Soap Box

I have been taking a few days vacation and have not been keeping abreast of current events very well and don't really know much about George Zimmerman's murder trial, except that both sides have made their closing arguments and that the jury is now deliberating.

I have however seen enough to know there is a state of tension in the state of Florida and around the country about the outcome.

The conventional thinking seems to be that if the jury declares Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin there will be riots in protest of the verdict.

Now I don't know if Zimmerman is guilty or innocent, and my own opinion is that he pushed what should have been a benign situation too far and ended up having to defend himself with deadly force, which according to Florida law is legal.

If that is the case, it is an understandable, albeit tragic situation. If the jury sees it in that light, there is a good chance that Zimmerman could walk or at the very very least receive a much more lenient sentence than those who oppose him think he should, and here in lies the problem and the danger as there are always a few troublemakers waiting in the wings to fan the flames of hatred and let a dangerous and irresponsible genie out of the bottle.

Look at Los Angeles in the wake of the Rodney King beating verdict. How many totally innocent people still wear the scars of violence of blind mobs? How many privately owned businesses were destroyed, how many productive citizens moved themselves and their income out, never to return, further impoverishing the area?

The Trayvon Martin killing has unfortunately provided some self-seeking politicians the opportunity to inflame the situation with careless rhetoric that got national media coverage. Remarks like "Trayvon was hunted and shot down on the street like a dog" as Rep. Frederica Wilson put it, only served to fan an already hot racial situation and even president Obama weighed in with the "If I had a son he'd look like Trayvon" remark which did nothing to help defuse the situation, and all this said before the facts of the case were fully known.

A rush to judgment by the media who were painted into a politically correct corner because the perpetrator and the victim were both members of minorities, so they coined a new term "white Hispanic" to describe Zimmerman who, for the most part, they have tried and found guilty in their coverage.

Sensible Americans everywhere are holding their breath and hoping that whatever the result of the trial, whatever verdict the jury delivers, it will be accepted by both sides of this issue as the judicial system working, and regardless of the punishment meted out, go about the business of making sure it doesn't happen again, which would be a fitting memorial to the memory of Trayvon Martin.

I personally think this is a situation that never should nave happened, and wouldn't have had cooler heads prevailed and walked away from what seems to have quickly evolved into a dangerous situation for both parties.

Unfortunately it did happen and now we have to deal with the aftermath, which will cause a lot of pain no matter which way the verdict goes.

The law is the difference between living in the jungle and living in civilization. In civilized society we either accept the law or change it, not by violence but by legislation.

Let's all hope and pray the law of the jungle doesn't prevail here. We've had enough senseless blood spilled.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels​