GeorgiaDon

Good article. Thanks for the link. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Would that include Skittles? Only if you're wearing a hoodie. OTOH, if you're wearing camo and a backwards baseball cap, it's buy one bag get another one free. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Here's an example of just that scenario. So it seems the answer is "yes", at least in Florida. By the way, I think the system got it right in this specific case. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Depends on the laws of your state, and is a question you need to be asking a lawyer certified to practice law in your state. This and this might help clarify things for you, but you still need to discuss it with a lawyer to make sure you're acting within the bounds of the law should you, God forbid, find yourself in that sort of situation. Interesting links, Mike, and everything stated there seems reasonable. No-one that I know would deny anyone the right to defend themselves under the conditions described in the links. However, it seems to me that SYG laws negate a major element of the conditions for self defense described in both links. In the first link, we find the concept of "Preclusion": "Preclusion is not so much an individual consideration as it is an all-encompassing lens through which to view your actions. More complex than the others, it is nevertheless just as important. It is the idea that, whatever the situation, you are expected to use force only as a last resort—that is, only when the circumstances preclude all other options. In other words, even when the ability, opportunity, and jeopardy criteria are satisfied, and knowing that you must clearly do something to protect yourself, the use of force, particularly lethal force, may only be that “something” if you have no other safe options." In the second link, we find "The Basic Standard: You may legally use deadly force only when there is an immediate and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent." SYG laws remove the legal requirement to retreat, or to take advantage of other non-lethal options to extricate yourself from the situation, or indeed to avoid the conflict in the first place if at all possible. Indeed, although one would be stupid to do this, it seems one could go to a biker bar at 2 in the morning, stand on the public sidewalk (where you have a right to be) and scream really offensive shit about bikers at the top of your lungs (free speech), then shoot the first person who makes a credibly threatening move towards you. Of course someone would be crazy to actually do that, but as has been stated in several threads here many times lately provoking the conflict doesn't count if you're looking to identify the instigator, all that matters is who threw the first punch, or first pulled out a knife or gun. People have always had a right to defend themselves, and to use lethal force when there is an immediate, credible threat to their life or limb and no safe alternatives are available. SYG laws go too far, in my opinion, in that they remove the requirement to take advantage of alternatives to lethal force, even if those alternatives are readily available, and in theory even allow one to provoke a deadly confrontation. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I wouldn't support such an amendment, as there is way too much scope for the law of unintended consequences. Even after Citizens United, I'm not sure there is a problem that needs solving, and I'm quite sure such a broad brush would raise more problems than it solves. Kind of like the Patriot Act. Corporations don't have all the rights of citizens, for example they can't vote (at least, not directly) and they can't be sent to prison, though they can be fined. If time reveals a serious problem with the consequences of Citizens United, surely a more focused remedy could be proposed. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Every eyewitness I have heard of in this case reports hearing/seeing the altercation when it was already in progress. No-one that I know of (apart from Zimmerman, who might be a little biased on the matter) has reported witnessing the start of the fight. If there is a credible witness who actually saw M attack Z, I'd like to know about it. All the eyewitnesses establish is that Z was getting the worse end of the fight. I don't know who started the fight, though it seems clear who initiated the chain of events that lead to M's death. I do not know which of them is legally responsible for what happened. I do hope the courts will be able to sort it out. Several of you seem to have decided that Z was in the right to shoot, simply because he was losing the fight (unless you have specific knowledge of who started the fight). Just for the sake of the "bigger picture", am I correct to believe that in your opinion a person who starts a confrontation is legally justified in resorting to deadly force if the fight goes against them, and at some point they start to feel their life is in danger? What that leads to is a situation where any belligerent asshole, knowing that they are carrying, can accost someone confident in the knowledge that they have an ace in the hole. The bigger picture is that if I find myself in a situation where I am walking somewhere I have a right to be, minding my own business, and some ass starts interrogating me, or even tries to detain me, I had better meekly acquiesce. Otherwise I could find myself dead, without any legal repercussions for the shooter. So where are my rights? Don't I have a right to go for a walk and, should it start to rain, pull up my hoodie to keep my head dry? Since when does that give anyone free rein to interrogate, detain, or even shoot me? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Just not marriage licenses. they were recognized across states until the politics around gay marriage popped up. It wasn't all that long ago that interracial marriages weren't recognized across stat lines. Certainly, within living memory for lots of people. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

And that's exactly correct in Florida and other states having similar "Right to Defend" laws. The final legal outcome depends on the actions of the dead private citizen before he got himself dead. I don't think it takes a judge or jury to decide that in all cases. If there are no witnesses, all the shooter has to do is make up a good story and he's home free. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning, but the phrase "...he got himself dead" suggests that you believe that in such situations the dead guy must have done something deserving of being killed in every case. Can you really not imagine any possible chain of events where the shooter initiated the attack, or overreacted to some completely innocent action? Police sometimes make mistakes and shoot the wrong person, and they are highly trained. In Georgia, no training, testing, or demonstration of any level of proficiency with firearms is needed to obtain a concealed carry permit. Why would anyone assume that highly trained police may make mistakes, but completely untrained private citizens will react correctly in every instance? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

You're making the large assumption that Zimmerman started the fist fight to base your argument on. Actually, Mike, I'm not making any assumption at all. I don't pretend to know who is legally culpable for starting the confrontation between Martin and Zimmerman, and I hope the courts will be able to sort it out. What I do know is that the argument that Zimmerman was justified in shooting simply on the grounds that he was losing the fight opens the door to all kinds of problems. What I'm saying is that if you start the fight, you are responsible for whatever happens. If you miscalculate and end up getting the shit beaten out of you, pulling out a gun and killing the other person is no longer self defense, it's manslaughter/murder. If you are arguing that simply being on the losing end of a fight is sufficient to justify resorting to deadly force, regardless of who started the fight, you open the door to legal murder. Under this scenario, if you're in competition with somebody for a job/promotion/girlfriend/whatever, all you'd have to do is walk up to them, punch them in the nose, wait for them to punch you in response, then you could legally kill them. I hope no-body would find that to be an acceptable situation. So, if you start a fight, it goes badly, and you find your head being bashed into the concrete, your choices should be to take your lumps or, if you really believe you're going to die and have no choice, use your gun while recognizing that you're choosing to live but it'll be in prison. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Bill Janklow, a South Dakota politician, was convicted of manslaughter based in part on data from a black box. He ran a stop sign, traveling at 63-64 mph, and hit and killed a motorcyclist, who was traveling on the cross road and did not have a stop sign. I'm sure there are other examples, but yes data from black boxes has been used in court. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Wouldn't that depend on whether or not you started the altercation in the first place? It seems to me that's the only germane issue here, and it's up to the courts (not the press, or public opinion) to determine who started what, if that can even be determined at this point. An interpretation of the law that says anyone can pick a fight, then resort to lethal force if things start to go badly, would absolutely turn "stand your ground" into "make my day". I'm glad Zimmerman got a reasonable bail, as I doubt he's any danger to the public at this point and there is some significant chance the charges won't be provable in the long run. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Leaving aside for the moment the issue of Steve Milloy's well-known role as a hack/lobbyist for the tobacco/dirty fossil fuel/well-heeled dirty industry du jour, the "experiments" talked about in the piece seem so poorly designed as to be almost certain to fail to show anything of interest. Particulate pollution is a problem in chronic exposure, over a long period of time, especially for people with aggravating conditions such as asthma or emphysema. You wouldn't expect symptoms from an acute exposure of only a few hours, in healthy volunteers, unless you used a completely unrealistically high dose. The acceptable thresholds for any pollutant are always set well below the lowest level that produced any effect in human or animal trials, to account for the fact that some people in the general population will be much more sensitive than others. It would be unethical to set a threshold at a level that you knew in advance would cause disease in 5%, or even 1%, of the population. So, an experiment where healthy subjects are exposed to 10X the acceptable threshold should not cause any effect, if the threshold is set appropriately. I'd like to know what these experiments were actually about. It seems to me they were either poorly designed, or they were measuring something else and they are being "spun" by junkscience.com to fit an agenda. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

And here I thought shrinkage was what you got from swimming in cold water. I'm always learning new things here in SC. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Are you and he related? Rush, I believe your ability to comprehend what's been written is truly remarkable. I'm nearly certain you believe you understand the situation, but judging from what you've written I'm nearly certain it has eluded you. You posted of speaking in absolutes My point is dead on arrival Fixed it for you. You're welcome. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Yup, you put a lot of stock into a twitter account, but discount Zimmerman's prior arrest record. And you put a lot of stock in an arrest that resulted in dropped charges, while discounting evidence against Martin. As has been pointed out to you before, charges against Zimmerman were NOT dropped. As a first time offender, he was allowed to enter into a pre-diversion program. Details of such programs in Florida are given here. If the defendant successfully completes a program of counseling, monitoring for drug use, and community service, charges are dismissed. This program is a "second chance" for qualifying defendants following their first arrest, but it is completely disingenuous to describe the program as "charges were dropped". By just asserting that "charges were dropped", you are obviously trying to imply that the arrest was without merit, and whitewash the fact that Zimmerman had to complete a period of court supervision/counseling/community service. All part and parcel of your campaign to portray Zimmerman as the choir-boy victim of a senseless unprovoked attack by Martin as Martin returned from his quest to load up on Skittles and iced tea drugs. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Numerous people were making money off of Trayvon's name, for example by making/selling T-shirts. My understanding is that Trayvon's parents wanted to put a stop to such exploitative behavior, and to do that they had to have legal control (copyright) of the name. Sorry if that explanation doesn't fit with your program of retroactively demonizing Trayvon and his family/sympathizers, but it makes more sense to me than your model of parents who see their son's death as nothing but an opportunity for commercial gain. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Skittles being street slang for Ecstacy. You have any proof of that? Otherwise, that's an exceptionally contemptible comment, even considering the source. Don Beg pardon - it's slang for drugs containing Coricidin, not Ecstasy. Google is your friend, maybe you should have utilized it before your oh-so-faux outrage? Nice stealth PA with the 'even considering the source', though. Funny how Bill completely ignoring Martin's attack on Zimmerman is below your level of consideration in that regard. Cordicidin, ecstacy, whatever, that's a deflection and you know it. Do you have any proof that Martin was out buying drugs, of any variety? Why is there nothing about finding such drugs on his body in the police report? This is just part and parcel of the effort to paint Martin as someone who deserved/needed killing. It's a despicable, contemptible effort to whitewash a killing that was by any measure tragic and unnecessary. There is no evidence showing that Martin attacked Zimmerman. Witnesses observed them fighting, but not who started the confrontation. It might have been Martin, or it might have been Zimmerman. We do know that Zimmerman made unwarranted assumptions that Martin was "high on drugs"and an "asshole who always gets away with it", and initiated a pursuit of Martin based on his assumptions. Clearly Zimmerman started the chain of events that lead to Martin's death. Whether or not he is legally culpable will be up to the investigators, and perhaps a jury. But how can you complain about Bill ignoring something that has not been demonstrated to be true? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Skittles being street slang for Ecstacy. You have any proof of that? Otherwise, that's an exceptionally contemptible comment, even considering the source. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Oh I know, it's just funnier the other way. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

that's subjective - Yes, it is, isn't it. And that seems to be a big part of the problem with the law. In legal terms, a subjective belief is the actual belief held by the individual in question. In the case we are talking about, the subjective belief would be what Zimmerman actually believed at the time. The reasonable belief is judged on an objective standard. What would a clear-thinking, rational person in Zimmerman's place believe? In order to assert "stand your ground," one's belief that one is in danger has to be reasonable. So here, Zimmerman's subjective belief doesn't matter. The question is, what would a rational person in his situation believe? It seems, though, that in practice the issue of "reasonableness" is in the hands of one judge, and there is a lot of latitude given by some judges. Here are some recent controversial cases (source here): "Last week, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom used the law to dismiss a murder charge against a man who chased down a thief and stabbed him to death. Greyston Garcia had pursued Pedro Roteta for more than a block before stabbing him on January 25. When Garcia caught up with him, Roteta swung the bag and as Garcia blocked the bag with his arm, he stabbed Roteta with a single, fatal knife thrust to the chest. Garcia had claimed that Roteta had a screwdriver in his hand. Garcia’s defense attorney also said Roteta had an open pocket knife in his hand during the chase. However, police found a folded-up knife in the dead man’s pocket. Bloom wrote that a “medical examiner conceded that a 4-6 pound bag of metal being swung at one’s head would lead to serious bodily injury or death.” She said that although the confrontation was captured on video surveillance, the images were too grainy to clearly tell what happened. Garcia did not call police or 911, but went home and fell asleep. He later sold two of the car radios and hid the knife. He initially denied involvement to police until the video surveillance was shown to him. Prosecutors were stunned by the judge’s ruling. So was Miami police Sgt. Ervens Ford, who headed up the homicide investigation. He told The Herald’s David Ovalle that Judge Bloom’s decision was a “travesty of justice.” Miami-Dade Chief Assistant State Attorney Kathleen Hoague said her office would appeal the decision because “we feel the judge abused her discretion.” “The law does not allow for you to use deadly force to retrieve your property. She, in effect, is saying that it’s appropriate to chase someone down with a knife to get property back,” said Hoague, who stressed that a jury should weigh the merits of the case. Despite this judge’s decision, Rep. Dennis Baxley, who sponsored ‘Stand Your Ground’ in 2005, claims that “there’s nothing in the statute that provides for any kind of aggressive action, in terms of pursuit and confront.” Another one: "In 2009, a drug deal gone wrong led to a dangerous car chase through Miami streets. Anthony Gonzalez Jr., aka “White Boy,” shot the driver of the car he was pursuing but the case never went to trial. Gonzalez was deemed acting under the permissive parameters of the ‘Stand Your Ground’ doctrine." How about being shot at for just doing your job: "Two workers wearing blue shirts and pith helmets were shot at as they went to switch off a mobile home owner’s electricity. The Judge “following the dictates of Stand Your Ground,” decided that the shooter’s claim that he feared for his life was not unreasonable. Two counts of armed assault and one count of improper exhibition of a firearm were dismissed." A bit on the history of the law: "The Stand Your Ground law was passed in 2005 based on just one case, that of 77-year-old James Workman who shot and killed an intruder in his hurricane-ravaged home. He was never charged because of the existing legal concept known as the “Castle Doctrine.” However, the NRA used the case to push for a new law which dramatically expanded the right to use deadly force almost anywhere a person feels ‘reasonably threatened.’ So in the above cases, we see that it is not necessary for there to be a confrontation involving physical contact for "stand your ground" to be applied. Drug dealers can pursue, shoot, and kill their clients. You can stop paying your electricity/water, then shoot the service guys when they come to disconnect your service. It is clear that you can pursue someone, instigate a confrontation, and then kill them. Maybe this wasn't the intent of the law, but it seems to be how it is playing out. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'd say that's a bit excessive! Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

You mean like when Dems blamed Bush? I don't recall Obama starting gratuitous wars that destabilized Middle East oil supplies, maybe I slept through that. But in general, yes, both sides will use whatever they can to attack the other, and savvy voters will reject the political pablum they are being force fed and look for the real causes behind such events. No-one with an ounce of sense believes the President, or anyone else, has a magic decoder ring that can instantly produce $2 gas, 0% unemployment, or $0 national debt. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'm curious if you actually read the article you linked. Some relevant quotes from the article: "according to scientists and petroleum companies, much of it cannot be recovered with current technology due to the costly processing involved and the depth of the deposits buried beneath the Rocky Mountains." "But even with modern technology, the difficulties associated with extracting and processing shale oil have forced even some of the largest oil companies to drop out of the game." So, this is not a resource that is ever going to be competitive against more traditional resources that can be pumped directly from the ground, as Middle East oil can be. To get at it, you'll literally have to strip-mine most of the land area of Wyoming/Colorado/etc, even to the point of digging up the Rocky Mountains. Then all that rock has to be cooked at high temperature/pressure to extract a petroleum that is inferior to most of the oil that can be pumped from conventional reserves. And, all the extracted rock will then have to be dumped somewhere, maybe covering up another state or two. Another serious issue is water supply. Shale oil is exposed at the surface in some of the most arid areas in the US (Colorado/Wyoming/Utah), yet each barrel of extracted oil requires at least 10 barrels of water for extraction and processing. In most of the area, even if the shale oil plants took all of the available water, leaving nothing for the local population to drink or use for agriculture, it wouldn't be enough to support an economically viable level of production. If so many of the big oil companies are getting out of the business, maybe that's a signal that this isn't something that can be made cost-competitive with a "little american enginuity". I'm sure those companies are not lacking in American ingenuity. You should also consider that if you are going to factor shale oil into the size of US reserves, for any meaningful comparison to be made you have to factor it into reserves for the rest of the world too. It is therefore interesting that "Large deposits of shale oil are also not unique to the United States. In fact, there are huge reserves of the substance all around the world, from China to Australia to Scotland to South Africa. But, once again, the problem rests with the expense of getting to it and processing it". Shale oil will be economically viable one day, when conventional reserves are close to exhaustion and we're acclimated to $40/gallon gas. It will still be an ecological disaster, though, to exploit it on a scale that would allow it to be burned as fuel, as opposed to used as raw material for plastics and other chemical production. I find it interesting that some people are so philosophically opposed to anything like "green technology" that they would prefer large scale destruction of the landscape (that's a general comment regarding oil addiction, I know you didn't specifically say that). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

The price of oil (and so of gas) is set by the world market. Oil companies are under no obligation to make oil available to the US market at below-market prices, even if that oil originated from a US source. Once they extract it, they can sell to whomever offers the best price. Besides that, US oil production is at the highest level in 8 years, and the storage facilities are full to capacity, leading to a boom in construction of new storage tanks. In Cushing, OK storage capacity has increased from 26 million barrels in 2005 to 65 million barrels today, and 125 new tanks are under construction. If your statement that gas prices are determined by oil production is true, why are gas prices not at an 8-year low? The only way US production could significantly lower prices at the pump would be if: 1) US production could have such an impact on global demand as to drive global prices for oil down, or: 2) the government would legislate restrictions so US-produced oil could only be sold here. The first is essentially impossible, as US reserves are only 2% of the world total, and entities such as OPEC would simply defend the price by lowering their production to compensate for increased US production. As a result, US reserves would be depleted faster, and would be sold for less money, while the OPEC nations could make the same amount of money from selling less oil, and conserve their reserves to sell later at an even higher price. The second strategy would be rather anti-capitalist, to say the least. I'd be very surprised to learn you were in favor of government mandated price controls on the oil industry (or anything else). In reality, the current price spike is being driven by speculators capitalizing on fears that an Iran/Israel/US conflict would disrupt oil supplies coming through the Strait of Hormuz. The easiest route to lower prices would be to deflate tensions by curtailing the saber rattling and seriously pursuing a diplomatic solution. Of course, that wouldn't be in the interests of our current crop of Republican candidates-in-waiting, who are falling all over each other to show who can be the biggest militarist hawk (Ron Paul being the only exception). The tactic of blaming the government (i.e. Obama) for gas prices is a transparent Republican election ploy, entirely without factual merit but nevertheless appealing to those for whom stimulus/response is the limit of their capacity for critical thought. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Congratulations, and best wishes for continued happiness for you and yours. Eventually the US will join the civilized world, but past history indicates they're slow learners. Change is in the air, though. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)