At least one of the reports/video clips about rioting, allegedly in Miami, which in my last post I suggested was phony, have been confirmed to be fake.

From The Daily Sheeple:

“According to Canada.com, however, the video clip is actually not in Miami, but Vancouver, Canada and was shot in 2011.

The video, first uploaded to YouTube and later reposted at World Star Hip Hop, was shared tens of thousands of times on Saturday night. However, the video actually depicted part of the 2011 Vancouver riots, which shook that city following the Vancouver Canucks’ loss to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals.

Most Canadians would have recognized the video’s location immediately since whoever shot the original footage mentions Vancouver’s Granville Street, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and suggests the police should go “all Dzieka?ski” on the rioters — a reference to the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dzieka?ski, whose death at the Vancouver airport in 2007 made national headlines.

At the time of this writing, no riots, civil disobedience or protests have been reported.

The Zimmerman verdict was announced late Saturday evening at 10:02 PM Eastern Time.

Who is sending out this stuff on Twitter about crowds and rioting everywhere? Are there riots in Miami? Really? I’m hearing from other people that it’s all phony. What’s going on?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/ron-paul-vs-the-establishment-2/

It ‘s high time that Dr. Paul entered the fray against financial corruption.  And no one understands the issue better than Black.

I can’t post videos because my blog is loading very very slowly and I keep having problems, but check it out at the LRC blog.

I noticed LRC has also been running a bunch of pieces against big data and pointing out the problems with blackmail involved. So maybe my blogging here hasn’t been in vain…..

NOTE: I am making my William Buiter post public again. I make the point in it that Austrians should take regulatory capture and control fraud seriously and not make it secondary to interest rate manipulation.

And now, we have Black teaming up with Paul.  This makes a lot of sense. Every influential person in finance, from every political/ideological persuasion, should be working on redesigning the financial system.

Stewart Rhodes of “Oath-Keepers” explains what was wrong about Kokesh’s strategy and why peaceful, organized civil disobedience trumps dangerous stunts:

“Oath Keepers didn’t support Kokesh’s call for an armed march on DC because it was bad strategy,not even civil disobedience. Kokesh’s last description of his intent (before he canceled it) said the armed marchers would stop well short of the police line, declare the government illegitimate, and then disperse. So, what would be the point? How is that some grand, glorious, hard stand? It isn’t.  But even if it were, it is still bad strategy as it puts the liberty movement in the posture of the aggressor while also risking a catastrophic and bloody defeat on that bridge…..

…. the Revolutionary war was kicked off by the patriots winning both a clear military victory and a clear moral victory since it was obvious that Gage and his men were the aggressors.  It didn’t matter who fired first at Lexington.   What mattered is Gen. Gage had sent his men out into the countryside, against the people.   And because Gen. Gage and his men got their asses handed to them on a silver platter, it was not just a moral victory for the patriots but also a morale victory, and an embarrassing morale defeat for the British Army and the Crown…..

..Kokesh’s armed march on D.C. would have been the exact opposite.   The patriots would have been perceived as the aggressors…..

So, if shooting had erupted, it would have been a blood-bath and brutal defeat for the patriots, while the patriots would have also been perceived by most people as the aggressors.

Nor was Adam Kokesh’s rhetoric confined to talk of peaceful civil disobedience, as some claimed.

Kokesh had clearly, on Alex Jones, stated that the intent was to “overthrow the government”…… And that alone made it something Oath Keepers could not support or take part in because we have active duty military members who cannot belong to an organization that supports or advocates overthrowing the US government. There are specific DOD regulations on that……

If there was no violence, and the marchers did as Kokesh said, and marched toward the police but stopped well short of the police line, declared the government illegitimate and then dispersed, it would have been portrayed by the mainstream media as “violent, armed extremists, who had declared their intent to march into DC to overthrow the government wussed out and didn’t even dare try to cross police lines.  They chickened out and stopped well short of the police and then retreated and went home.”  FAIL.

…The people are not oath bound.  But I am.  And until they release me from that oath, by deciding that the Constitution no longer protects their rights and must be replaced, I will do my best to fulfill it.  And yes, that does include giving my life if I must.  But I also do my best to use sound strategy, so that we have the best chance of actually prevailing for the sake of the liberty of our children and future generations, even if we who are now in this fight do not survive.  Whatever comes, fight smart, so that your efforts, and your life, will not be spent in vain.  – Stewart Rhodes

The WSJ seems to have the same feel for this case as I have. Look, Zimmerman was an irresponsible idiot from the get-go, stalking someone in the night. Carrying around two fire-arms and following someone, looking for trouble, even after he’d been told to go home by the neighborhood watch. He was a trouble-maker.

So there’s definitely culpability.

But since there’s so much conflicting testimony about the confrontation and there is credible evidence that he feared for his life, man-slaughter might be the best option.

WSJ

Some states, but not Florida, recognize what’s known as “imperfect self-defense.” It applies when someone kills in self-defense but was overreacting and using excessive force.

So a defendant can try to reduce a murder charge to manslaughter by saying that he acted in self-defense even while conceding that he made a mistake. Alternatively, “imperfect self-defense” can offer prosecutors their best chance at a guilty verdict when a jury seems unlikely to convict a defendant of murder.

Florida law works differently. There’s no slicing and dicing of self-defense. The penal code doesn’t recognize “imperfect self defense.” The law forces juries to either believe that someone had a right to act in self-defense or is a murderer.

There is a loophole, however, as illustrated by Mr. Zimmerman’s trial, which entered into closing arguments Thursday.

In Florida, a judge can choose to give juries a middle-of-the-road option, saying it can convict someone of voluntary  manslaughter if it isn’t convinced that the defendant acted out of “ill will, hatred, spite, or evil intent.” Voluntary manslaughter is a catch-all offense that includes a killing caused by “culpable negligence.”

These have been exactly my thoughts about the trial.
Why do Florida’s stalking laws not apply to Martin?
Why does he have no right to throw a punch in reaction to a perceived threat, when Zimmerman is allowed to use a gun in self-defense?

CNN:

“This murder trial, in and out of the courtroom, has been boiled down to one question: Was Zimmerman in fear for his life and thus justified in defending himself by shooting and killing Martin?

It has been framed this way — in terms of Zimmerman’s mortal fear — since the shooting in 2012.

Zimmerman’s assumptions led to death, prosecutor argues

Some people have forgotten that Zimmerman was not even arrested initially. It took more than a month for the special prosecutor to bring the second-degree murder charge. And if not for mass protests across the country, he might not be the defendant in a murder trial at all.

The question that has not surfaced in the courtroom — the elephant in the room — is this: Did Martin fear for his life after being followed and confronted by a stranger while going to the store to buy candy and a soft drink? Was he, Martin, justified in standing his ground and defending himself when this stranger, an apparent stalker, approached him in a threatening manner?

Zimmerman didn’t identify himself and never said he was part of the neighborhood watch group.

Think about it: We’re told over and over that if Zimmerman was afraid of Martin, according to Florida law, he had the right to put a bullet in the chamber of his concealed handgun, get out of his car after being told not to by the 911 dispatcher and follow and confront Martin and shoot him to death.

At the same time, we are told that Martin, who had far greater reason to fear Zimmerman, practically and for reasons of American history, did not have the right to confront his stalker, stand his ground and defend himself, including by using his fists. We are told that this was entirely unjustified and by doing so, Martin justified his own execution.

The phrases “stand your ground” and “self-defense” have been repeated endlessly by anchors, pundits, analysts and experts, but rarely applied to Martin.

How could this be? Why is this other question ignored? Surely it will come up as we approach the trial, I thought. But it hasn’t. What’s going on here? How can the Florida law apply only to Zimmerman and not to Martin?”

“The alternative to authority is coercion.” – Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn

1. Adam Kokesh – Hope he doesn’t have too hard a time of it, but, unfortunately, if you aren’t willing to have the Feds pounding down your door, don’t make rash statements about armed insurrections and egg people to march on DC.

2. Secession  – theoretically, nothing wrong with it. In practice, a globalist strategy. Smaller states are more easily dominated by Israel/Rothschilds than a large state like the US. Who do you suppose is behind all those think-tanks/info-tech companies in Virginia?

3. Greenwald, Snowden, Assange, Wolf etc. etc. Need you ask?  If you didn’t know before, you ought to know by now. No further comment.

4. Zimmerman-Martin trial.

A cop wannabe, who intimidated a stranger in the dark, wasn’t in shape, and then pulled out a gun when he couldn’t win mano-a-mano in a fist-fight, is a strange hero for libertarians.

The marijuana-smoking, public-school drop-out; the tough-talking, self-reliant teen, Trayvon, is closer to the libertarian model. Notice how dropping out of school is a plus point for libertarians when it’s alleged state operative Snowden, but not when it’s citizen Trayvon Martin.

Actually, from his own words,  Snowden is a fan of the public school system and obviously he sucked the security state’s teat all his life.

And, Martin’s decision to fight back at the man who was intimidating him is pretty libertarian too. Stalking people is a crime in Florida, if that means anything. It should be. It’s an act of physical intimidation. That is aggression. Someone comes up to your teen daughter at night, waves a gun in her face, threatens her, would you punch them? I might, even though technically no one committed a literal physical aggression.

Maybe, even if it’s in a public space, I might be tempted to strike.

Consider it. You’re walking around on the street in the dark and someone starts following you, even running after you. Maybe he’s yelling threats. Aren’t you going to get pumped and reach for the mace or the pepper spray? If you got really afraid, wouldn’t you throw a punch, if YOU thought your life might be at risk?

I haven’t read too much about the case, because it annoys me that with so much going on about surveillance, all we hear in the media is this case.

But, from my cursory reading of a few pieces, Zimmerman seemed to be asking for trouble.  Did he intend to murder anyone? Likely not. So, manslaughter sounds fair to me.  If Zimmerman thought his life was in danger, you can’t call it murder.

Manslaughter for the little citizen-spy and pseudo-vigilante.

4. For people who want to run with the hares (pose are truth-tellers) and hunt with the hounds (be cozy enough with the liberal media/globalist mouthpieces so that they have a media presence) – a quote:

“What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?”

5. Soul – that part of yourself that you don’t own (hint to Dr. Block).

Only two people can claim it, per Dr. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters. One by virtue of conquest (“Our Father Below”) and one by virtue of creation (“The Enemy”).

6.  Liberty: Your decision to which of these two you want to belong.

The only thing I could agree with in Dr. Block’s singularly misleading piece at LRC, is that indeed there is no constitutional right to privacy (the extrapolation from Roe is infamous among constitutional scholars).

I won’t say anything more about it, because some times people do a better job of refuting themselves on their own, without any help from outside. This is one of those times.