Sorry for this being a long post but I've been reading for several days and finally had to speak up.
There is a higher emotional quotient to this case that is stoked by anger and negative feelings. Those negative feelings seem to be clouding the main issue and spilling over onto not only the family but even some of the young people who had the misfortune to be caught up in a horrid mess not of their own making.
Caylee is missing, presumed dead by a lot of people here on WS and elsewhere. How she went missing or became deceased is the REAL issue. Who did it is the issue. Casey's parents and her brother are peripheral to those central questions. Their support of her and comments on her behalf are fluff compared to the real issue. CAYLEE.
People complain that the Anthony's aren't out there searching in the swamps, but if they were out there they'd find fault with something else they were or weren't doing. So what if Lee Anthony was playing a game online for however long. He's exercising his right to pursue his interests, whether you or I like it or not. If we're going to exercise our right to complain or hold a protest outside his parents house saying "he's not out searching for his niece" then we have to recognize that he has rights as well as do his parents.
Steve Huff has an entry on the case and I agree with what he had to say.
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/09/pure_opinion_the_vaguely_obsce.php#more
What I also find obscene, I think, is the obsessive chewing over every tiny, meaningless detail of the circus surrounding the case (parsing the actual details that may point to what really happened is a necessary evil). I find it obscene that people insert themselves into the story -- by going to the Anthonys' home -- surely making it a point to do so when the cameras are around -- by starting fights in the street.
All of us are desperate for REAL news and parsing everything these people do or say is becoming less a matter of sleuthing or being interested in justice than spilling personal vitriol against people we really don't know or have any idea of how they are coping with the situation they find themselves in.
What? Protestors are allowed their rights to protest but the Anthony's should stay inside their house and forgo their rights to enjoy their property, including their front lawn? Or the use of their driveway? They should stay inside their house and ignore protestors.
Tell me something, if this was YOUR house and people were protesting a family member of YOURS, would YOU
really stay inside? The response of "I wouldn't be supporting a baby killer in the family" or "I wouldn't be spinning lies etc.." is suppose to suffice? None of us know really how we would respond to a situation like this until we're in it.
I don't like some of the actions or comments the Anthony's have responded with but I recognize their RIGHT to say it. I recognize their right to make arses of themselves if they choose, just as the protestors have the right to do the same. Because IMO that's what
some of them are doing. They're NOT going to achieve anything really.
Making life a hell and misery for the rest of the Anthony family isn't going to achieve "making" Casey talk.
What they're doing is PUNISHING the Anthony family because they can't punish Casey or have any real affect on her. If they protested the office of whoever allows Casey such lenient time away from home confinement at her lawyers office, maybe they'd achieve something.
There are a lot of people who say the Anthonys should "make" Casey spill the beans.How pray tell? Beat it out of her? Starve her? Kick her out of the house?
Like many criminals Casey is stubborn and refuses to talk because the moment she does she commits herself to more than likely a lifetime in prison. If she's not going to open up and tell LE or the FBI who have skilled investigators how do we expect the family to get it out of her?
The investigators know that when they have enough evidence they can charge her with or without her cooperation. If they find the right evidence, they'll have the leverage to get her to talk. But until they do, what's the family supposed to do? What they have been doing. Support her because she is a member of their family. They can hate the acts she's committed but that doesn't mean they have to hate her. They may not understand her or her reasoning for what she may have done to Caylee and right now they prefer to believe that she hasn't.
I believe that's because like many other parents and family members or friends who find that someone close to them is accused of a crime, they find it very hard to fathom, much less accept that their loved one committed a heinous act.
Bottom line, if we and protesters have "rights" well, so do the Anthony's. Are we all such vicious voyeurs that we want to strip them of their rights?