George Zimmerman, the guy who shot Trayvon Martin to death, says he’s a great guy but Obama’s a baddy. Or something.
Zimmerman lashed out in a 13-minute video posted online Monday by his lawyer. He said with the Justice Department investigation behind him, he finally felt he could speak out “without fear of retaliation” by the president.
Dude. You’re the one who followed Trayvon Martin for no reason, not Obama.
In the video, Zimmerman compared his ideals to those of Anne Frank, saying, “I still believe that people are truly good at heart, as Anne Frank has said, and I will put myself in any position to help another human in any way I can.”
So he’s saying that Trayvon Martin wasn’t another human? Because he can’t think he put himself in a position to help Trayvon Martin, now can he.
At any rate, he’s cool with it. He’s glad he “survived” and he doesn’t feel guilty that Trayvon didn’t, that is, that Trayvon died of being shot by him.
He said he would only feel guilty for Martin’s death if he thought he could have saved both Martin’s life and his own that night.
“Only in a true life or death scenario can you have mental clearness to know that you cannot feel guilty for surviving,” he said. “Had I had a fraction of the thought that I could have done something differently, acted differently so that both of us who survived, then I would have heavier weight on my shoulders. That sense in the back of my mind but in all fairness you cannot as a human feel guilty for living, for surviving.”
You can if you’ve killed someone for no reason. Sure you can.
That last statement of his is nearly incomprehensible; it’s nausea-inducing. I knew a girl in high school who accidentally killed someone while driving drunk. No amount of forgiveness from others could change the guilt she felt. She committed suicide. And that was for killing someone totally by accident. This asshole guns down a teenager, makes international headlines for it, and has a clean conscience? He’s like a walking example of the fact the world is unjust.
Oh, there was a reason.
Those were some suspicious-looking Skittles.
This seems to me a classic case of reducing cognitive dissonance. Zimmerman is holding contradictory thoughts in his head – that he is a good person (because really, who think’s they’re a bad person?) , that he killed someone and that good people don’t kill people. So to reduce the dissonance, he starts to justify in his mind why Martin deserved to be killed. This process would likely have started soon after the event, was reinforced by the court case and verdict and continues to this day.
There’s a good book on this subject – Mistake Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson which explains this rather better than I can.
“Had I had a fraction of the thought that I could have done something differently, acted differently so that both of us who survived…
For starters, how about following the directions for non-interaction you got from the police?
@2, Screechy Monkey:
That’s being far too kind to Zimmerman.
“That was a suspicious looking nigger” would be far more accurate.
Anthrosciguy:
Or maybe not assume the kid walking down the street is someone you need to even call the cops on.
Hasn’t anyone told him his 15 minutes are up?
Marcus@7:
As far as I’m concerned, Zimmerman’s 15 minutes will be up only once he makes a genuine apology for his actions or gets put behind bars. Sadly, I expect it will be the latter, and what’s sad about it is that it will only happen after he’s killed or seriously assaulted someone else.
#8 chrislawson
i.e. it will either happen involuntarily, or never happen.
Suggestion: don’t follow and then waylay random strangers (or not-so-random strangers that you target because of their race). He could indeed have “saved” i.e. not endangered (and, in Martin’s case, ended) both of their lives by doing this. So he should feel guilty unless he’s lying. (He’s lying.)
I mean, seriously, it’s really easy: I’ve managed to not stalk, not attempt to illegally detain, and then not gun down every single person I’ve ever seen. That has to be millions of people at this point, and it hasn’t been difficult to do any of those times.
15 minutes will be up only once he makes a genuine apology for his actions or gets put behind bars
To what degree are his subsequent actions conditioned by the media spotlight? Clearly, he’s willing to say some truly disgusting things if someone points a microphone at him. The spotlight is encouraging him and if he acts out more of his violent fantasies, I think it would have been better if the world gave him a stiff dose of STFU when his 15 minutes were up. The camera is a community reinforcement to his bad behavior, which was vindicated by his “not guilty” verdict. The best thing for everyone (including Zimmerman) would be to ignore him.
He said he would only feel guilty for Martin’s death if he thought he could have saved both Martin’s life and his own that night.
Did he ever think about staying in his car and calling 9-1-1? Or was he in vigilante mode that night?
I did Block Watch patrol in a rough area near downtown Phoenix … our “rules of engagement” were simple. Don’t engage!!!! Just take good mental notes and call 9-1-1 and if necessary, get out of there.