The prosecution of George Zimmerman should fill every American with fear and trepidation regardless of their political persuasion. What the prosecution and subsequent trial demonstrated is that a spineless governor and a prosecutor who has set their eyes on higher political office can and will financially ruin you and put your liberty in jeopardy for grins. We have passed into that twilight of the Republic where we are no longer citizens but rather subjects of a bureaucratic juggernaut at the service of mob rule that will cheerfully kill you and impoverish your family if it furthers the careers of those in the bureaucracy.

That is what we have seen unfold in Seminole County, Florida over the past two weeks.

Generally, I agree with Erick, that the shooting of thug-wannabe Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. I will stipulate that, as John Donne reminds us, the death of any man diminishes all of mankind. Perhaps if Martin had been the recipient of any life lessons instilling within him respect for others or himself he would have made different decisions the night of February 26, 2012. And just as Martin is dead, George Zimmerman’s life has ended just as surely as if he had been sentenced to life in prison. That, however, is not a tragedy, it is an atrocity.

While Martin’s death was made unavoidable by Martin’s own decisions, George Zimmerman’s future has been destroyed by the direct actions of Florida Governor Rick Scott and Florida prosecutor Angela Corey.

Admittedly, Rick Scott’s sudden onset of gutlessness was brought on by the inevitable flocking of Al Sharpton, the NAACP, distant relatives of Martin Luther King, Jr., MSNBC hosts, and every other professional and amateur race-baiter in the nation.

I don’t blame the race-baiters. This is their nature. It is what they do. And without the perpetual outrage machine (one that goes amazingly silent when it concerns hundreds of black men slaughtered in Chicago and other metro areas annually, probably because these cities are run by paid up members of the race-baiting caucus) the money donated by rubes dries up and they would have to find real work. This is not to say these people are harmless, they aren’t. If the same standards used to charge Zimmerman with second degree murder had been invoked on Al Sharpton, he would be serving life in Attica.

But race-baiting is what they do. We should have a higher standard for our governors. In this case, Scott snatched the case away from the local prosecutor and stood idly by as Corey perverted the normal judicial process to grab headlines. It was a disgusting and shameful action on the part of Scott and one that hopefully sees him humiliated if he runs for reelection.

Had Corey and her henchmen operated with even the vaguest concession to integrity or ethics or simple decency they would not beclowned before the world. Unfortunately, Corey and her people seem unacquainted with Truth and any of Truth’s near relatives.

From the beginning it was obvious that oleaginous Angela Corey saw the Zimmerman trial as a way to further her own career. She decided to not use a grand jury… for the obvious reason that it probably wouldn’t return a bill of indictment sufficiently grand to satisfy her ego… and wildly over-charged Zimmerman. Her staff obstructed the defense. Her staff withheld information from the defense. She fired a whistleblower who, acting as one of few men of integrity who had their careers damaged in this morality play (the investigating officer was demoted to patrolman for not supporting the murder indictment, the city sheriff was fired for declining to become part of Governor Scott’s lynch mob, and the presiding district attorney was removed from the case for following the law), let the defense know that only about a third of the available evidence had been released to them.

None of this was news to Rick Scott. Corey was known as a prosecutor composed equal parts of viciousness and extreme density (h/t to Legal Insurrection) before her appointment.

[Sandy] D’Alemberte is a former president of the American Bar Association, a former president of Florida State University and a law professor — not too shabby in the legal credentials department.

When Corey was appointed to head up the investigation into the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, D’Alemberte had this to say:

“I cannot imagine a worse choice for a prosecutor to serve in the Sanford case. There is nothing in Angela Corey’s background that suits her for the task, and she cannot command the respect of people who care about justice.”

To cap it off she appeared at the post verdict press conference dressed like a Storyville madam and gave a smarmy statement which restated every lie her office had told over the past year.

At every step along the way she made it clear that she was there to represent the desire of the Martin family for revenge and not to pursue justice. Note to Angela Corey: retribution is a function of the criminal justice system. Mindless freakin revenge is not. These two are not the same things.

The collection of assclowns she brought to trial would have done credit to a Mel Brooks script had they not had the potential to put a man in prison for life and start a race war in Florida. In particular credit goes to prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda for his imitation of a demented Tourette’s sufferer as he shouted obscenities at the jury. Does a grown man really think it is effective argumentation to scream “F***ing punks” repeatedly just because it makes him feel important? Really, Bernie, most of us outgrew that by 7th grade.

The central feature of their case was the notion that something happened and Zimmerman needed to go to prison because: race. If you listened carefully you found their theory was that Martin was shot while under and on top of Zimmerman, pummeling him… in a very non threatening manner mind you… while backing up and screaming for help for about forty seconds.

This travesty could not have progressed had it not been with the active connivance of a rather dense judge who might as well have been on Angela Corey’s payroll.

The thrust of the case was that a certain variety of race pimp was angry and something had to be done. In order to “do something” the criminal justice system was harnessed to create a show trial to send an obviously innocent man to prison for a long time. Facts didn’t matter. The law didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the mob was appeased… and careers advanced along the way.

This is where we’ve come. From a nation founded on the rule of law. Where one of our founders, John Adams, successfully defended the soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre to one where the governor of a state cooperates to set aside the rule of law in favor of the rule by mob.

We should all go to bed terrified over what we have become.