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Open thread July 16, 2013

Dan Crawford | July 16, 2013 12:45 pm

Tags: open thread Comments (10) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
10 Comments
  • Juan says:
    July 16, 2013 at 6:23 pm

    No comments [yet] deserves this ‘how low can we go’ chart from HedgeWorld –

    Reserve Balances at US Fed, USD Billions [2005-2013]

    http://www.hedgeworld.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/md-20130625-monetary-spigots-are-still-open.jpg

  • run75441 says:
    July 17, 2013 at 6:06 am

    “It’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods,”

    Holder said in a speech to the NAACP in which he again called the death of Trayvon Martin “unnecessary.”

    “These laws try to fix something that was never broken,”

    he said.

    On Tuesday Attorney General Eric Holder took issue with the so-called ‘Stand Your Ground’-type of laws during a speech at the NAACP Annual Convention in Orlando. Meanwhile, demonstrations over the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial continued, with one protest in Los Angeles turning violent on Monday night. NBC’s Ron Mott reports.

    “There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if — and the ‘if’ is important — if no safe retreat is available. But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely.”

    “By allowing — and perhaps encouraging — violent situations to escalate in public — such laws undermine public safety. The list of resulting tragedies is long and, unfortunately, has victimized too many who are innocent.

    It is our collective obligation. We must ‘stand our ground’ to ensure that our laws reduce violence and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent.”

    Eric Holder in a speech to the NAACP

    Kind of makes sense. It is best to retreat rather than risk all in a confrontation.

  • save_the_rustbelt says:
    July 17, 2013 at 8:36 am

    Stand your ground developed as a counter to the idiot notion that I must retreat from my own home, and if I don’t the burden is on me to prove that defending my family was justified.

    One extreme created another.

  • coberly says:
    July 17, 2013 at 11:48 am

    There you have it folks.

    run and rusty illustrating why we can’t “all just get along.”

    so let me add to the hate and disconnect.

    i am pretty well convinced that anyone, including me, who carries a gun is a fool.

    i would be much happier if none of my neighbors had guns.

    but the second is not going to happen, and

    in the event that one day i was foolish enough to think i would be “safer” if i carried a gun in some particular circumstance, i would prefer not to be subject to arrest and imprisonment.

    based on everything i know, including personal experience, i’d rather take my chances on my own foolishness, and that of my neighbors, than create more opportunities to have to rely on the wisdom of the law.

  • coberly says:
    July 17, 2013 at 11:57 am

    Frankly, I’d rather not find myself on the side of Eric Holder,who really doesn’t give a damn about Trayvon Martin, but knows where he can milk some votes.

    Those of you who are convinced, and i may be one of you, that injustice was done in the case of Trayvon, and the Martin trial, ought really to be asking yourself why you expect better justice from another law… or another conviction.

    As one of our readers pointed out “self defense” did not work for a woman who shot her abusive boyfriend. Our reader sees that as part of a pattern of sexism and racism in the law. I’m not so sure it wasn’t just another example, probably, of how the law routinely gets it wrong … in at least some cases. where some is more than enough.

    apparently Jimmy Carter has weighed in on this. I don’t have the time or means to watch the video, but i’d be interest to hear about what he said.

  • coberly says:
    July 17, 2013 at 12:01 pm

    sorry, another brain-typo: i should have said the zimmerman trial.

    and while i’m at, convicting zimmerman would not bring martin back to life, and letting him walk is not the worst injustice our justice system has perpetrated in the last… oh, three minutes.

    will this give the go ahead to more vigilantes to kill black men they are afraid of. probably, but i’ll still look for better answers to that than those on offer.

  • run75441 says:
    July 17, 2013 at 12:42 pm

    STB:

    So you can pull you pistol, for you that might be a “gun,” and shoot yourself in excitment and have it taken away? Or miss your shot and shoot through walls of your house into the house next door? I know you fear of Detroit; but, I do not believe the people there care much about you.

    Coberly:

    You may not like the man; but, the words make sense.

  • Jack says:
    July 17, 2013 at 7:17 pm

    “…. as a counter to the idiot notion that I must retreat from my own home, and if I don’t the burden is on me to prove that defending my family was justified.” SRB

    No Rusty, its not an idiotic notion that one should have to give evidence that the plea of self defense was valid. No, the laws concerning self defense never required that the individual run from their home, their castle. What is idiotic is that Zimmerman was able to plead self defense without having to testify under oath about the circumstances that support a plea of self defense. So we have a stalker with a gun confronting an individual who was not breaking any law nor threatening anyone including the stalker. That individual was threatened by the stalker and may or may not have reacted in the manner described. There appears to be conflicting testimony on that point. What is not uncertain is that a stalker, told not to confront, instead approaches an unarmed person engaged in the act of walking home and shoots him. That’s self defense? That is a “stand your ground” situation.? Only an ass would interpret the situation as such. Zimmerman committed a murder and was able to cop a bogus plea. There are no complications in this scenario.

  • Jack says:
    July 17, 2013 at 7:23 pm

    “Ohio Kidnapping, Rape Suspect Ariel Castro Pleads Not Guilty”

    Castro will claim self defense. He was standing his ground when he was attacked by each of the three young women who apparently were desperate for his individual attention.

    When all else fails and you have no where to turn plead self defense, the devil made me do it.

  • coberly says:
    July 17, 2013 at 7:37 pm

    run

    of course the words make sense. these people are experts at making the words make sense to their target audience.

    in the zimmerman trial the defense attorney, apparently with the help of the prosecutor, “made sense” to the jury that z acted in self defense.

    i incline to jack’s view, and the view that the prosecutor didn’t want to get a guilty verdict but had to prosecute for political reasons.

    the thing to keep in mind is that the racists and the inside-out racists live on “making sense” to their constituents. and they can just as easily get a conviction when they want one. i’d rather not give them aid and comfort.

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