Let's talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and how unbelievably fucked up this all is

state motto: "friends for eternity, loyalty, honesty."

won't somebody think of the orphans?

As a Miamian I protest. I will not board any bus marked "Coachella."

these threads get so interesting when people seriously debate whether a state should secede/be expelled, because that is a thing that has a chance of happening

i'm with the people saying it is stupid to turn against an entire state. boycotting florida would have the same effect as the economic sanctions the US imposes on countries whose governments it doesn't like: it will only hurt the most vulnerable people there and have very little effect on the people you want to hurt.

Odds are that for most people that don't live in Florida, "boycotting the state" would require zero effort.

Whoever said protest the NRA, Sanford Police, SYG lawmakers, etc. That's a far smarter way to look at this.

i have a fantasy that a massive, national "boycott florida" movement will emerge and scare some sanity in their government. has nothing to do with actually boycotting florida, and i'm happy to admit that it'll never happen.

I have a fantasy that American film and TV stop portraying guns as anything other than instruments of horror and oppression, but that will never happen.

pfffft

hey guys i'm not entirely serious about sinking florida into the ocean

but honestly a boycott florida thing would be good! i think showing states the financial consequences of the backwards republican agenda is good...

will it be like, an orange juice and Skynyrd boycott? or an academic boycott of Scripps Florida and all their promising cancer treatments and shit?

yachts, I think

Coke and Weed

a FL boycott would serve to trigger the Conservative "oh yeah? FUCK YOU Imma do/think the exact opposite of these Liberal pansies" reflex

yeah but if the obama years have taught us anything is that they do that no matter how reasonable or cooperative you try to be, so fuck em

exactly there is an upside to this in that it might lead to a new civil war xp

this country is fucked so now we should just troll conservatives for the fun of it

Boycotts can be effective - South Africa is a classic example - but it seems like an odd idea to boycott a state over one court case. I'm not American but I don't even understand how a Florida boycott would work, partly for reasons that are given above. Would people stop visiting Disneyland and buying oranges until ... what? Until SYG (a law that is in effect in many other states and that was not even part of GZ's defence) is repealed? Until they change gun laws that, afaik, are not radically different from those in other states? The South Africa boycott had a very clear purpose.

xp but i don't wanna get shot bro!

foreigners would prob play as significant as americans eg nice friendly Dutch families start to feel like it's immoral/dangerous to go to dinseyworld or Miami

But as ThinkProgress explained in a post earlier today, the jury instructions contained the law’s key provision and instructed jurors that self-defense meant Zimmerman was entitled to “stand his ground” with “no duty to retreat.”

As I understand it, SYG was main reason why GZ wasn't arrested from the outset. Due to SYG, police needed proof that he didn't act in self-defense

^ that may have been the cops' excuse, but it isn't true. SYG doesn't prevent the police from arresting killers.

Maybe the cops knew the law was so broad and stupid that they figured, why bother even arresting him?

maybe the cops were just incompetent racist assholes

bear in mind if you want florida to fall into the ocean that includes all the people in florida that are on the receiving end of all the crummy stuff that you are now identifying with florida.

very otm.

i have always kind of hated the "ugh! let's get rid of florida/arizona/the south/etc" response that liberals invariably indulge in whenever something bad happens because in nearly all cases much of the best and most effective criticism comes from the actual ppl who live in those places.

there were about a million 'boycott arizona!' calls after SB 1070 passed, and you know what? they accomplished fuck-all. if anything, they made the hardliners in arizona angrier and more determined.

it made people stop drinking arizona tea

arrgh I am sure this has come up many times already but wtf why can't these poor sad whiteguys knock it off with the "OMG IT'S THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES DON'T YOU SEE WHITE PPL ARE OPPRESSED TOO" bullshit examples like this one

http://rochester.ynn.com/content/top_stories/490926/jury-finds-roderick-scott-not-guilty/

I mean, I pretty much know the answer but FUCK

Boycott golf

preemptively done

Yeah i figured id be preachin to the choir there

xxp: One glaring difference is that Scott is showing empathy towards the deceased's family and saying he wished he could have done something different so that the kid would not have died as opposed to having his family members wondering what can be done to stop kids from being dangerous drug dealing fiends like Trayvon.

please don't boycott golf

If you want to drown Florida that means you want to drown the Martin family...

I said this on twitter but people saying we should jettison Florida sound a lot like people who say we should have let the confederates secede, which I can't even countenance

well the goal isn't to physically destroy the state of florida or cut it off with a saw it is to get florida to change a law

^^ first couplet in iatee-composed "Let's Save Trayvon" anthem

there was a flaw in the law, that others had saw

if Florida starts to feel an economic squeeze, who is going to bear the brunt of it?

sonny crockett and ricardo tubbs

the bourgeois

You get another try

if Florida starts to feel an economic squeeze, who is going to bear the brunt of it?

"starts to feel"

u know what I mean

i wish to make them feel the crushing weight of shame and opprobrium

just throwing this out there but the anti-SA boycott went on for 20+ years and was repeatedly circumvented by US and UK businesses.

fuckin paul simon

anyone willing to boycott florida doesn't appreciate the importance of slip-n-slide records to global culture, much less the continued necessity of miami bass to a functioning society

lol but also OTM

I think it'd be fun to organize a boycott of every state with a Stand Your Ground law. At least, I'd love to sit back and watch someone try it.

"Psst, Stevie Wonder, half the country has the same fucked up law ..."

it's easier to lop off Florida.