Three quarters of Americans say Zimmerman should be arrested

The fair-minded and non-partisan CNN (you know, not like MSNBC and Fox) reports:

(CNN) -One month after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, nearly three out of four Americans say the police should arrest the neighborhood watch volunteer who pulled the trigger, according to a new national survey.

But how can people say that the police should arrest Zimmerman, when, to this moment, they don’t know the facts that led the police to release Zimmerman?

Also, what do they think Zimmerman should be arrested FOR?????

Take that in: CNN asked over a thousand people in a poll if they thought George Zimmerman should be arrested, and CNN didn’t ask, “Do you think Zimmerman should be arrested for murder?” They didn’t ask, “Do you think Zimmerman should be arrested for manslaughter?” They didn’t ask, “Do you think Zimmerman should be arrested for being a white racist?” No. They just asked, “Do you think Zimmerman should be arrested?”

We’re the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world, and our leading institutions are acting like a man staggering down the street blind-drunk. And the people (see those poll results again) are no better.

It’s bad enough when the blind are leading the blind. But in America we have the blind-drunk leading the blind-drunk.

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Note: the linked story comes from CNN itself, yet it doesn’t provide a link to the survey so that readers can see how the survey question was actually worded. But from the article it is clear that my interpretation is correct. The pollsters simply asked respondents whether they thought Zimmerman should be arrested, without asking for what crime they thought he should be arrested. America has become like the authority figures in Catch-22: we’ll arrest you first, then we’ll think of something to charge you with.

- end of initial entry -

Paul K. writes:

You wrote, “In America we have the blind-drunk leading the blind-drunk.”

To build on a recent observation by Gintas, we have the blind-drunk leading the blind-drunk across a steep snow-covered slope.

BTW, perhaps we could market a t-shirt with the latest photo of Trayvon above the caption: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

LA replies:

I’ve posted a new entry doing what Paul suggests. Now we just need someone to manufacture and market the T-shirt. And how could liberals and blacks object to such a T-shirt? All it does is quote Obama and show a picture of Trayvon.

Paul K. continues:

Perhaps the question was phrased: “Do you think Zimmerman should be arrested if it would keep blacks from rioting and rampaging all over the country?”

LA replies:

Ahh, I hadn’t thought of that.

Mark Jaws writes:

Given the new information concerning the circumstances of the shooting and the more recent pictures of Trayvon, I would bet bialys to bagels that the overwhelming majority of Americans demanding or suggesting an arrest of the not-so-white Mr. Zimmerman goes down significantly. Furthermore, as you mentioned, wishing for someone to be arrested means very different things to different people. So, the poll is meaningless and soon to be overcome by events.

March 28

Paul T. writes:

If the question had been “Should George Zimmerman be convicted” rather than “arrested,” the results would likely have been very different. (Of course that would still leave the issue, “convicted of what?”) The most charitable interpretation of the poll result is that many people regard a trial as the best way, and perhaps the only reliable way, of finding out what actually happened, and you can’t have a trial without an arrest. On this view, the polled were merely saying, “We’d like to find out what really happened,” not “We think Zimmerman is a murderer.”

LA replies:

That’s a reasonable interpretation.

James P. writes:

Zimmerman should be arrested on general suspicion of being an Enemy of the People. Like Dharun Ravi — conviction first, accusation and trial afterwards!

Irv P. writes:

It doesn’t matter how the question was phrased or not phrased at all. It is understood by the vast majority of the population through experience and indoctrination that we are always willing to pay extortion to the “black community.” Our policy as a nation, since 1967, has been based on the idea that “we do not want another long hot summer.” Give them what they want. Appease … Appease. It’s cheaper in the long run and it’s not messy.

I keep saying, we are no longer the land of the free, and we certainly aren’t the home of the brave.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 27, 2012 11:41 PM | Send