I’ve been thinking about the Zimmerman trial as it proceeds and I’ve come to the conclusion that George Zimmerman is most likely going to be acquitted.  Now, I’m going to come right out and admit that I don’t think he SHOULD be acquitted.  I think he murdered Travon Martin.  I’ll explain why in a moment.  But the DA in Florida – the one who didn’t want to charge Mr. Zimmerman in the first place – seems to have turned this whole thing into a show trial.  I think he “over-charged” Mr. Zimmerman, knowing the burden of proof was higher – too high to be achieved.

For the most part, my sources on this situation are the same as have been available to everyone else.  As we all know, the media in America have become such a poor showing of corporate protection, misinformation, propaganda, and ‘celebrities-doing-what’ distractions that anyone paying attention knows better than to trust anything that comes out of it.  Still, I use two bits of (admittedly unverifiable) information to come to my conclusion: One, a “transcript” of an interview Mr. Zimmerman allegedly gave to police after the shooting and two, a video of Mr. Zimmerman doing a walk-through with police the day after the shooting and – according to Greta Van Susteren – before any lawyers were hired.  BOTH sources offer what is to me, the all important moment that turned a simple misunderstanding into manslaughter.

Honestly, I don’t have any problem with Mr. Zimmerman following Mr. Martin.  As part of the neighborhood watch, it seems it was within his purview to do so.  But, for me, the critical idea comes from the reality that Mr. Martin became aware he was being followed and to HIS point of view, “followed” quickly became “stalked”.  This, in turn, initiated the very human “fight or flight” response and the information I’ve seen suggests that Mr. Martin wasn’t a “flight” kind of guy…

According to both of the aforementioned sources, Mr. Zimmerman indicates that Mr. Martin at some point approached Mr. Zimmerman’s truck.  According to the written “transcript”, Mr. Zimmerman says Mr. Martin knocked on Mr. Zimmerman’s window.  When Zimmerman rolled down his window Martin demanded, “Why are you following me?”  Zimmerman replied, “I’m not”.

In the video walk-through of the events created the day after the shooting, the verbal exchange is not reported but Mr. Zimmerman makes clear that Mr. Martin approached the truck.  In the video, Mr. Zimmerman explains that Mr. Martin circled the truck then moved off in the same general direction he had been traveling previously.  Either way, THAT, to me, is the critical moment.

Even if there were no verbal exchange, Mr. Martin had made clear that he was aware of Mr. Zimmerman’s presence by approaching and circling the truck.  In that moment, Mr. Zimmerman had an opportunity – no, an obligation – to diffuse the situation by explaining that he was with the neighborhood watch and he (Zimmerman) didn’t know who he (Martin) was.  Sure, Mr. Martin could have become angry or even pseudo-outraged that he had been racially profiled but he would have known that he was not in danger.

To me, that’s the critical moment…and the failure is Mr. Zimmerman’s.  Now, I say again, my sources are all from the media and I have no way of knowing what’s actually happening in the courtroom.  If that detail is wrong, I would have to reassess my position but it seems clear from most accounts that at some point, Mr. Martin doubled back to confront/identify the guy who was following him and there are no indicators that Mr. Zimmerman identified or explained himself.  This failure exacerbated the situation and led directly to the shooting a few minutes later.

But it “only” rises to the level of Manslaughter, defined as killing without malice aforethought, not Second Degree Murder – an assault in which the death of the victim was a distinct possibility.  If media reports are to be believed (and they’re not) the arresting officer intended to charge Mr. Zimmerman with Manslaughter.  So, why did the D.A. up the ante with a charge of Second Degree Murder?

I’ll tell you this: The D.A. will henceforth insist that he was trying to “throw the book” at Zimmerman and stubbornly reject the notion that he intentionally sabotaged his own case by setting the too-high-a-burden standard, but no matter how I run it in my mind, it always comes back to SOME variation of: the DA wanted Zimmerman to walk free…

Recently, I’ve seen an increase in the assertion that Americans don’t enjoy a right to health care.  I’ll stipulate that I don’t see anywhere in the Bill of Rights any kind of statement that says anything like, “All Americans have a right to health care”, ok?  Agreed.  But don’t jump to the end.

Starting at the beginning of the Constitution, one discovers the founders expressed their opinion about why this new government should exist in the first place.  They defined, in general terms, their vision of the most basic responsibilities of government.  They wrote:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the general Welfare (emphasis added), and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Only 26 words into the document it says: “…promote the general Welfare…”

I started thinking about the word “Welfare” as it might have been understood in the late 18^th century – as opposed to today’s social safety net.  Checking my (admittedly not 18^th century) dictionaries, I found that my American Heritage Dictionary defines welfare as “Health, happiness, and general well-being”.

I turned next to the Internet and the Oxford English Dictionary.  OED is one of the most respected dictionaries of the English language.  Ok, they charge for access so I looked at the Compact Oxford English Dictionary online.  They define “welfare” as “the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group”.

Turns out, one can’t define welfare – as it relates to the human condition – without including health.  Well, in fairness, Webster’s tries.  They leave out ‘health’ and put in ‘well-being’ but when you look up ‘well-being’ in the same dictionary, it specifically includes “the state of being…healthy…”

The Founders were a clever group of guys with a solid command of the English language.  I think they knew what the word ‘welfare’ meant when they wrote “promote the general Welfare”.  They could have written, “promote the general health, happiness and general well-being” but they didn’t need to.  There’s a word for that: welfare.

If one plans to take the position that Americans don’t have a “right” to health care since such a right is not clearly delineated in the Bill of Rights, then one must simultaneously argue that one does not enjoy a right to vote.  Voting, after all, is not spelled out in the Bill of Rights, either.

But whether or not one defines health care as a “right”, certainly the Founders described it as a fundamental function of government.  Without question, I have the right to expect my government to perform its most basic functions.

Do you ever play video games?  In some games, the programmers include the possibility for the player to create a character.  Commonly, the game establishes a list of attributes important to success in the game and then allows the player to distribute some kind of “attribute points” – for lack of a better name – among the pre-determined categories.  Often, as the game progresses the player acquires more attribute points to add to character attributes.

If someone (with more time than sense) were to collect every character ever created for a given game, that person could easily see groups of players that emphasized a certain attribute.  The odds that the point distribution would be identical among created players is probably pretty low but it would still be possible to discern general strengths and weakness and sort them by group.

On a much more complex level, I think it’s a good way to think of how human beings are created.  We all start out with pretty much the same “categories” and we all start out with a given number of “attribute points” that DNA “distributes” randomly for us.  Then, we can add to various attributes or allow them to wither depending on what we do as people, er, “players”.

It’s important to note that “different” and “better” are not the same thing.  In the game, “Strength” might provide one game experience and “Magic” another but neither is necessarily “better”…they’re just “different”.

It might be beneficial to our society to start sorting people according to their most identifiable, though generalized, group.  This is not about starting some kind of caste system, though.  It’s just an identifier.  It would be helpful for other people to know who belonged in which group.

For example, I’ve long held that the character set that makes a good cop a good cop also makes for a poor choice of spouse.  Now, I’m not ripping on cops.  Our society needs them and I’m glad they’re there.  But good cops are people with high self confidence in their own judgment.  They’re not prone to buy sob stories and they don’t compromise.  They respond to their own determinations and let the courts worry about nuance.

But nuance and compromise are the very core of marriage.  See?  The character set that makes a good cop conflicts with the character set that makes a good spouse.  (Certainly there will be some number of people with “attribute distribution” that allows them to move seamlessly between the two disparate roles, but I think this would be a very small number of people, indeed.)

Knowing one’s own group could help someone avoid mistakes in life.  Knowing someone else’s group could help society direct people into fields in which they could excel and probably enjoy.  The value is two-fold: a kid displaying the attributes of a good cop could be introduced to the idea of police work.  (The child still gets to choose, of course.)   A person seeking an understanding life-partner might know to avoid cops.  Fewer divorces. Conversely, knowing someone’s group could dictate when their input has value and when…not so much…

I recently became aware of an “attribute distribution” that I would never have guessed would exist…but it does.  I call them “true believers”.  We all know one or more.  They gravitate toward fundamentalist religion and/or the neo-conservative movement but the predominant characteristic isn’t so much WHAT they believe.  It’s more THAT they believe…because they believe in spite of available evidence.

True believers have made a decision and seek information that supports their decision.  They disregard information that conflicts with their decision.  Facts and logical thought are unimportant – detriments, even – to their preferred position.  Now, let me be clear.  I’m not talking about intelligence or capability.  There are certainly plenty of true believers who are incredibly intelligent and/or talented.

But since these people have no use for fact-based information that doesn’t serve them directly, there’s no way to debate them.  There’s no benefit to discussion with them.  There’s no way to improve their understanding of issues facing the nation.  They already know what they know and they will not – sometimes forcefully will not – update what they “know” based on mere “facts”.

I’m not saying these people have no value, at all, in any field.  But governing a nation requires the ability to make actual life-affecting decisions based upon actual events, viewed in the context of testable reality.  When you want to figure out how to get to the moon, you bring in people strong in math and science.  When you want a new hit movie, you bring in people strong in language skills.  When you need to govern a nation, you bring in the pragmatic, not the true believers.

True believers are uniquely unqualified for the role.  Yes, of course, they have a right to their opinions.  Of course, they have a right to express those opinions.  But the rest of us have an obligation to sort of pat them on the head, thank them for their input, then ignore them and go about the business of improving society.

To be sure, they won’t understand.  They can’t.  But we, the people, are currently sifting through the wreckage of “governance by true belief”.  It’s time to return government to a fact-based institution operating in a fact-based world…