hearing the men laugh about “how tough [Nieman] was” when she did not die after the first shot.”

My reply:

The reason we avoid torturing our country's enemies and cruelly punishing those who break our laws--even when those enemies and lawbreakers have shown that they torture and are intentionally cruel to others--is because we are not them. Our American, religious, and human values and ideals prevent our giving in those animal instincts, and we've made laws to prevent our doing so when tempted. The people who don't do that--who can't control those base instincts and do torture and otherwise behave cruelly toward others...well, they're the very people whose eyes and teeth you're talking about pulling out, aren't they...?

Avoiding torture and cruelly has nothing to do with who they are or what they do, Dr. Douglas... It's about who we are... Who we are, and who we strive to be as Americans and as human beings...
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Posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 at 6:26 am

In Reply: Perhaps 911 dispatchers need to rethink how they "suggest" that wannabe heroes and morons not put themselves in danger by approaching or following the potentially dangerous criminals they're calling 911 about

Revised and extended, in reply to a whole lotta back and forth about the 911 dispatcher and George Zimmerman at the post Can Anyone Verify These Disturbing Allegations About Trayvon’s Family? : The Other McCain:

Hopefully 911 (emergency and non) throughout the country will rethink the best way to talk to people who haven't got the good sense to understand that "we don't need you to do that, sir" is a "suggestion" that callers not put themselves in further danger by approaching the potential criminals they're calling about. It's not illegal to be a moron, but neither party would've been injured if only Zimmerman understood, and had listened to the guy with a whole lot of experience dealing with first responders and potentially dangerous situations...though no, he was under no legal obligation to do so.

While they're at it, they probably ought to consider rephrasing how they ask which direction the potential criminal went, perhaps including the phrase "from where you are now, and please don't go after the man/woman/group you're telling me may be dangerous criminals," in deference to those same kinda morons.

Based on the evidence available and the laws as they stand, Zimmerman could not be convicted. Also, he didn't commit a hate crime. But--like Christopher Serino says, Zimmerman ultimately could've avoided this whole thing--not been hit, and not killed anyone--if only he had done things differently, either waiting in his car for the police (which the dispatcher also gently "suggested,") or at least approaching Martin differently, perhaps saying he was part of the neighborhood watch, and saying that Martin seemed unsure of which house he was looking for. While that doesn't matter criminally (though I think it should), it hopefully will matter civilly.
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Posted Tuesday, 7/16/2013, 8:25 AM