You Offered No Valid Proof Other Than A Video

There’s supposed to be such a thing as objective reality. A set of fundamental facts that we can all agree on. Sure, as human beings, things will eventually become subjective, but reality is supposed to serve as a starting point.

Increasingly, this is no longer the case.

The Kyle Rittenhouse case was a perfect example of how our shared reality is disintegrating. The information we consume is less and less about facts, and more and more about narratives.

In my article, What If White Supremacy Isn’t The Problem?, I described the facts of a tragic series of terrible decisions that led to the death of two men and serious injury to a third. I criticised everybody involved in the chain of events that led to a 17-year-old running through the streets of Kenosha with a semi-automatic rifle (including, of course, the 17-year-old himself).

Allene sent me a private message explaining that I was wrong and that Kyle Rittenhouse was a terrorist. She even helpfully included a (partial) definition of the word terrorist for me to consider. I suggested we have the conversation publicly if she was so certain that I’d missed something, which is where we pick things up below:

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Allene:

So you want to do this here. Fine with me. I gave you the complete definition of terrorist. It does not conform or align with your meaning. The point is, anywhere in the world, if a person, young, old Black, white et al entered a location in upheaval strapped and armed and then proceeded to shoot, wily nily at anyone, then yes, that is a terrorist.

Perhaps you should spend time talking with some school children that have experienced a gun incident in their schools and then determine whether these children were and remain terrorized?

What happened in Kenosha, and I have no idea if one of the victims had recently been released from a mental facility, but he, along with the other victims are dead and their families have to deal with that loss!

No legal argument ever expunges that kind of loss, ever. And whether or not Kyle Rittenhouse is or was a white supremacist, he took lives. His presence was not needed and he clearly was not trained for the "job" he thought he went there to do.

The climate in our country is untenable. Parents do not parent and kids over-step lines of civility with impunity. Parents across this nation refuse to stop their kids from bullying other kids and schools are overburdened by violence towards other kids and teachers. We live in a milieu of fear, disrespect and impassioned rationale for things perpetrated against innocents.

The point is that a line must be drawn to stop this apparently unstoppable out-of-control freight train headed towards our certain annihilation. Will the Rittenhouse case open doors for fairness in trials with Black and Brown defendants? Not on your life and you can take this one to the bank! Just look at all the laws that have been passed to install equity and justice and look at the relative effects of the laws on the lives of people, and include poor whites in you review!

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Steve QJ:

I gave you the complete definition of terrorist.

You used Britannica's definition of terrorist, so I'll go with that:

terrorism, the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.

If anybody in Kenosha fits that description, it was the looters destroying people's property and businesses. They used violence to create a general climate of fear in the population of the city. Though their political objective was unclear.

The militia, who I should be clear I'm not defending, used at most the threat of violence to protect people's property. If I was a business owner in Kenosha, I'd have been glad that somebody had stepped up to offer protection after two days of destruction that the police did nothing about. They weren't trying to instil fear at all, even amongst the looters, except insofar as they were armed and willing to act to prevent further destruction. They had no political agenda.

Of course the militia should never have even been tempted to be there, because the police should have done something about the unrest (and because any sane law would prevent civilians from forming armed militia and patrolling the streets).

So yes, if somebody enters a location and proceeds to "shoot wily nily at anyone", this could, under certain circumstances be described as terrorism (again, note that terrorism has a specific definition, that includes political aims). But this is such a laughably disingenuous description of the events in Kenosha that night, that I can't believe you're trying it.

Rittenhouse was chased down the street, one of the rioters fired a handgun a few feet from him as he ran, Rosenbaum physically attacked him, and after all this, Rittenhouse shot him in self-defence. This is not "shooting at anyone wily nily". As I note in the article, this is pretty much a textbook example of self-defence.

Again, we would probably agree that neither Rittenhouse or the militia (or the looters) shouldn’t have been there that night. We would probably also agree that gun laws in America are too lax. But trying to describe this as terrorism is preposterous.

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Allene:

I have several questions that I hope that you would take the time to answer? Were you in Kenosha or have you ever lived there? Do you have specific, meaning credible information about the non-police presence? What evidence, credible, that the protesters were responsible for the looting and burning of businesses? Please spare me the reportage of the MSM as a source of so-called factual information. In your mind, just from what you wrote, Kenosha was under siege? Then if those were the facts on the ground, why weren’t the National Guard called to patrol the streets of Kenosha? Was it really all just a failure of law enforcement? Do you have, again credible, information to prove that none of the looters and fire setters were not individuals from, let’s say, the Boogaloo Boys, or the Proud Boys et al that have been known to infiltrate demonstrations across the nation, cause havoc and chaos and destruction, especially in Portland Oregon? Do you believe that there is such a thing as a peaceful demonstration and is a First Amendment right?

I let several days pass before I read your response and responded to you. These incidents are not small ripples in our society. They are defining issues that will be recorded in the history books; how we perceived and defended incidents that define who we are as a nation.

One last question — Did Kyle Rittenhouse even have an Illinois driver’s license? If he didn’t have the chops to pass a driver’s exam, why would anyone consider him capable of making a mature decision about walking down a street, in someone else’s town, strapped and loaded, to defend property that was not his? This is a rather thin defense for a despicable act.

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“Do you have specific, meaning credible information about the non-police presence? What evidence, credible, that the protesters were responsible for the looting and burning of businesses? Please spare me the reportage of the MSM as a source of so-called factual information.”

Hmm, tell me you’re going to ignore anything that doesn’t affirm what you already believe without telling me you’re going to ignore anything that doesn’t affirm what you already believe…

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Steve QJ:

if those were the facts on the ground, why weren’t the National Guard called to patrol the streets of Kenosha?

Good question!! This is one of the many questions I think deserve smarter, more nuanced answers than "white supremacy".

For the answer, you'll have to ask Tony Evers, the governor of Wisconsin. Even though Kenosha has a population of around 100,000 people, and even though the police were overwhelmed, he called in just 125 guardsmen on the first night and 125 more on the second. He was being told by all concerned that it wasn't enough.

No I don't live in Kenosha. Clearly nor do you. So I'm not sure why that's relevant. And given that I have no idea how you're defining the "MSM" or what you think is "credible", you give yourself the option of dismissing any evidence that proves you wrong as "biased". But my source for all the information I've accepted as true (beyond double and triple checked sources and the trial), is video evidence from people on the street that night.

Here's a video of the destruction happening on the first day of "protesting", uploaded the day before the shooting:

No, I have no evidence that it wasn't the Boogaloo Boys or the Proud Boys or whatever other scapegoat you'd like to choose. Do you have any “specific, meaningful, credible” evidence that it was them? And spare me the reportage of whatever crackpot, conspiracy theory sources of so-called "real" information. The point is, it doesn't matter. Somebody was setting the fires and destroying the property. The police didn't or couldn't prevent it. So the militia went to downtown Kenosha to try to stop it.

Finally, given that I started with your best question, I'll end with your worst. Of course I believe there's such a thing as a peaceful demonstration. What a ridiculous question. And more to the point what on Earth does it have to do with this trial? The point is simply that what was happening, at least in parts of Kenosha, clearly didn't fit the definition.

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Allene:

You are excellent at being insulting and insidious. You offered no valid proof other than a video shot by, who knows, and from what POV. You are savvy enough to understand who and what the MSM (Main Stream Media) is and yet you pretend to be coy. You are just a provocateur. Nothing more, nothing less. You are not interested in a real dialogue; your main goal is to score some unfathomable points!

Good luck with your life young man. There is more to life than simply being argumentative for arguments sake, slick and snide. Take note: you never answered any of the questions or even recognized that those questions should have been considered by not just you, but the folks tasked with protecting the lives of the people of Kenosha.

If the destruction that occurred in Kenosha happened at the behest of white supremacist, something that you have brushed aside as if the concept were an annoying fruit fly, misses entirely the mess that this country is in about race today! But then of course, that is not one of your concerns.

I’m done. There is no point in wasting your time, much less mine! Life is too damn short!

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Steve QJ:

You offered no valid proof other than a video

Haha, okay. It's bizarre the lengths some people will go to to avoid acknowledging the truth. You're rejecting video evidence because you don't know who was holding the camera? But I'm the one who isn't interested in a real dialogue? Okay. Sure.

Tell me, what exactly would you accept as evidence? Because while you criticise video and court testimony, you've offered precisely no evidence to support your assertions of terrorism and conspiracies about who "really" destroyed property in Kenosha. Again, where is your evidence that white supremacists were behind it? Because I will accept a video.

And again, the point is that it doesn't matter who was doing the looting. I didn't blame BLM or Antifa or anybody else for it, because I don't know who did it. All I know is that it happened. And the militia turned up in response to that looting.

If, as you seem to be trying to suggest, it was all a conspiracy to go to Kenosha and shoot black people, why was the Rittenhouse shooting the only shooting that took place that night? Why didn't the numerous other armed men there that night get in on the act? Why were only white people shot? And why did the shooting only take place once Rittenhouse was attacked?

I'll be sat here waiting patiently for your evidence.

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You guessed it, I’m still waiting.

As the old saying goes, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. And this applies to information too. The version of events we accept as the truth is very likely to be the first version we're presented with. Regardless of any new evidence that comes along.

Changing people's minds requires exponentially more effort than just telling them the truth in the first place. Which is why it’s so important that we’re discerning (and open-minded) about what we accept as reality.