{"id":904,"date":"2013-07-15T22:22:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T02:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=904"},"modified":"2013-07-15T22:22:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T02:22:08","slug":"the-persecution-of-george-zimmerman-and-the-fundamental-transformation-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/07\/the-persecution-of-george-zimmerman-and-the-fundamental-transformation-of-america.html","title":{"rendered":"The Persecution of George Zimmerman and the Fundamental Transformation of America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>George Zimmerman has been acquitted and justice has been done.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the Trayvon Martin\/George Zimmerman issue tells us much about the left\u2019s agenda to \u201cfundamentally transform\u201d America.<\/p>\n<p>First, in a fundamentally transformed America, only government agents will have the right to <i>use <\/i>firearms.\u00a0 To repeat, it isn\u2019t just that citizens will no longer be permitted to <i>carry <\/i>firearms; they will not even be permitted to <i>own<\/i> them.<\/p>\n<p>The Martin shooting is just the latest nationally recognized shooting that the Second Amendment deniers have sought to exploit for the purpose of disarming law-abiding citizens. Potentially, the deniers promised to gain far more traction from this shooting than from, say, the shooting in Sandy Hook or that of Gabbie Giffords, for in both of these instances, the shooters in question did not own their guns legally.\u00a0 Moreover, both the shooters and their victims were white.<\/p>\n<p>Zimmerman, however, who was initially thought to be white, was licensed to own and carry his weapon.\u00a0 Yet if it could be proven that he abused this right, and abused it by, of all things, hunting down and murdering <i>a young black male, <\/i>then both the Second Amendment and the American majority would reveal themselves to be no less deserving of condemnation for their recklessness\u2014and their \u201c<i>racism.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 Better yet, the Zimmerman case could enable the deniers to forge an inseparable link in the popular imagination <i>between <\/i>the Second Amendment and <i>white racism.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n<p>In putting Zimmerman on trial, the deniers finally had their opportunity to try the old America.\u00a0 In the leftist\u2019s mind, the old America\u2014the as-of-yet-to-be transformed America\u2014consists of a bunch of John Wayne wannabe white guys, Bible thumpers who cling bitterly to their guns and religion and routinely deploy both to subjugate and oppress anyone and everyone who isn\u2019t like them.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, though he looks more like one of the millions of \u201cundocumented workers\u201d who the Gang of Eight wants to call forth from \u201cthe shadows,\u201d the brown-complexioned face of the multi-racial Zimmerman (who is white, Hispanic, <i>and <\/i>black) has been made into that of the old America.\u00a0 The face of Trayvon Martin has become a proxy for the minority oppression that the old America has perennially perpetuated.<\/p>\n<p>This brings us to a second point.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t just that the Second Amendment deniers are in cahoots with the agents of the Racism-Industrial-Complex (RIC).\u00a0 Often, the two groups consist of the same people.\u00a0 What little difference exists between the two lies in this: deniers use race to disarm law abiding Americans while RIC agents seek to disarm law abiding Americans, most of whom they know are white, because they want to advance their racial agenda.<\/p>\n<p>Though he is a person of color, Zimmerman has been made into a symbol of <i>white<\/i> America\u2014i.e. white oppression.\u00a0 By hook or by crook\u2014by \u201cwhichever means necessary,\u201d violence, intimidation, humiliation, etc.\u2014this is an America that must be relegated to the dustbin of history and replaced by a new land of the left\u2019s imaginings.<\/p>\n<p>And into what kind of new place will the old America be fundamentally transformed?<\/p>\n<p>As was already noted, the citizens of the new America will not be permitted to defend themselves with guns.\u00a0 However, if possible to imagine, it gets even worse.<\/p>\n<p>The new America will be devoid of all institutional buffers\u2014those \u201clittle platoons\u201d as Edmund Burke referred to them\u2014that lay in between the individual and the government.\u00a0 We already see the extent to which, say, Obamacare is weakening the premiere buffer, religious institutions.\u00a0 Our local neighborhoods are nearly as important as the latter, for it is from our communities that the identity and meaning of our lives is gotten\u2014a fact to which Zimmerman serves as a standing testimony.<\/p>\n<p>The neighborhood watch to which Zimmerman belonged is the penultimate emblem of the integrity, the health, of the community that its members sought to preserve.\u00a0 From her beginnings and throughout her history, America achieved distinction as a liberty-loving nation precisely because her citizens relied less on government and more on contributing to and benefitting from their \u201clittle platoons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Far from showing that he was a \u201cwannabe cop,\u201d whatever this could mean, that Zimmerman voluntarily enlisted his time and energies into the service of protecting his community establishes his good citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>In bringing the full weight of the government down upon his neck, it isn\u2019t just Zimmerman\u2019s whose head the fundamental transformers sever: it is that of America\u2019s as well.\u00a0 The long-standing American tradition of localism and limited government is now imperiled, for the persecution of Zimmerman can\u2019t but make many an American think long and hard before involving themselves in local affairs, in helping out their fellows.<\/p>\n<p>Zimmerman has been treated outrageously.\u00a0 But so too has the America of which the fundamental transformers have taken hold.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Zimmerman has been acquitted and justice has been done. Yet the Trayvon Martin\/George Zimmerman issue tells us much about the left\u2019s agenda to \u201cfundamentally transform\u201d America. First, in a fundamentally transformed America, only government agents will have the right to use firearms.\u00a0 To repeat, it isn\u2019t just that citizens will no longer be permitted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Persecution of George Zimmerman and the Fundamental Transformation of America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/07\/the-persecution-of-george-zimmerman-and-the-fundamental-transformation-of-america.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Persecution of George Zimmerman and the Fundamental Transformation of America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"George Zimmerman has been acquitted and justice has been done. Yet the Trayvon Martin\/George Zimmerman issue tells us much about the left\u2019s agenda to \u201cfundamentally transform\u201d America. First, in a fundamentally transformed America, only government agents will have the right to use firearms.\u00a0 To repeat, it isn\u2019t just that citizens will no longer be permitted&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/07\/the-persecution-of-george-zimmerman-and-the-fundamental-transformation-of-america.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-16T02:22:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Persecution of George Zimmerman and the Fundamental Transformation of America","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/07\/the-persecution-of-george-zimmerman-and-the-fundamental-transformation-of-america.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Persecution of George Zimmerman and the Fundamental Transformation of America","og_description":"George Zimmerman has been acquitted and justice has been done. Yet the Trayvon Martin\/George Zimmerman issue tells us much about the left\u2019s agenda to \u201cfundamentally transform\u201d America. 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I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":905,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}