Trayvon Martin, Stand Your Ground, and confrontation avoidance

In response to Rachel Jeantel Says Martin Threw the First Punch:

This is a detail of the Zimmerman trial and its hyper-politicized aftermath that I find especially maddening.  Political hacks like Attorney General Eric Holder, backed up by 90 percent of the media, are howling about “Stand Your Ground” laws, which are presented as some horrible outrage that turns armed homeowners into ticking time bombs that might decide to bag themselves a teenager of color at any moment.  That’s not hyperbole – it is very common to hear today’s degenerate “civil rights leaders” explicitly describe the Zimmerman verdict and Stand Your Ground laws as “open season on black boys” or a “license to kill.”

This dovetails with one of the sacred core beliefs of Trayvon sainthood mythology, the fantasy that he was randomly attacked out of nowhere while doing nothing more than walking home after buying some iced tea and Skittles.  (Which takes us even further down the rabbit hole, because TRAYVON MARTIN DID NOT BUY ICED TEA THAT NIGHT.)  

You can get this all wrapped up in a single package of neutronium stupidity by checking out the Twitter feed of someone like Cher, an inarticulate boob who appears to type her Twitter messages with her elbows:

I BelieveThe Reason Trayvon Martin is dead,is Because He was Walking in a Hoodie,While Black.His Killer,a Wrathful, Misfit, Loser should

In his Place.”Stand Your Ground”

Law,Should be renamed…Shoot any1 U want..with impunity…Whenever you feel Bored,crave some excitement,

Feel like a loser,can’t make it to the shooting range,Want to impress The NRA,KKK,Neo-Nazi’s T-Baggers & ppl who thought Emmet Till got WHAT HE DESERVED !

In case you’re wondering, she’s got over 1,600,000 followers on Twitter. (She forgot to say what she thinks George Zimmerman should do in Trayvon Martin’s place, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume she just forgot to type the word “die.”)

One of the utterly indisputable facts of the case is that Trayvon Martin initiated the close-range confrontation with Zimmerman. Trayvon made a point of ambushing him and getting in his face. He’s the one who bypassed abundant, easy opportunities to retreat from a potentially violent encounter. His unreliable friend Rachel Jeantel has recently admitted she’s pretty sure Martin threw the first punch, too, and there’s no evidence to dispute Zimmerman’s similar contention.

So if anyone did any aggressive standing of ground here, it was Trayvon Martin. Let us grant that being checked out by an unknown person on a rainy evening is unnerving. (Jeantel has repeatedly stated that she and Martin thought Zimmerman might have been a gay sexual predator.) No rational and peaceable person responds to such a situation by deliberately pursuing a violent confrontation.  And there is absolutely no truth to the belief that Martin’s actions played no role in his fate.  Even if absolute confirmation of who threw the first punch will forever remain elusive, it’s beyond question that Trayvon Martin would be alive if he hadn’t actively, aggressively sought out a confrontation with Zimmerman.  Getting out of your car, looking at someone, or even following them for a while are not crimes that justify an “ass-whooping,” not among civilized people.

The notion that Trayvon Martin’s aggression should fuel a movement to make law-abiding citizens more vulnerable to violent criminals is disgusting and obscene.