"If Only"

It's too bad about Trayvon Martin: really, it is. But there's lots of racially charged "if only's" being thrown out, including by the Dear Leader. "If only..."

If only Zimmerman hadn't followed Martin after calling the cops. What Zimmerman did was stupid, there's no doubt about that. If only we could legislate away stupidity, if only. And it's too bad that Martin turned on him and confronted him. If only Martin had just walked away, if only, rather than attacking Zimmerman. If only Zimmerman had taken that beating like a man, or fought back hand-to-hand, if only he'd just surrendered rather than trying to defend himself with a gun. If only, if only.

And the latest comes from the Dear Leader, who previously said (and this was before the trial had concluded, mind you) that if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin. Then he asked if it would have been ok for Martin to stand his ground had he been armed, if only, and saying that the outcome would be different, that Martin would be alive (and Zimmerman dead), that the world would be a better place if only. Now Obama's saying that he could have been Trayvon Martin. And we all mourn and shake our heads and say, "If only, if only."

More seriously, though: what Zimmerman did was foolish, and ill-advised. That we even need to consider finding some law to blame this on, or some lack of law to blame it on, that we would even be considering changing a state's laws over one man's stupidity is proof of a deeper problem Daniel Flynn hits on the problem when he states that this was a case involving two males and no men. The problem is not one which can be easily legislated away, nor should we really try. It's what a few of my friends would call a moral problem, the kind that laws don't fix, the kind of thing that Chesterton was talking about when he said that those who don't get the big laws will get the little laws.