First and foremost let me say that I think that George Zimmerman should have been convicted of manslaughter back in July of this year. As I stated on my previous post right after his verdict,
CNN explains, “ To convict Zimmerman of manslaughter, jurors would have had to believe he ‘intentionally committed an act or acts that caused the death of Trayvon Martin.’” George Zimmerman intentionally left his car and followed Martin, even after the 911 police dispatcher told him, “We don’t need you to do that.” So, yes, he intentionally committed an act that caused the death of Trayvon Martin. Simply put, there is no denying that Zimmerman’s decision to leave his car, carrying a gun, initiated the string of events that led to Martin’s death.
Since that verdict, Zimmerman has had several brushes with the law. The latest one has resulted in his incarceration for aggravated assault, battery with domestic violence and criminal mischief, after his girlfriend called 911 to report that Zimmerman was breaking furniture and pointing a shotgun at her face.
It is clear that Zimmerman is unhinged. What is not clear is why. Is it because what really happened the night that he shot Trayvon Martin is weighing heavily on him because he, literally, got away with murder? Is it because he knows that had he followed the 911 dispatcher’s advice and stayed in his car, a young man would still be alive today?
Or is it anger that the media painted him as a racist and that he will never be able to shed that label? Personally, I don’t think that George Zimmerman is a racist or that he shot Trayvon Martin because he was black. I think that he delusionally saw himself as a law enforcer of some kind that led him to act out a cop-in-pursuit fantasy. Unfortunately, that delusion cost Trayvon Martin his life.
If what’s driving Zimmerman is guilt, then it means that he has a conscience. It must be terrible to have the death of a 17-year old teenager on his hands, no matter what the circumstances. If, on the other hand, Zimmerman’s behavior is derived from the fact that he is a “ticking time bomb” (as Steve Bracknell, the Lake Mary police chief believes), then his reported anger management issues are real and need to be addressed.
In either case, even though I’m entirely against his behavior on the night of Trayvon Martin’s shooting and thereafter; even though I think that he should have been convicted of manslaughter, I have a higher opinion of George Zimmerman than I do of today’s GOP. That’s shocking even to me. But, let me explain.
On the one hand, GOP’ers have shown no guilt, no regret, no conscience after pursuing an anti-Obama agenda since 2008 that has paralyzed our government and hurt millions of Americans. If anything, they’ve gotten more extreme with time. On the other hand, their behavior is not caused by any kind of insanity, even though we all know they’ve been acting crazy. Theirs is a deliberate, malicious, obstructionist strategy ignited by Mitch McConnell, fed by the tea party and tolerated by the majority of the GOP, to damage President Obama’s presidency, no matter what the cost. See my point?
Now, you might find it strange that I’m comparing Zimmerman to the GOP, but after a Republican Congressman compared Obamacare to chlamydia, the field is wide open. Don’t you think?
