WHITE GUY DEFENSE FORCE GO!

[DjinnFor]

I don't think that bears up. Let's ask ourselves what could have been done differently to avoid this conflict.

I'm simply amazed that this post passed your own litmus test of a sensible, reasonable post. I'm not sure if you're simply misinformed or if there are more sinister reasons.

Trayvon Martin could have not attacked George Zimmerman. That's fine

The post really should have ended here. Assault & Battery is patently illegal by any stretch of the imagination, and Trayvon bears the FULL responsibility for the resulting events, period.

because if Zimmerman is justified for shooting Martin on some "stand your ground" principle

First of all, he's justified for shooting Martin on basic self-defense grounds, period.

Secondly, "stand your ground" has nothing to do with the situation. Stand your ground is a legal principal that allows you the legal right to refuse to move if someone attempts to push past you, and resist their attempts to push past you by matching it with equal force of your own. These actions are not legally recognized as "self-defense" in most States, and doing so might cause you to bear some partial or significant (civil/criminal) liability for any resulting harm. In some States, however, you can refuse to move if someone attempts to push through you, and can escalate the situation to violent self-defense IF the person in question escalates the situation to violent aggression.

then Martin is equally (and probably more, since he didn't use a lethal weapon) justified for standing his own ground.

Attacking someone is not "standing your ground", it's called "assault & battery" and "attempted murder". During the commission of either of those acts you literally forfeit your legal and moral right to your own life, at least in the United States.

George Zimmerman could have not shot Trayvon Martin.

He could do that. Of course, that would involve repeatedly having his head bashed into concrete or possibly getting shot, neither of which I imagine he was looking forward to. And as such, in the heat of the moment, he exercised his legal right to defend himself with deadly force in response to deadly force.

If one person was justified attacking, then the other was as well. Let's go back in time further.

What in the fuck? Neither person was justified in attacking, but since one of them did the other is allowed the moral (and, might I add, legal) right to defend himself. "Attack" != "defense".

George Zimmerman, having alerted the police, could have not followed Trayvon Martin, as the 911 dispatcher said. I think that's fair, but let's see what Martin could have done.

The dispatcher did not suggest that. The 911 dispatchers statement was "we don't need you to do that", which is a standard line EVERY dispatcher states ANY time an individual takes ANY actions, as giving the contrary impression causes the government to assume legal liability of the resulting situation. "We don't need you to do that" is not a suggestion for or against taking any action whatsoever, merely a statement of fact, and as such Zimmerman followed the dispatchers instructions to the letter.

Trayvon Martin could have stayed home to not go buy Skittles so George Zimmerman would not have seen him to be suspicious of him. That's fucking ridiculous.

You mean, Martin could have stayed home and not purchased the ingredients for "Purple Drank" (candy and pop, combined with the drugs he had), which he most likely proceeded to consume in order to get himself high as a kite during the time of the incident. Y'know, being a drug addict and all, and testing positive for the drug when autopsied.

Viewed purely from the lens of "whom could we reasonably ask to have done something different that would not result in a dead child," George Zimmerman is the one who erred.

Yes, the brutal and unprovoked assault by a well-built high school senior on a random man on the street who happen to be following him for a short period of time is totally not an "error" of judgment at all.

He bears the responsibility for creating this conflict. It did not exist before George Zimmerman made it exist.

The conflict began when Martin attacked Zimmerman and ended when Zimmerman shot Martin. The full responsibility of starting the conflict rests in the hands of Martin. This is not the schoolyard where little kids beat up other kids for all manner of stupid reasons, including mean words or acting in an unwanted manner.

 

[Plunkies]

Interesting choice of words there guy.

Interesting how? Feel free to try to disprove what I said instead of just spamming.

 

[JimB]

I'm simply amazed that this post passed your own litmus test of a sensible, reasonable post. I'm not sure if you're simply misinformed or if there are more sinister reasons.

And you won't be sure, either, because you never asked, not even by implication. Your preference was to accuse me, albeit as gently as possible, of being a liar. From that, I kind of have to assume you don't actually care whether I'm genuinely misinformed, because you'd rather treat me as an enemy to defeat in some crusade for...I don't know, let's say moral superiority. I don't suppose it matters to me either way what you think you're winning from such a fight.

I dunno. Maybe it's just that it's early and I'm tired, but I just don't see the point of bothering. I'm guessing from the rest of your post that you think I believe Trayvon Martin is the instigator of the fight, yet I still side with him because I think black people deserve to attack and possibly kill white(-ish) people for the crime of being white(-ish) because that's totally a thing sane people think. I'm not interested in dealing with that, so I won't.

I wish I could convince you that I simply don't believe Zimmerman's self-serving recitation of events, but I just don't think it's possible for anyone but yourself to make you believe I think anything other than that Trayvon Martin was the instigator, a rabid dog in the shape of a man who attacked a human being without any provocation other than the evil voices in his head commanding him to kill in the name of the Beast whose mark is 666, yet whom I support while condemning Zimmerman because I think a foaming-mouth dog is a better creature than a human who's half white because Caucasian blood invalidates a human's right to self-defense. The amount of work to do so seems exhausting and beyond my capacity, though, so I'm out. So I guess "have fun with this" would be the tl;dr version of the post.

 

[ShipofFools]

Blablablablabla... people defending their horrible viewpoints all sound alike. Kind of like a... childish droning of the ego, you know?

'T was a fun comic. I especially liked the fat guy with the pony. Nice touch.

And here is my solution for gamers who don't know how to deal with issues such as race, gender, sexuality and all this other nonsense: everybody is people, just like you. Leave them the fuck alone if you only have negativity for them.

 

[Luciella]

Yes Yes!!
the shitstorm did formed! mwhahahahahaha.
ah, my day is complete.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I'm going to stop reading Critical Miss. These guys are only interested in self-righteous flame bait. That's great at producing clicks, not for rational conversations on serious issues.

People who claim that they don't get what's offensive about this comic. Imagine someone drawing the same exact comic, but replaced the three white men with a feminist, African-American, and a transgendered person. You can bet that you and the comics' creators will be crying, "OMG!!! BIGOTRY!!!"

It rather depends why exactly you have them there. What exactly would they be there to be criticized for? If you mean in the exact same comic it'd be rather bizarre given that those arguments don't exactly tend to come from feminists or African-Americans and I've never recalled hearing many of them being transgendered though maybe I think a few I've seen are. But you seem to have already made up your mind without actually having any evidence of the reaction. Almost as if the scenario you brought up was just there to give empty confirmation to what you already think.

I figured someone would call "B.S.!" on my theory of people getting upset if someone flipped the script on the comic. I'm not an artist. Yet, I can write up a script of what that comic would look like.

"P.C. Defense Force Go!"

How can you have a Will MacAvoy avatar and still...
If only Sorkin could see you.

75% of that script was taken verbatim from the Critical Miss comic. Now, if I was just changing 25% of an Aaron Sorkin script, it would have been a lot better.

If you don't get the point of what I wrote, it's simply showing what the Critical Miss guys did was bigoted. Just because your intention was to promote tolerance and equality. That doesn't excuse you to hate people who disagrees with you.

 

[JimB]

If you don't get the point of what I wrote, it's simply showing what the Critical Miss guys did was bigoted. Just because your intention was to promote tolerance and equality, that doesn't excuse you to hate people who disagrees with you.

I'm not sure "bigoted" is the correct word here. Hating someone for disagreeing with you is hating them for what they do rather than what they are, so it seems like a perfectly valid reason to hate someone. Like, I pretty much hate everyone who goes on a shooting spree, and I don't think that qualifies as bigotry.

 

[Jux]

Interesting choice of words there guy.

Interesting how? Feel free to try to disprove what I said instead of just spamming.

I'm just highlighting something interesting. You want to call someone out on using charged, biased words, and in the same post you label Martin as a 'violent thug'. I'd call it ironic, but that would be a misuse of the word. I think we'll just call it.... hypocrisy. Yup, that fits.

 

[Klagermeister]

Interesting choice of words there guy.

Interesting how? Feel free to try to disprove what I said instead of just spamming.

I'm just highlighting something interesting. You want to call someone out on using charged, biased words, and in the same post you label Martin as a 'violent thug'. I'd call it ironic, but that would be a misuse of the word. I think we'll just call it.... hypocrisy. Yup, that fits.

I'm not sure what else I would call a brutal minded, drug addicted teenager pounding a man's head into the concrete besides "violent thug"...
But I do see where you're coming from in terms of Plunkies' hypocrisy. No argument there.

 

[Jux]

Interesting choice of words there guy.

Interesting how? Feel free to try to disprove what I said instead of just spamming.

I'm just highlighting something interesting. You want to call someone out on using charged, biased words, and in the same post you label Martin as a 'violent thug'. I'd call it ironic, but that would be a misuse of the word. I think we'll just call it.... hypocrisy. Yup, that fits.

I'm not sure what else I would call a brutal minded, drug addicted teenager pounding a man's head into the concrete besides "violent thug"...
But I do see where you're coming from in terms of Plunkies' hypocrisy. No argument there.

I'm not making the argument that Martin was a saint. I didn't know the guy. But yes, just pointing out that the term 'violent thug' is charged and biased, and simply saying he acted violently would have gotten the same message across without the baggage. Stones, glass houses, that sort of thing ya know?

And people can cast aspirations on Martin all they want, just remember Zimmerman is no choir boy either. I see two people, each with their own flaws, and one comes away dead. Was Martin right to bash the guys head against the concrete? No, but if Zimmerman hadn't followed him as per the dispatchers orders, or hadn't been carrying a gun, the chance of both of them being alive right now would be alot higher.

 

[karkashan]

I get what this comic was trying to do.

key word is "trying".

The comic authors fail pretty bad when trying to do "white knight humor".

 

[Knight Templar]

freerepublic

If you wish to be taken seriously, don't link to that site. It would be like linking to stormfront. it reflects very negatively on you and your argument in several ways.

 

[Plunkies]

Interesting choice of words there guy.

Interesting how? Feel free to try to disprove what I said instead of just spamming.

I'm just highlighting something interesting. You want to call someone out on using charged, biased words, and in the same post you label Martin as a 'violent thug'. I'd call it ironic, but that would be a misuse of the word. I think we'll just call it.... hypocrisy. Yup, that fits.

You're saying it's true but you think I should have chosen a different word? My issue wasn't that he used a strong word and should speak more gently. My issue was that he was exaggerating or outright lying in his use of the word "stalking" to try to make Zimmerman sound like he was doing something illegal. They couldn't even use "stalking" in court because it legally did not apply and was a biased misrepresentation. The problem is that he used the term and then couldn't back it up with one shred of evidence.

I don't think the phrase "like a violent thug" is at all an exaggeration when we're talking about a person with a history of violence and criminal behavior, violently attacking someone illegally. At worst it's redundant, since thug is sort of implied to be a violent criminal, but nothing about it is false or misrepresented. If you'd like to disprove it, feel free to try.

I'm not making the argument that Martin was a saint. I didn't know the guy. But yes, just pointing out that the term 'violent thug' is charged and biased, and simply saying he acted violently would have gotten the same message across without the baggage. Stones, glass houses, that sort of thing ya know?

And people can cast aspirations on Martin all they want, just remember Zimmerman is no choir boy either. I see two people, each with their own flaws, and one comes away dead. Was Martin right to bash the guys head against the concrete? No, but if Zimmerman hadn't followed him as per the dispatchers orders, or hadn't been carrying a gun, the chance of both of them being alive right now would be alot higher.

Again, someone speaking complete falsehoods. This is the problem. The dispatcher, for the billionth time, did not order (and is NOT ALLOWED to order) anyone to do anything. He said in reference to getting out and following him that you "don't have to do that." To which Zimmerman replied "OK" and stopped. In fact, the one thing the dispatcher did specifically tell him to do, is to keep an eye on the suspicious individual and tell him if he does anything different. He also couldn't have possibly followed him up to the confrontation because Zimmerman had lost sight of Martin for 4 minutes prior. And as you might imagine, it's hard to follow or even "stalk" someone when you don't know where they are.

Zimmerman was licensed and well within the law to carry a firearm, and by all accounts was a responsible gun owner. He even generously took a 40 second beating into concrete while screaming for help before resorting to even using it.

I've yet to see a cogent argument against Zimmerman that didn't entirely hinge around being ignorant of the facts of the case and choosing to ignore or disregard those facts.

 

[KissingSunlight]

If you don't get the point of what I wrote, it's simply showing what the Critical Miss guys did was bigoted. Just because your intention was to promote tolerance and equality, that doesn't excuse you to hate people who disagrees with you.

I'm not sure "bigoted" is the correct word here. Hating someone for disagreeing with you is hating them for what they do rather than what they are, so it seems like a perfectly valid reason to hate someone. Like, I pretty much hate everyone who goes on a shooting spree, and I don't think that qualifies as bigotry.

If I follow your logic, people who posted comments to Anita Sarkeesian that she should go back to the kitchen are not sexist. They simply disagree with what she was doing. Even though I don't agree with Anita, I thought that was sexist. Anytime you put down someone on the basis of their gender, race, religion, etc. instead of the points that they are arguing. You are being a bigot.

 

[JimB]

If I follow your logic, people who posted comments to Anita Sarkeesian that she should go back to the kitchen are not sexist; they simply disagree with what she was doing. Even though I don't agree with Anita, I thought that was sexist. Any time you put down someone on the basis of their gender, race, religion, etc. instead of the points that they are arguing, you are being a bigot.

So you argue that the White Guy Defense Force is being mocked on the basis of the race of its members rather than the stupid crap they espouse? Because I don't think that flies.

 

[RA92]

Holy sheeeeit! A rage thread longer than Bob's "PC Gaming is Dead"?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/2911-PC-Gaming-Is-Dead-Long-Live-PC-Gaming

Well done, guys.

 

[Jux]

-snip the wall-

Just a quick yes or no: Do you think that calling Martin a 'violent thug' is using charged and biased words, where the sentiment can be expressed just as easily without? I am not interested in getting into a drag out fight over the court details, it just ain't worth it.

By your own admission you're being redundant. If the point behind the redundancy isn't driving home the word 'thug' then why do it? 'Thug' is a commonly used pejorative against black people, or when you want to associate someone with the stereotypical 'black urban culture of violence'. You could easily just as say that Martin had a history of violence and drug use, it's much less charged than calling him a brutal minded, violent, drug addled thug[footnote]Not your exact words, just driving home a point.[/footnote]

Stalking in the colloquial sense applies here, though yes, it is also a charged and biased word.

 

[madwarper]

If the point behind the redundancy isn't driving home the word 'thug' then why do it?

I think the redundancy is 'violent', rather than 'thug', because thug means a violent criminal.

'Thug' is a commonly used pejorative against black people,

By who?

It's based one's criminal activities, regardless of race.

or when you want to associate someone with the stereotypical 'black urban culture of violence'.

No, that would be a 'gangsta', as Martin referred to himself in his text messages [http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/23/justice/florida-zimmerman-defense/index.html].

 

[Plunkies]

-snip the wall-

Just a quick yes or no: Do you think that calling Martin a 'violent thug' is using charged and biased words, where the sentiment can be expressed just as easily without? I am not interested in getting into a drag out fight over the court details, it just ain't worth it.

I said "acting like", I didn't call him anything. And, once again, the issue was whether or not the words were false. I stated that a word was "charged" or "biased" because it was a false representation of events used solely for the purpose of exaggeration or artificially strengthening his own argument without needing evidence or facts. He specifically used "stalking" over "following" because the former implies nefarious intent by definition. It was a sneaky way of bolstering his bad argument.

By your own admission you're being redundant. If the point behind the redundancy isn't driving home the word 'thug' then why do it? 'Thug' is a commonly used pejorative against black people, or when you want to associate someone with the stereotypical 'black urban culture of violence'. You could easily just as say that Martin had a history of violence and drug use, it's much less charged than calling him a brutal minded, violent, drug addled thug[footnote]Not your exact words, just driving home a point.[/footnote]

A thug is a violent criminal. The word "violent" was redundant, not thug. And I couldn't just as easily say any of those things because you misquoted me in the first place. I wasn't talking about his history or who he was at all in that sentence originally. I would also hardly need to use the word "thug" to connect Martin with stereotypical 'black urban culture of violence' when his own text messages in his own words would do the job far better.

I certainly hope "thug" isn't now considered a racist term, because I can probably name a dozen video games with "thugs" as enemies.

Stalking in the colloquial sense applies here, though yes, it is also a charged and biased word.

And, once again, it does not. Not in any sense. Not in a legal sense, not in a colloquial sense. Zimmerman wasn't hunting, he wasn't harassing, he wasn't stealthy, and he had no nefarious intent as evidenced by the fact that he was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher at the time. The only reason to use the word is to imply ill-intent where no evidence can otherwise support.

 

[DjinnFor]

And you won't be sure, either, because you never asked, not even by implication. Your preference was to accuse me, albeit as gently as possible, of being a liar.

No. I was going to accuse you of either being an irrational racist motivated by emotional hate for white people or some irrational mouthbreather with a persecution complex who watches too much of what passes for "news" these days, but I decided against doing so (I even edited my post), not only out of a fear of being banned but also out of respect of the fact that I don't really know you enough to jump to those conclusions.

And no, I didn't ask, because where your ignorance comes from is irrelevant, and I don't care.

From that, I kind of have to assume you don't actually care whether I'm genuinely misinformed, because you'd rather treat me as an enemy to defeat in some crusade for...I don't know, let's say moral superiority. I don't suppose it matters to me either way what you think you're winning from such a fight.

So you're miffed that I made an unfounded accusation in "implying" that you were a liar, and then you overtly accuse me of going on a crusade to gain moral superiority over you. Congratulations on being the most blatant hypocrite I've ever seen.

I'm guessing from the rest of your post that you think I believe Trayvon Martin is the instigator of the fight, yet I still side with him because I think black people deserve to attack and possibly kill white(-ish) people for the crime of being white(-ish) because that's totally a thing sane people think. I'm not interested in dealing with that, so I won't.

Whether you believe that or not is irrelevant. Just don't spew your faith to others like it was fact.

He was the instigator of the attack when he decided to start pummeling Zimmerman's face in. Zimmerman could have spewed the most racist pejoratives ever to Martin's face; that doesn't justify the violent assault Martin committed whatsoever.

I wish I could convince you that I simply don't believe Zimmerman's self-serving recitation of events

Right, because it's not like there was a trial or anything where the prosecution failed to provide any meaningful evidence to the contrary or rebut basically any of Zimmerman's claims or disprove any of his evidence. The fact that you think there is even a question of doubt shows a lot about your willingness to self-delude.

but I just don't think it's possible for anyone but yourself to make you believe

Projection, much? I'm not the deluded one, here.

I think anything other than that Trayvon Martin was the instigator, a rabid dog in the shape of a man who attacked a human being without any provocation other than the evil voices in his head commanding him to kill in the name of the Beast whose mark is 666,

Blah blah blah blah...

I don't really care that you need an absurd strawman just to make your point coherent, just don't do it around me. It's pretty damn insulting that you think that will fly with me.

Y'know he was a drug addict, right? And in fact a fan of a particular cocktail called "Purple Drank" or "Lean" whose symptoms include psychotic breaks and paranoia, the kind that might make you lash out at a random passerby over a perceived harm? The ingredients to which he happened to be carrying with him at the time of the incident and had most likely gone to the store to purchase?

You know, also, that he had repeatedly violent altercations with people from school? Specifically for "snitching" on him?

I have no trouble believing that Trayvon Martin, in a drug-fueled rage, attacked a random passerby who he perceived as some kind of threat, given his history of substance abuse, the presence of drugs in his system, the ingredients for the drug cocktail he was addicted to located on his person, and his history of resorting to violence to solve his problems in the past. Meanwhile, I have considerable doubt that Zimmerman attacked Martin first or even ever threw a punch, given that Martin was on top of Zimmerman the entire time as evidenced by the state of Zimmermans clothes, and given the state of the injuries on Zimmerman's face and Martins knuckles (from beating on Martin) and the lack of any other injuries anywhere else on either person, and given the lack of any reason to believe how or why Zimmerman would even remotely consider attacking Martin. Given George Zimmerman's history of association with black people, I believe even less that he was some racist white supremacist who provoked a tall and well-built black teenager into attacking him just so he could have the pretext to shoot him literally seconds after calling the police to report suspicious activity, as some apparently are implying.

As such, since there is in fact overwhelming evidence leading to the conclusion that Martin attacked Zimmerman and in fact his actions led to serious and possibly life-threatening harm to Zimmerman, who was well within his legal and moral right to defend himself using lethal force. That is, I come to the same conclusion that the jury came to when they were presented with the above evidence.

What the fuck do you base your conclusion on other than speculation? And why ignore reality in order to speculate? What possible motivation do you have to deny what is in front of you? And you wonder why I'm suspicious here.

The amount of work to do so seems exhausting and beyond my capacity, though, so I'm out. So I guess "have fun with this" would be the tl;dr version of the post.

By all means, cop out. Post a half-assed reply disparaging me and my posts, but don't even give me the decency of an argument, why don't you.