6. A Tragedy

On this April 1^st, this thread became hot on Google Plus. What's more interesting are the comments that follow: Many say that the truth may never be known. Others blame media for manipulating the tragic case.

We may not know the truth, yet, but from news reports and the published policy reports, audio and video recordings so far, we can get very close to imagining it: A rainy evening, a black teenager walking to his residence from a store, talking on the phone, with his hoodie up, saw a guy in white T-shirt following him. As any reasonable person in this situation would do, he started running away from the follower. He saw the guy starting to pursue him. He hid between houses, but then he was found by the follower. What happened next, happened fast -- People in the surroundings heard screaming and what could be the pursuer yelling help -- which ended with a gunshot and a dead teenager. The entire tragedy completed in less then 20 minutes. But the story obviously could not and should not end there.

At this point, I would not label the shooter a racist as that would deflect the discussion. But I could say, he obviously has strong opinions about those he perceived as bad guys. He probably thought that his life was in danger when he yelled help and then pulled out his gun. All that is not completely unreasonable.

But there are other things that people who defend the shooter seem to miss: He carries a gun in a residential neighborhood. I assume that he has thought about that and he is ready to use it when necessary. I can buy the argument that a law abiding citizen has the right to bear arms and all that. But to use it in a residential neighborhood anytime they perceive danger? I thought the police system is setup to do that, and in this case, the police was in the process of taking care of the situation as reported by the shooter. When the shooter decided to pursue the bad guy who looked like was running away, he obviously put all others in that same neighborhood as secondary to whatever he wanted to do. Listening to the lady on the phone with police with a voice shaken out of her control, I can not imagine the area as a war zone that requires people to carry guns to protect themselves. Neither do I understand the logic (if there is any) that the shooter has to pursue the teenager rather than letting the police handling the situation.

Those who say anything about the hoodie in their arguments, I have to assume that they are not serious or they do not think before they post their opinions. I myself have a few of them and I do see high school students wearing them all the time. I do not buy the argument that, from now on, I should be watching my back when I wear a particular piece of clothing.

I understand that law has no power against stupidity, but we should not have laws encouraging stupidity. The Florida stand your ground law seems to be one of those.

As for media manipulating the case, I would say that hey have not done enough in this case as they seem to have only found out about it almost a month after. This case is one tragedy too many already. But if we do not learn anything from it, more are bound to come.

4. Hanging in the Balance

Once again, the whole country is hanging in the balance. The welfare of most of the people is balanced on the nine wise people -- It's like Déjà vu all over again, twelve years later.

I don't deny that there are possibly some sincere people who are against the Affordable Care Act, but I have a hard time following their logic. Driving home in the evening, NPR reporting on the day's supreme court drama said one man actually suggested one could buy health insurance in the ER, or when health insurance is needed. That, to me, just shows the nutty-ness of the people arguing against the law.

Here is a paragraph from the NPR reporting:

Justice Scalia disagreed, suggesting that the health care regulations here were defined too broadly. "It may well be that everybody needs health care sooner or later, but not everybody needs a heart transplant, not everybody needs a liver transplant," he said. "...[e]verybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market. Therefore, you can make people buy broccoli."

I have heard that before. To put it delicately, I find that conclusion completely absurd. How does everybody is in the market for food lead to you can make people buy broccoli? Since when does broccoli become synonym for food?

Hard to believe that I actually finished listening to the entire session. I didn't expect it would be so much fun to listen to the supreme court either. The justices are pretty impressive, especially Chief Justice Roberts. He sounds very much balanced and composed in his questioning and statements. I do think some times they pretend to be old and dumb.

The arguments back and forth about whether the penalty part is or is not tax. It's funny to hear the government Solicitor General defending people who don't want to call it a tax, but in the mean time they are in fact exercising Congress' taxing power.

The real irony is that, many who are against the Act, who want the government out of their healthcare, like the woman in the NPR report, are actually on Medicare or Medicaid.

"Stupidity is a preexisting condition." -- Bill Maher

I guess he is right.