United Liberty

The Trayvon Martin killing has brought out a lot of ugliness in a lot of people.  Liberals have used it to attack Florida’s self-defense laws and have portrayed the killing as racially motivated.  In response, conservatives have tried to portray Martin as a thug and miscreant, going so far as to post pictures that are not even of him.  It’s been a disgusting display all around.  But one aspect in particular is especially frightening.

This aspect is the encouragement of violence and retaliation against George Zimmerman without the benefit of a trial or even a complete investigation.  The New Black Panther party has gone as far as offering a bounty on him.  And movie maker Spike Lee went to an ever more extreme level, tweeting to his followers the alleged address of Zimmerman, clearly in hopes that someone would go to his house and do him harm.

It would be awful enough if it was in fact Zimmerman’s address.  But the address that Lee tweeted (or, to be technically correct, retweeted from a follower) is not even the right address.  It is in fact an old address for an entirely different George Zimmerman that is now the home of his mother and her husband.  This has led to hate mail, harassment, and death threats to the innocent couple that bear no relation to the crime or its alleged perpetrator.

This kind of blind anger and incitement to violence is thoroughly un-American and simply cannot be tolerated.  At the very least Lee should be banned from Twitter for plainly violating its terms of service.  Whether or not he could be legally liable for any harm to come to the unrelated Zimmermans is unclear, but at minimum he must be publicly scorned for this despicable act.  If George Zimmerman (the right one) is guilty of anything he must be punished.  But under no circumstances should that be by an angry mob.