Why "All Lives Matters" is wrong

[Hygro]

Lexicus stop being ableist against people with rage disorders and profiling proclivities.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

No signs of violence against Martin were found during his autopsy/autopsies though, so an actual attack by Zimmerman is very, very unlikely. He might still have grabbed him to keep him in place or something, but that once again, while not okay in itself, does not justify an attack, and it does not mean that Zimmerman did not act in self defense.

Hold up...he might have grabbed him to keep him in place (I'm not saying he did, just going with your hypothetical) which you admit is "not okay in itself." Then you go on with that not "justifying an attack."

In your world just what do you expect happens if you grab some passerby to "keep them in place"?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sure... Democrats

Pure misdirection... and its obvious why you've switched to this tack. But even still, your argument is fundamentally flawed. Essentially you're arguing that all the historical prejudice and institutional mistreatment of black people has been the work of the Democrats alone, and I (Sommerswerd) along with other black people have been nevertheless supporting them, voting for them all along, so its my/our (black people's) fault... which is utterly preposterous. So... about that, one at a time:

Democrats supported slavery

I didn't vote for those Democrats, nor did any black person cause we weren't allowed to vote back then. George Washington wasn't a Democrat, he supported slavery because he owned slaves, and I didn't vote for him, nor did any black person for that matter. So your point in bringing that up is preposterous and debunked. On to the next one...

Democrats replaced slavery with Jim Crow

I didn't vote for those Democrats, and probably nor did any black person because, among other factors the Klu Klux Klan wouldn't let us vote. Certainly no black person who is alive today voted for them. So again, bringing that up in the context of the point you are trying to make is completely nonsensical and irrelevant... ie debunked. On to the next one...

Democrats replaced Jim Crow with a drug war...

Wrong, that was Nixon, as has already been pointed out. But more importantly and more relevant to the flawed argument you are trying to make... I didn't vote for those Democrats, nor did most (any) black people alive today... so again, the point you are trying to make is completely debunked.

Now I guess you will want to move the goalpost to Tipp O'Neil, and Clinton (ie the crime bill), but again I didn't vote for those Democrats, because I was a child when those guys were in office. So again, the point you are trying to make is debunked.

From another link: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425

Something I forgot to mention about this... Anyone who has ever lived in a neighborhood which was hit hard by the housing crisis (I have), knows that when you live in a neighborhood with a lot of vacant homes (like Zimmerman's neighborhood), you have TONS of random people showing up all the time in your neighborhood, peeking in windows, walking around in the yards, checking out the houses, testing the doors to see if they're open, even looking in the windows of occupied homes to see if they're vacant or not.

The identities of these people range from prospective buyers like house flippers who take a ride over to check out what's available, property managers who are just making sure the property is secure, people looking to buy a home who want to see it without having to bother with a pushy realtor, potential tenants who want to check out a property that has been listed for rent, and yes, occasionally, people breaking in... sometimes kids just looking for a place to hang out, for booze, drugs, sex etc, and sometimes they are burglars. But this is normal for a neighborhood with numerous vacant homes. I owned a vacant home that I was trying to rent out and it was being broken into literally on a weekly basis... never did I feel that I needed to get a gun and start patrolling the neighborhood.

Frankly I myself have checked out homes, and walked around the property etc, as a landlord, property manager as well as potential buyer or potential tenant. Ironically I only do so in black neighborhoods, because I am well aware that doing so in white neighborhoods as a black person can get you shot, because there are more likely to be prejudiced people who will assume you are a burglar. When I need to view a property in a white neighborhood I try to make sure I am escorted so I don't get followed and shot by yahoos like Zimmerman, or get the police called on me by neighborhood watch folk who find me "suspicious". See as I've explained, racial prejudice makes people see a black potential tenant or buyer walking around checking out the property and interpret that as "casing the joint"... racial prejudice interprets a black owner of a property testing the doors to make sure his property is secure as "attempted burglary"... and once the rumor mill gets rolling, a couple sightings like this plus a few actual break ins, turn into neighborhood hysteria "OMG all these black people are invading our neighborhood trying to rob us we have to stop them!!"

 

[Ryika]

Just highlighting the absurdity here. Note that in the scenario I consider acceptable someone might get bloodied but they don't die, whereas in the scenario you deem acceptable someone bleeds out on the pavement.

There is no absurdity here, one case is self-defense against immediate danger, one is not.

Is really not that hard to understand. "Are you in the process of receiving violence, or is there somebody trying to do violence to you?" Yes? Then you're in a situation where you can defend yourself with whatever means are necessary to stop that violence from happening. Being punched in the face by somebody who's sitting on top of you is clearly within that realm. Just having somebody follow you around is not.

Of course it does. The difference between getting shot and getting beaten up is quite consequential.

Yeah, for the person who is on the receiving end of the action, but not for whether it's appropriate self-defense or not.
The well-being of the person on the receiving end of the action is simply irrelevant to the question of self-defense when they're the ones already causing harm to the person who needs to defend themselves.

But of course, that is the case, because we know that Zimmerman initiated the entire situation by profiling Martin and then stalking him. You may think the domestic abuser who had been previously arrested for getting physical with a cop had intentions pure as the driven snow when he started following Martin around carrying a loaded handgun, but those of us who aren't murderous racists clearly see otherwise.

His past would come in as further evidence against him if there were actual signs of physical violence on Martin, but there are none, so he clearly has not gotten physical with him. It is perfectly possible that he wanted to get physical, but Martin robbed him of that chance by attacking him. There's no way for us to know, so if in doubt, assume innocence. Well, you're free to assume guilt if you want, but it's built on nothing but an assumptions.

Hold up...he might have grabbed him to keep him in place (I'm not saying he did, just going with your hypothetical) which you admit is "not okay in itself." Then you go on with that not "justifying an attack."

In your world just what do you expect happens if you grab some passerby to "keep them in place"?

Yeah, admittingly I should have phrased that differently. If somebody grabs you then of course you can take whatever measures you need to take to stop them from doing that. Throwing somebody to the ground and beating them in the face does not seem to me like it's a response that is meant to accomplish that, it's an attack of your own that simply doesn't stop at getting them off your clothes. Which, again, is a reaction I can even understand on some level. But you're clearly escalating the situation far above what it was before, into territory where lethal force to defend oneself from the damage that is to be expected becomes an option.

But again, that's still in the hypothetical situation where Zimmerman even grabbed him, we have no evidence that he did that.

 

[Lexicus]

Just having somebody follow you around is not.

But having someone to 'grab you to hold you in place' clearly is.

but not for whether it's appropriate self-defense or not.

Yes it is. This is just another example of you attempting to abstract from reality to win internet points. Not gonna fly amigo.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, admittingly I should have phrased that differently. If somebody grabs you then of course you can take whatever measures you need to take to stop them from doing that. Throwing somebody to the ground and beating them in the face does not seem to me like it's a response that is meant to accomplish that, it's an attack of your own that simply doesn't stop at getting them off your clothes. Which, again, is a reaction I can even understand on some level. But you're clearly escalating the situation far above what it was before, into territory where lethal force to defend oneself from the damage that is to be expected becomes an option.

But again, that's still in the hypothetical situation where Zimmerman even grabbed him, we have no evidence that he did that.

We also have no evidence that he didn't, but neither here nor there.

Within the hypothetical there might be a bit of "Americanism" in our differing viewpoints. If someone grabs me, they have demonstrated the willingness to have a physical confrontation, and given the widespread availability of firearms in America they have also demonstrated the willingness to risk a lethal confrontation because they don't know if I am armed. I take neither prisoners nor risks. The only way I walk away from this demonstrably violent person is if they are sufficiently incapacitated that they cannot pull out any gun that they might have and shoot me. Either they will be beaten into unconsciousness or I will stomp both their hands, or most likely both.

So, yes, I think throwing them to the ground and beating them in the face is appropriate in the hypothetical circumstances, given that we are talking about America.

 

[Ryika]

But having someone to 'grab you to hold you in place' clearly is.

In the hypothetical situation it might be closer to that, yeah. See my response to Timsup2nothin.

Of course, both could also be true at the same time. We could have Martin interpreting a situation as him being in immediate danger without Martin actually wanting to cause him harm, that doesn't automatically mean that he didn't act in self-defense, him attacking Zimmerman (as in "throwing him down and punching him without having violence done to him first") does.

Yes it is. This is just another example of you attempting to abstract from reality to win internet points. Not gonna fly amigo.

Law must work differently is Lala-Land then, because here in Germany, killing somebody in self-defense is fine as long as you were on the receiving end of violence and saw it as a way to end that violence without an obvious, safe alternative, even if that violence was not intended to kill you.

We also have no evidence that he didn't, but neither here nor there.

Within the hypothetical there might be a bit of "Americanism" in our differing viewpoints. If someone grabs me, they have demonstrated the willingness to have a physical confrontation, and given the widespread availability of firearms in America they have also demonstrated the willingness to risk a lethal confrontation because they don't know if I am armed. I take neither prisoners nor risks. The only way I walk away from this demonstrably violent person is if they are sufficiently incapacitated that they cannot pull out any gun that they might have and shoot me. Either they will be beaten into unconsciousness or I will stomp both their hands, or most likely both.

So, yes, I think throwing them to the ground and beating them in the face is appropriate in the hypothetical circumstances, given that we are talking about America.

I mean, I am sympathetic to that argument, but the implications of assuming the worst are that you can just go overboard whenever there is a way you can make a case that you felt threatened.

That's the problem with self-defense, you either have a standard that is too high to catch all actions where a person has legitimately and justifiably been afraid for their well-being, or you have a standard that is too low to punish people who reacted to situations that weren't actually situations where self-defense was necessary. No matter what standard you choose, you will have a standard that's not ideal for all cases.

That's why I say I see why Martin might have felt that he had to defend himself, even if Zimmerman only followed him around. I would certainly feel that way myself. But part of self-defense laws much be to discourage people from just assuming the worst and acting on it.

Not that it matters in this case anyway, ultimately, whether Martin felt like he acted in self-defense is not of great relevance to whether Zimmerman's response to Martin's actions was self-defense in itself. What is of relevance is whether Zimmerman was looking for a physical confrontation, and whether he instigated the violence, both of which we still can't tell for sure either way.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I mean, I am sympathetic to that argument, but the implications of assuming the worst are that you can just go overboard whenever there is a way you can make a case that you felt threatened.

That's the problem with self-defense, you either have a standard that is too high to catch all actions where a person has legitimately and justifiably been afraid for their well-being, or you have a standard that is too low to punish people who reacted to situations that weren't actually situations where self-defense was necessary. No matter what standard you choose, you will have a standard that's not ideal for all cases.

That's why I say I see why Martin might have felt that he had to defend himself, even if Zimmerman only followed him around. I would certainly feel that way myself. But part of self-defense laws much be to discourage people from just assuming the worst and acting on it.

Not that it matters in this case anyway, ultimately, whether Martin felt like he acted in self-defense is not of great relevance to whether Zimmerman's response to Martin's actions was self-defense in itself. What is of relevance is whether Zimmerman was looking for a physical confrontation, and whether he instigated the violence, both of which we do still can't tell for sure either way.

Actually, before the advent of "stand your ground" laws self defense was pretty rational to adjudicate in the US. "Did you attempt to take all reasonable actions to get out of the situation prior to resorting to deadly force?" A simple yes or no question that can be argued and ruled upon. The only real weakness in it was that sometimes a jury could be convinced after the fact that an action not taken was "reasonable" when in the heat of the moment at the pace of events it really wasn't, leaving someone hung out to dry for just not being miraculously quick thinking under stress.

The right wingers and their "why should I have to let a criminal have their way, or even have to think, when I could just shoot'em?" philosophy has considerably muddied the waters. As exemplified by the Zimmerman case. Under previous standards for a self defense plea he would have no chance whatsoever. "Could you not have just stayed in your truck, and even driven off if he came at you?" would put him squarely in the cross hairs. Under previous law all of the subsequent alternating escalations become irrelevant at that point.

The unfortunate result is that under current Florida law "whether Zimmerman was looking for a physical confrontation, and whether he instigated the violence," actually isn't relevant. Who "started it" as a verbal confrontation doesn't matter. How it escalated to a physical confrontation doesn't matter. When he made the decision to resort to deadly force was there reasonable cause for him to fear for his life is the only thing that matters, and I agree that there is no way, under Florida law, to convict him.

 

[Ryika]

I'm not defending Florida law though, like I said, I don't know much about jurisdiction in America. What little I know about "Stand your ground"-laws (including what you've said) makes me think they sound pretty silly. The goal of any self-defense law should be to allow you to do things (against people who want to harm you) that would normally be against the law if you are in a situation where they're required to stay safe, not to give you legal backing to provoke these situations.

So I guess this here is the main point of disagreement:

"Could you not have just stayed in your truck, and even driven off if he came at you?" would put him squarely in the cross hairs.

Because that doesn't seem like a reasonable standard to me. That could only be a useful question in situations where the expected outcome is that you create a situation where you have to defend yourself, but that's not the case here. The expected outcome of following or even confronting somebody is not to have that person attack you. It's a possible outcome, especially if you go into the situation with an aggressive mindset, but it's not the obvious thing to happen, so this can clearly not be seen as a situation where he provoked an attack.

 

[Hygro]

that doesn't seem like a reasonable standard to me. That could only be a useful question in situations where the expected outcome is that you create a situation where you have to defend yourself, but that's not the case here. The expected outcome of following or even confronting somebody is not to have that person attack you. It's a possible outcome, especially if you go into the situation with an aggressive mindset, but it's not the obvious thing to happen, so this can clearly not be seen as a situation where he provoked an attack.

Wait a second, if you think you're following a criminal you would be reasonably expecting to get attacked, ergo a confrontation. If you think you're following a not-criminal, wut in the first place...?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because that doesn't seem like a reasonable standard to me. That could only be a useful question in situations where the expected outcome is that you create a situation where you have to defend yourself, but that's not the case here. The expected outcome of following or even confronting somebody is not to have that person attack you. It's a possible outcome, especially if you go into the situation with an aggressive mindset, but it's not the obvious thing to happen, so this can clearly not be seen as a situation where he provoked an attack.

Hygro already addressed this, but...

Under normal laws regarding self defense "well, I didn't expect my confrontational actions to provoke a confrontation" is not a question that is relevant to the standards. What matters isn't expectations, what matters is results. Someone DIED here. That's the end result. Someone who may or may not have committed crimes, may or may not be a reasonable person to suspect, but certainly had not committed any crime warranting the death penalty. So a normal self defense regulation is going to start from that point and work from "what did you do to avoid this bad result?"

We have one poster that would argue "well, when I tried to follow him I lost him" as an action taken to avoid the bad result, which is frankly absurd.

You are sort of riding on "I didn't expect this result so I didn't take any action to avoid the outcome but let me off anyway." That is not openly ridiculous, but you would have to convince a jury that it was unreasonable for you to expect any consequences when you followed a guy you thought was maybe a criminal, and that is going to be a steep hill to climb. Because if it was reasonable to expect there could be a confrontation, and you took no actions to avoid it, your self defense plea goes down in flames.

Here's the thing about the normal rules regarding self defense...they only hurt violent people. If you are a guy who gets in fights, eventually someone gets killed, and since you don't avoid fights you go to prison. Maybe you can honestly say "I don't start fights, I just end them," but the fact is that society is generally seen as better if it is made up of people who avoid them. Loosening the criteria for self defense opens the door for violent people, like Zimmerman, to start angling their way around the law. It creates the opportunity to be violently law abiding, and that is no benefit to society in general.

 

[Ryika]

Under normal laws regarding self defense "well, I didn't expect my confrontational actions to provoke a confrontation" is not a question that is relevant to the standards. What matters isn't expectations, what matters is results. Someone DIED here. That's the end result. Someone who may or may not have committed crimes, may or may not be a reasonable person to suspect, but certainly had not committed any crime warranting the death penalty. So a normal self defense regulation is going to start from that point and work from "what did you do to avoid this bad result?"

Killing somebody in self-defense is not "issuing a death penalty" though. It's protecting oneself from harm in the immediate situation.

The whole thing is of course more complex than that, precisely because Zimmerman followed him and Martin was probably not just a criminal who wanted to harm him but instead a likely innocent kid who was scared himself, but no, I still do not see why following him would remove the element of self-defense. Nothing in "following somebody" directly leads to "and then there will be violence done to you". It's something that can happen if things get out of hand, but it's not the likely result.

It's the same thing if somebody steals your purse and you realize it and run after them, but then you run off the main street and next thing you know, they're on top of you, punching you. Just because you ran after them does not revoke the status of self-defense. The expected outcome was not to end up in a situation where you have to kill them in self-defense. You most certainly wouldn't argue that they've not acted in self-defense in that situation, and yet the only difference here is that the a crime that was committed to you by them was the direct cause for your actions.

You are sort of riding on "I didn't expect this result so I didn't take any action to avoid the outcome but let me off anyway." That is not openly ridiculous, but you would have to convince a jury that it was unreasonable for you to expect any consequences when you followed a guy you thought was maybe a criminal, and that is going to be a steep hill to climb. Because if it was reasonable to expect there could be a confrontation, and you took no actions to avoid it, your self defense plea goes down in flames.

Well again, maybe that's just a difference in how we view the ethics behind all of that, but no, I heavily disagree with that.

Following your logic, if somebody is violently smashing your windows with stones, you see that and yell "Hey, stop that!", you've just given up your right to plea self-defense for everything that follows, because "What outcome did you expect yelling at the person who's angrily destroying your stuff?" - or if a person is stealing from your shop and you see them do it, confront them, be attacked and have to defend yourself.

I agree that these reactions are not ideal, but they most certainly don't invalidate your right for self-defense if the person who is confronted escalates the situation by resorting to violence.

And again, I can only speak for Germany, but here, doing something that could possibly, but not as an immediate result, cause you to enter a situation where you have to defend yourself, does not remove self-defense as an option, because we don't just ignore that the attacker himself has the choice to either escalate the situation or not. That's called "eigenverantwortliche Selbstgefährdung" (that's a mixture of "personal responsibility" and "self-endangerment", not sure how to translate it properly), the attacker is responsible for committing an illegal act, even if they're doing it as a response to something the person who then resorts to self-defense has done.

For self-defense to become invalid, it must be reasonably clear that the intent of the actions that they took was to cause a situation where they have to "defend themselves", not that it is just a possible outcome. Or that there was a clear way to avoid having to cause harm to the attacker in the immediate situation of course. Just because you were able to stop following a person 20 minutes ago when the situation was different, does not invalidate self-defense.

So I mean... I understand it's probably partly a result of the fact that in this specific case Martin's violent reaction was itself a result of fear, and not just a violent reaction by a violent individual, but more generally, you're completely ignoring the personal responsibility of the attacker and putting that burden onto the defender.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Wait a second, if you think you're following a criminal you would be reasonably expecting to get attacked, ergo a confrontation. If you think you're following a not-criminal, wut in the first place...?

Shot through the heart... and logic is to blame... concise and irrefutable. Well stated Hygs, take a bow.

It's the same thing if somebody steals your purse and you realize it and run after them, but then you run off the main street and next thing you know, they're on top of you, punching you. Just because you ran after them does not revoke the status of self-defense.

No it most certainly is not the same thing, because Trayvon didn't "steal Zimmerman's purse". Trayvon hadn't stolen anything, or committed any crimes whatsoever. And your hypothetical captures the problem exactly, which is that Trayvon's race, and Zimmerman's pre-existing prejudice towards Trayvon's race made Zimmerman conclude that he had in-fact stolen something or intended to. The problem is that since Trayvon was black, racial prejudice makes "stole my purse" implied. And this:

if somebody is violently smashing your windows with stones, you see that and yell "Hey, stop that!", you've just given up your right to plea self-defense for everything that follows, because "What outcome did you expect yelling at the person who's angrily destroying your stuff?" - or if a person is stealing from your shop and you see them do it, confront them, be attacked and have to defend yourself.

is just more of you doing the same thing... doing what Zimmerman did... ie skipping the factual reality that Trayvon was not commiting any crimes and assigning guilt just based on the fact that he was a black stranger. Trayvon had not "violently smased windows with stones" or "destroyed stuff" or "stolen from someone's shop"... but Zimmerman was stalking him anyway, for literally no reason except his own irrational racial prejudice.

 

[Ryika]

Yes, yes.. circlejerking about one-liners that criticize imperfect formulations, that's how reasonable people discuss issues.

 

[plarq]

fixed that for you.

Man now I remember that part in GTA: San Andreas's political talk show about killing illegal immigrants in the backyard issue.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yes, yes.. circlejerking about one-liners that criticize imperfect formulations, that's how reasonable people discuss issues.

Take it easy... I added some substantive discussion about your post.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Killing somebody in self-defense is not "issuing a death penalty" though. It's protecting oneself from harm in the immediate situation.

In a situation that could have been avoided. That's the point. We don't allow courts to issue death penalties to purse snatchers, much less walking teen-agers, so yes, our laws reflect not allowing vigilantes to issue them either.

"I didn't expect a violent confrontation where I would wind up killing the purse snatcher." Great. What exactly did you expect? You were thinking they would be so awed by your foot speed that they would give you the purse and ask for an autograph? No. You set out on the path of violence rather than trusting in the rule of law. Now, if you want to stand on "it was all just reflex" and convince the jury that the whole thing went down so fast that you had no opportunity to think about a more reasonable course than you are welcome to try it, but generally if you chase someone it is going to be very hard to prove you took all reasonable actions to avoid a deadly confrontation.

You have a better chance with the person smashing your windows with stones, because you can be pretty convincing when you say "I saw them and just immediately yelled stop...didn't really think about it at all." So, reasonable, at least that far. If they then throw a stone at you, and you pick it up and throw it back, unexpectedly hitting them in the head and killing them, you are going to have a much harder case to make. If they charge you immediately and there is no reason to think you have an opportunity to get away, feel free to kill them.

Because the law isn't about expectations, or escalations. The law is about reasonable opportunities to avoid, and whether you willfully ignored those opportunities.

 

[Ryika]

No it most certainly is not the same thing, because Trayvon didn't "steal Zimmerman's purse". Trayvon hadn't stolen anything, or committed any crimes whatsoever. And your hypothetical captures the problem exactly, which is that Trayvon's race, and Zimmerman's pre-existing prejudice towards Trayvon's race made Zimmerman conclude that he had in-fact stolen something or intended to. The problem is that since Trayvon was black, racial prejudice makes "stole my purse" implied. And this:

is just more of you doing the same thing... doing what Zimmerman did... ie skipping the factual reality that Trayvon was not commiting any crimes and assigning guilt just based on the fact that he was a black stranger. Trayvon had not "violently smased windows with stones" or "destroyed stuff" or "stolen from someone's shop"... but Zimmerman was stalking him anyway, for literally no reason except his own irrational racial prejudice.

Both examples were made to tackle Timsup2nothin's statement that because a person could have done things differently to avoid a confrontation, their right to self-defense in the immediate situation is now null and void.

That's not how it works (at least, again, in German law), you have to prove that prior actions were done with the goal of causing a situation where you have to use self-defense, or at least that that result was pretty much inevitable, and that the person using self-defense would have had to know that at the time that they decided to take those actions. This is simply not true in either case, neither the one of Zimmerman, not the two I provided as contrast.

Taking out all of the extra baggage of the Zimmerman case was not my trying to reframe the case, it is exactly the goal of my examples to focus only on parts of the entanglement that is the Zimmerman-case - they're not meant to be the same. They're meant to be more obvious cases to see whether there's a fundamental difference in ethics, or whether we're just interpreting the specific case differently. And looking at Timsup2nothin's newest post, they seem to have succeeded at showing that it's probably more of the former in the case of the discussion they were made in.

"I didn't expect a violent confrontation where I would wind up killing the purse snatcher." Great. What exactly did you expect? You were thinking they would be so awed by your foot speed that they would give you the purse and ask for an autograph? No. You set out on the path of violence rather than trusting in the rule of law. Now, if you want to stand on "it was all just reflex" and convince the jury that the whole thing went down so fast that you had no opportunity to think about a more reasonable course than you are welcome to try it, but generally if you chase someone it is going to be very hard to prove you took all reasonable actions to avoid a deadly confrontation.

Well, the expected outcome here I would say is to get your purse back. They may drop it when they realize you're catching up, but it might very well become a violent confrontation if they keep your purse and then initiate violence against you - "eigenverantwortliche Selbstgefährdung" at work again. The expected outcome is certainly not that you're thrown to the ground and put in a situation where you have to use lethal self-defense. It's possible, just as it's possible that you're killed without even having the chance to defend yourself, but those are not the expected outcomes.

But in the end this does indeed seem to be a difference in ethics, and I don't really see a way to breach that gap. There are benefits of both, less hurt people in the case of not allowing any action that could lead to harm, but at the same time you're severely limiting the people's options of helping themselves. Especially given that you're not going to get any compensation for that purse of yours that has just been stolen by the guy who you could be following but are not allowed to. I prefer letting innocent people help themselves than making sure people who have just committed crimes are not hurt. Of course, as we see in the Zimmerman case it doesn't always work out like that.

You have a better chance with the person smashing your windows with stones, because you can be pretty convincing when you say "I saw them and just immediately yelled stop...didn't really think about it at all." So, reasonable, at least that far. If they then throw a stone at you, and you pick it up and throw it back, unexpectedly hitting them in the head and killing them, you are going to have a much harder case to make. If they charge you immediately and there is no reason to think you have an opportunity to get away, feel free to kill them.

Yeah, but that's again about the actions you take in the immediate situation. You've had a rock thrown at you, in that situation, running into safety is an easy out, so committing an action that is meant to cause harm - because what else would that stone do? - is not self-defense. If you end up in a situation where you have to defend yourself because they're running at you, then the fact that you could have stayed silent, or could have run away before, does not invalidate the immediate danger that you can protect yourself from.

It's only when you stand there, yelling at them "Come at me, come at me!", then see them turning around and getting ready for the fight that's going to start a little later, when claiming self-defense doesn't work as a defense anymore.

 

[metalhead]

Is really not that hard to understand. "Are you in the process of receiving violence, or is there somebody trying to do violence to you?" Yes? Then you're in a situation where you can defend yourself with whatever means are necessary to stop that violence from happening. Being punched in the face by somebody who's sitting on top of you is clearly within that realm. Just having somebody follow you around is not.

Point of order, in Florida you are legally permitted to stand your ground. If someone is walking towards you, you have a legal right to stay where you are, and violently fend off the person if they get within arm's length. So someone following you is, in fact, a situation where violence, up to and including lethal violence, is fully justified under the law if they continue to walk towards you while you're standing still.

Setting the law aside, why would being stalked not be a legitimate reason for one to be fearful? People don't generally stalk other people for harmless reasons. Surely if Trayvon Martin skulking around is considered grounds for George Zimmerman to protect himself and his neighborhood, than G-Zimm skulking around near Trayvon Martin provides the same legitimate reason to be fearful for his own safety, right?

It seems like people defending George Zimmerman are trying to say he is justified in using force where Trayvon is not, even though both presumably were presented with the exact same thing - a person in their proximity, stalking around and being "suspicious."

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But in the end this does indeed seem to be a difference in ethics, and I don't really see a way to breach that gap. There are benefits of both, less hurt people in the case of not allowing any action that could lead to harm, but at the same time you're severely limiting the people's options of helping themselves. Especially given that you're not going to get any compensation for that purse of yours that has just been stolen by the guy who you could be following but are not allowed to. I am further on the ground of letting innocent people help themselves than making sure people who have just committed crimes are not hurt. Of course, as we see in the Zimmerman case it doesn't always work out like that.

Ethics is actually irrelevant to the drafting of law.

We can look at the intent of stand your ground laws. A good man shouldn't have to stand by and watch a criminal run off with a purse. A good man shouldn't have to swallow his pride and back down from an intimidating thug. That's all very fine, ethically, and I agree completely.

But in attempting to draft that into law you immediately hit an insurmountable obstacle, in that the law recognizes no such thing as a good man. The law has to be drafted to apply to all men. So the choice becomes whether to be overly restrictive of good men, or to allow latitude that bad men can exploit.

You were chasing the purse snatcher. I was chasing you because I saw someone running after a guy from the neighborhood and I'm the sort of thug who always looks for a scrap. If you are under no obligation to avoid a confrontation then neither am I. When someone winds up dead here it's extreme if you kill someone that was just a purse snatcher, and outright tragic if I kill you, the good guy. So we prefer our laws that prevent both those outcomes by making the chase a defining element in the crime. We don't have any practical alternative, ethical or not.