This global loss of faith in objective reality scares the shit out of me. It has been worsening for some time and both sides of the political divide take some blame for it; the right in its determination is legitimize its cruelty and irrationality, and the left in its determination to never make value judgments.
This global loss of faith in objective reality scares the shit out of me. It has been worsening for some time and both sides of the political divide take some blame for it; the right in its determination is legitimize its cruelty and irrationality, and the left in its determination to never make value judgments.
For me the iconic image of our dilemma comes from the 1925 Eisenstein film Potemkin, when the sailors' food is being brought aboard, the meat rotten with maggots; ship's doctor Smirnov folds his pince-nez, holds them up to the meat, we see a closeup that even in this grainy B&W makes you want to puke, and pronounces, "these are not maggots"
That's where we are as a society. Armed crazies smashing windows? Just a tour group. These are not maggots.
Sen. Manchin blocking climate legislation while invested in coal stocks? These are not maggots.
Vaccines, not COVID, killing people? These are not maggots.
But I take issue with your view of Rittenhouse. If someone runs out into the street and into the path of a car without room to brake, that doesn't justify shooting the driver, and it is not self-defense. Pugsley had no business being there, he went looking for trouble, and he was just as much—worse—a violence junkie as the looters and smashers.
Violence junkies. Contemplate the term. They are not terrorists, they do not have political objectives (except maybe to portray peaceful protesters as violent, which never fails). They show up to use the safety of numbers to commit mayhem, which they enjoy. And of course the press ('scuse me, the "Main Stream Media" ... pssst, Allene, "mainstream" is one word) obligingly follows along, obediently making no distinction between protesters and VJs.
Seattle, 2006, the WTO protests; there was some delayed recognition that the people breaking the windows weren't the people showing up to protest the WTO, but that was the last time anyone took the trouble to tease the two apart.
Did you watch the trial of Rittenhouse? What I've found is that unfortunately, my traditional liberal leaning news sources are quite often very biased and give people some "impressions" which deserve questioning.
The world (and the prosecution) scrutinized Rittenhouse's life and did not find evidence that he held "far right" or "white supremacist" views. He was with a group of armed folks invited to protect some private property and who mostly stuck close to the buildings, but he went out into the main crowd a few times. On one foray he can be seen using a fire extinguisher on a burning dumpster being moved towards buildings (one of the common ways of starting building fires in 2020). This greatly upset Joseph Rosenbaum, who threatened to kill Rittenhouse. Later tho Rittenhouse went out into the crowd again (away from the safety o numbers), offering first aid to anybody on any side. He can he heard in video recordings saying "friendly, friendly, friendly" and asking if anybody needed first aid. NOT pointing his rifle at anybody, not trying to start trouble with anybody. One of the prosecution witnesses testified that the only person he had witnessed administering first aid to a protester was Rittenhouse.
From the video and drone footage, you can see Rosenbaum hiding behind a vehicle and then charging Rittenhouse who was offering first aid. Rittenhouse runs away, but gets cornered by Rosenbaum, who tries to grab Rittenhouse's rifle (consistent with video and forensics). Not until then, when under immediate direct attack from somebody threatening to kill him and who is trying to get the gun away from him, does Rittenhouse point the gun at a person, firing at Rosembaum at close range. Then Rittenhouse tries to flee - not shooting at anybody else, not starting a fight. He fired only at people who were physically attacking him, or who pointed a handgun at them, and then stopped firing & ran away when each attack ceased. Watch the several videos carefully. Point at any case where Rittenhouse fired at anything other than a direct and immediate threat. You won't find any.
That's not a case of jumping in front of a car before they can brake and shooting the driver; the analogy doesn't remotely fit. The evidence is unambiguous that Rittenhouse was being attacked and chased, attempting to run away.
I hope we have learned something from the Arberry case. If somebody is running away and you have not witnessed them committing a felony, let them escape. Do not attempt to make a citizen's arrest, do not appoint yourself a vigilante, do not attempt to disarm them. Sure, take picture, get a description, report it to the police, but don't try to jump them; you don't know the whole story and you don't have the right to detain them. Like Arberry, they cannot know your intention and may understandably assume you mean to harm them, not just detain them until the police arrive. Bad things can happen, in any direction. Let them go if they are running away.
Was Ritttenhouse unwise to try to help? Absolutely. Would I have recommended his going to the riots to "help" by protecting property and giving first aid to people? Hell no. But is there evidence that he just wanted to cause trouble, or wanted to shoot at people, or even that he was against non-arsonist protesters? None whatsoever. He claimed that he supported BLM, but not arson and rioting; making that distinction is not a white supremacist viewpoint.
My first impression was similar to yours, received from mainstream sources. But when I looked deeper, spent a couple of hours going over video analysis, and watched the evidence presented in court, my opinion changed. Being open to reconsidering an opinion when faced with good evidence is still something I value in myself and others.
There are violence junkies, but I see no objective evidence that Rittenhouse was one of them. No has anybody found any evidence of his seeking out trouble.
"But is there evidence that he just wanted to cause trouble, or wanted to shoot at people, or even that he was against non-arsonist protesters?"
Oh Jesus H. Freaking Christ.
Is there any evidence that leaving gasoline-soaked rags near an open flame will cause a fire?
Circumstantial alone: he took the trouble to procure a gun, not just a gun but a weapon of massacre, and entered a zone of violent chaos. You can bat your eyes all you like but that is not innocence.
He was the only person seen administering first aid? Great, He was also the only person who shot and killed anyone.
But: before he went to Kenosha he told a lot of his friends that he wanted to shoot people there. Many witnesses to this. Thus endeth your argument.
I easily found reference to the cell phone video in the NYT. See above.
Seems kind of strange that a guy living in Vietnam who followed the trial not very avidly read this several times while so many others who attentively followed it never read this at all.
Rittenhouse wanted to shoot people. That's why he brought a gun. An assault rifle, no less.
The moment he had a pretext to claim self-defense, someone was dead. Of course he didn't just walk around "I don't like your face" KAPOW because not even a cartoonishly incompetent prosecutor and a snake of a red state judge could have gotten him off that.
So why did the other medic, Huber, bring his gun? Because he wanted to shoot people, or because he thought he might need it if attacked himself?
One of the most common cognitive flaws among humans is in regard to projecting motives to other people. The entire point of the trial was to assess the circumstances and motives of undisputed shootings - were they self defense or not? If the prosecution won, those shot would legally be victims unjustly harmed; if the defense won, then those shot would be aggressors from whom he was legitimately defending himself. The judge ruling that the prosecution could not call them "victims" until the jury had made that determination was standard procedure, not to bias the jury by presuming the outcome of a self defense trial. It would be routine in other self defense cases as well (including with defendants of other races). This was according to lawyers in the area. But some liberal sources failed to mention that context, and implied or stated that the judge was being outrageous and biased.
Likewise, you are projecting motives to Rittenhouse. While awaiting the video or testimony, what I have seen so far in terms of Rittenhouse's actual behavior fits a model of self defense *far* better than one of intending to find somebody to kill. Does your model of a killer proud boy include peacefully treating protesters to first aid and never threatening anybody in any way until being physically assaulted? If you are taking those as just laying cover in hopes of later getting a chance to shoot somebody, then we are getting into dicey territory.
I didn't save any links but I heard this several times and I believe it came up in the case and was ruled inadmissible, as with referring to the people he shot as "victims." I could not find it again any easier than you but since my main source of news is the Washington Post and not YouTube it should not be hard to track down.
It was definitely not a quote of a quote of a quote of a quote. You do however have my word that I am not making it up nor propagating dubious sources.
Honestly, Steve, everything about this case disgusts me. Both the finding of innocence and the wild charges of white supremacy. In my mind "stupid kid" and "fucking second amendment" cover it. Clearly though this moron was amped up on the whole hero image, stalking around wit gun in hand and at the ready.
If someone wants to bracket a few seconds and say "look, he was defending himself!" I am not playing. He got an assault rifle and waded into chaos. Any mentally sound person would have stayed home.
OK, let's be clear. There was rioting, arson, and mayhem; people were already being injured (tho not killed) before the first shooting. The records suggest a minimum of 3 other guns out in the crowd that night (ie: not including the armed folks defending the car lot), one handgun seen and heard on the videotape just before Rittenhouse shot Rosenbaum, one firing 3 shots just after, and the one that Huber pointed at Rosenbaum; but accounts say there were others.
I would agree that Rittenhouse was foolish. But by your standards, there was nobody on the street that night who was of sound mind, including the 3 folks who got shot.
If it's true that "he told a lot of his friends that he wanted to shoot people there. Many witnesses to this", then this will be some real evidence for your view, and will definitely modify my opinion.
I have been wrong before, and I admit it when good evidence arises. But I need more than your impression before I accept that, I need some harder evidence.
I did not say that Rittenhouse was the only person rendering first aid; only that he was the only person that a prosecution witness had seen rendering first aid - to a protester, before any shootings. The point is that he was wandering in the crowd offering medic services and yelling "friendly, friendly, friendly" before Rosenbaum attacked him - not looking for trouble. He tried to run away from Rosenbaum and only used the gun after being cornered. He then tried to flee again. After he tripped and was attacked and shot two more, he again ran away. He never shot at anybody who had not first attacked him or threatened his life (with a handgun). There are no allegations from the prosecution that Rittenhouse had injured anybody, threatened anybody, or pointed his gun at anybody before he was attacked by Rosenbaum.
Anyway, awaiting your documentation that Rittenhouse was hoping to kill people. That could be a game changer for me. I didn't see the prosecution bring that up, which strikes me as odd if you are correct, as it would have greatly helped their case. So I suspect you got that from a rumor or unreliable source, but it's possible that I'm wrong and I await evidence. Over to you.
Rittenhouse's shootings have been legally determined by a jury to have been legitimate self defense, after hearing all the evidence. So far, all the people I've seen smugly condemn him have been deeply ignorant of the evidence presented by both sides at the trial - they want to second guess the jury based on their far more limited knowledge from only biased sources.
The shootings are a tragedy, but not a crime. Rosenbaum was a piece of work who apparently attacked Rittenhouse without any justification, but the other two (one killed, on injured) were actually thinking they were doing the right thing, believing that like the McMichael's in Georgia, they had some kind of vigilante "citizen's arrest" right and duty to chase down and detain by force somebody running away, based on rumors passed among the crowd (neither had directly seen the earlier shooting of Rosenbaum).
Again, I think it was foolish of Rittenhouse to try to provide first aid in a riot situation, or to go there at all, much less carrying a gun. But his sense that he might need it turned out not to be mistaken; if he had been killed by the crowd, it would have made a far smaller impact nationally. There were around 19 people killed in the rioting after George Floyd's murder, and you know none of their names. His would have been similarly downplayed nationally, if it were him who was killed. The third person shot and wounded was also a medic carrying a gun "just in case" it was needed, but nobody is condemning him for being there and armed.
"Prosecutors have repeatedly tried to introduce evidence of Mr. Rittenhouse’s associations with the far-right Proud Boys, as well as a cellphone video taken weeks before the shootings in Kenosha in which Mr. Rittenhouse suggested that he wished he had his rifle so he could shoot men leaving a pharmacy. The judge did not allow either as evidence for trial."
Um, almost. All you have is allegations from the prosecution about what evidence they wanted to present. If you follow trials, you know that both sides puff up their assertions, and only sometimes succeed in providing evidence to support it which survives scrutiny.
This particular prosecutor did not earn my respect; one of the worst I've observed, more political than legal. I do not trust his word.
So I give a bit more weight to the assertion, but I still want to see the actual evidence, not the assertion by a partisan that such evidence exists. Was that cellphone video released by anybody? Have you seen it? Do you have a link? I promise that I will watch it and get back to you if so. But I do not trust the prosecution's characterization to be accurate and in full context. (Nor would I trust assertions from the defense about evidence not actually presented).
Such a cell phone video would go much further towards changing my mind. Failing that, you claimed there were "many witnesses", which usually means 3 or more. Where are their words, so we can judge fairly?
This global loss of faith in objective reality scares the shit out of me. It has been worsening for some time and both sides of the political divide take some blame for it; the right in its determination is legitimize its cruelty and irrationality, and the left in its determination to never make value judgments.
For me the iconic image of our dilemma comes from the 1925 Eisenstein film Potemkin, when the sailors' food is being brought aboard, the meat rotten with maggots; ship's doctor Smirnov folds his pince-nez, holds them up to the meat, we see a closeup that even in this grainy B&W makes you want to puke, and pronounces, "these are not maggots"
That's where we are as a society. Armed crazies smashing windows? Just a tour group. These are not maggots.
Sen. Manchin blocking climate legislation while invested in coal stocks? These are not maggots.
Vaccines, not COVID, killing people? These are not maggots.
But I take issue with your view of Rittenhouse. If someone runs out into the street and into the path of a car without room to brake, that doesn't justify shooting the driver, and it is not self-defense. Pugsley had no business being there, he went looking for trouble, and he was just as much—worse—a violence junkie as the looters and smashers.
Violence junkies. Contemplate the term. They are not terrorists, they do not have political objectives (except maybe to portray peaceful protesters as violent, which never fails). They show up to use the safety of numbers to commit mayhem, which they enjoy. And of course the press ('scuse me, the "Main Stream Media" ... pssst, Allene, "mainstream" is one word) obligingly follows along, obediently making no distinction between protesters and VJs.
Seattle, 2006, the WTO protests; there was some delayed recognition that the people breaking the windows weren't the people showing up to protest the WTO, but that was the last time anyone took the trouble to tease the two apart.
Did you watch the trial of Rittenhouse? What I've found is that unfortunately, my traditional liberal leaning news sources are quite often very biased and give people some "impressions" which deserve questioning.
The world (and the prosecution) scrutinized Rittenhouse's life and did not find evidence that he held "far right" or "white supremacist" views. He was with a group of armed folks invited to protect some private property and who mostly stuck close to the buildings, but he went out into the main crowd a few times. On one foray he can be seen using a fire extinguisher on a burning dumpster being moved towards buildings (one of the common ways of starting building fires in 2020). This greatly upset Joseph Rosenbaum, who threatened to kill Rittenhouse. Later tho Rittenhouse went out into the crowd again (away from the safety o numbers), offering first aid to anybody on any side. He can he heard in video recordings saying "friendly, friendly, friendly" and asking if anybody needed first aid. NOT pointing his rifle at anybody, not trying to start trouble with anybody. One of the prosecution witnesses testified that the only person he had witnessed administering first aid to a protester was Rittenhouse.
From the video and drone footage, you can see Rosenbaum hiding behind a vehicle and then charging Rittenhouse who was offering first aid. Rittenhouse runs away, but gets cornered by Rosenbaum, who tries to grab Rittenhouse's rifle (consistent with video and forensics). Not until then, when under immediate direct attack from somebody threatening to kill him and who is trying to get the gun away from him, does Rittenhouse point the gun at a person, firing at Rosembaum at close range. Then Rittenhouse tries to flee - not shooting at anybody else, not starting a fight. He fired only at people who were physically attacking him, or who pointed a handgun at them, and then stopped firing & ran away when each attack ceased. Watch the several videos carefully. Point at any case where Rittenhouse fired at anything other than a direct and immediate threat. You won't find any.
That's not a case of jumping in front of a car before they can brake and shooting the driver; the analogy doesn't remotely fit. The evidence is unambiguous that Rittenhouse was being attacked and chased, attempting to run away.
I hope we have learned something from the Arberry case. If somebody is running away and you have not witnessed them committing a felony, let them escape. Do not attempt to make a citizen's arrest, do not appoint yourself a vigilante, do not attempt to disarm them. Sure, take picture, get a description, report it to the police, but don't try to jump them; you don't know the whole story and you don't have the right to detain them. Like Arberry, they cannot know your intention and may understandably assume you mean to harm them, not just detain them until the police arrive. Bad things can happen, in any direction. Let them go if they are running away.
Was Ritttenhouse unwise to try to help? Absolutely. Would I have recommended his going to the riots to "help" by protecting property and giving first aid to people? Hell no. But is there evidence that he just wanted to cause trouble, or wanted to shoot at people, or even that he was against non-arsonist protesters? None whatsoever. He claimed that he supported BLM, but not arson and rioting; making that distinction is not a white supremacist viewpoint.
My first impression was similar to yours, received from mainstream sources. But when I looked deeper, spent a couple of hours going over video analysis, and watched the evidence presented in court, my opinion changed. Being open to reconsidering an opinion when faced with good evidence is still something I value in myself and others.
There are violence junkies, but I see no objective evidence that Rittenhouse was one of them. No has anybody found any evidence of his seeking out trouble.
"But is there evidence that he just wanted to cause trouble, or wanted to shoot at people, or even that he was against non-arsonist protesters?"
Oh Jesus H. Freaking Christ.
Is there any evidence that leaving gasoline-soaked rags near an open flame will cause a fire?
Circumstantial alone: he took the trouble to procure a gun, not just a gun but a weapon of massacre, and entered a zone of violent chaos. You can bat your eyes all you like but that is not innocence.
He was the only person seen administering first aid? Great, He was also the only person who shot and killed anyone.
But: before he went to Kenosha he told a lot of his friends that he wanted to shoot people there. Many witnesses to this. Thus endeth your argument.
"before he went to Kenosha he told a lot of his friends that he wanted to shoot people there. Many witnesses to this."
Really??!! That's the first I'm hearing about this and I thought I'd seen everything there was to see on the case. Do you have a source?
I easily found reference to the cell phone video in the NYT. See above.
Seems kind of strange that a guy living in Vietnam who followed the trial not very avidly read this several times while so many others who attentively followed it never read this at all.
Rittenhouse wanted to shoot people. That's why he brought a gun. An assault rifle, no less.
The moment he had a pretext to claim self-defense, someone was dead. Of course he didn't just walk around "I don't like your face" KAPOW because not even a cartoonishly incompetent prosecutor and a snake of a red state judge could have gotten him off that.
So why did the other medic, Huber, bring his gun? Because he wanted to shoot people, or because he thought he might need it if attacked himself?
One of the most common cognitive flaws among humans is in regard to projecting motives to other people. The entire point of the trial was to assess the circumstances and motives of undisputed shootings - were they self defense or not? If the prosecution won, those shot would legally be victims unjustly harmed; if the defense won, then those shot would be aggressors from whom he was legitimately defending himself. The judge ruling that the prosecution could not call them "victims" until the jury had made that determination was standard procedure, not to bias the jury by presuming the outcome of a self defense trial. It would be routine in other self defense cases as well (including with defendants of other races). This was according to lawyers in the area. But some liberal sources failed to mention that context, and implied or stated that the judge was being outrageous and biased.
Likewise, you are projecting motives to Rittenhouse. While awaiting the video or testimony, what I have seen so far in terms of Rittenhouse's actual behavior fits a model of self defense *far* better than one of intending to find somebody to kill. Does your model of a killer proud boy include peacefully treating protesters to first aid and never threatening anybody in any way until being physically assaulted? If you are taking those as just laying cover in hopes of later getting a chance to shoot somebody, then we are getting into dicey territory.
I didn't save any links but I heard this several times and I believe it came up in the case and was ruled inadmissible, as with referring to the people he shot as "victims." I could not find it again any easier than you but since my main source of news is the Washington Post and not YouTube it should not be hard to track down.
It was definitely not a quote of a quote of a quote of a quote. You do however have my word that I am not making it up nor propagating dubious sources.
Honestly, Steve, everything about this case disgusts me. Both the finding of innocence and the wild charges of white supremacy. In my mind "stupid kid" and "fucking second amendment" cover it. Clearly though this moron was amped up on the whole hero image, stalking around wit gun in hand and at the ready.
If someone wants to bracket a few seconds and say "look, he was defending himself!" I am not playing. He got an assault rifle and waded into chaos. Any mentally sound person would have stayed home.
OK, let's be clear. There was rioting, arson, and mayhem; people were already being injured (tho not killed) before the first shooting. The records suggest a minimum of 3 other guns out in the crowd that night (ie: not including the armed folks defending the car lot), one handgun seen and heard on the videotape just before Rittenhouse shot Rosenbaum, one firing 3 shots just after, and the one that Huber pointed at Rosenbaum; but accounts say there were others.
I would agree that Rittenhouse was foolish. But by your standards, there was nobody on the street that night who was of sound mind, including the 3 folks who got shot.
I didn't say that, didn't say anything remotely like that. I wasn't there.
But I do know that chaos attracts people who think mayhem is fun. There had been two days of mayhem that the cops did nothing about.
And only one person at the melee actually killed anyone.
OK, please provide your sources.
If it's true that "he told a lot of his friends that he wanted to shoot people there. Many witnesses to this", then this will be some real evidence for your view, and will definitely modify my opinion.
I have been wrong before, and I admit it when good evidence arises. But I need more than your impression before I accept that, I need some harder evidence.
I did not say that Rittenhouse was the only person rendering first aid; only that he was the only person that a prosecution witness had seen rendering first aid - to a protester, before any shootings. The point is that he was wandering in the crowd offering medic services and yelling "friendly, friendly, friendly" before Rosenbaum attacked him - not looking for trouble. He tried to run away from Rosenbaum and only used the gun after being cornered. He then tried to flee again. After he tripped and was attacked and shot two more, he again ran away. He never shot at anybody who had not first attacked him or threatened his life (with a handgun). There are no allegations from the prosecution that Rittenhouse had injured anybody, threatened anybody, or pointed his gun at anybody before he was attacked by Rosenbaum.
Anyway, awaiting your documentation that Rittenhouse was hoping to kill people. That could be a game changer for me. I didn't see the prosecution bring that up, which strikes me as odd if you are correct, as it would have greatly helped their case. So I suspect you got that from a rumor or unreliable source, but it's possible that I'm wrong and I await evidence. Over to you.
Rittenhouse's shootings have been legally determined by a jury to have been legitimate self defense, after hearing all the evidence. So far, all the people I've seen smugly condemn him have been deeply ignorant of the evidence presented by both sides at the trial - they want to second guess the jury based on their far more limited knowledge from only biased sources.
The shootings are a tragedy, but not a crime. Rosenbaum was a piece of work who apparently attacked Rittenhouse without any justification, but the other two (one killed, on injured) were actually thinking they were doing the right thing, believing that like the McMichael's in Georgia, they had some kind of vigilante "citizen's arrest" right and duty to chase down and detain by force somebody running away, based on rumors passed among the crowd (neither had directly seen the earlier shooting of Rosenbaum).
Again, I think it was foolish of Rittenhouse to try to provide first aid in a riot situation, or to go there at all, much less carrying a gun. But his sense that he might need it turned out not to be mistaken; if he had been killed by the crowd, it would have made a far smaller impact nationally. There were around 19 people killed in the rioting after George Floyd's murder, and you know none of their names. His would have been similarly downplayed nationally, if it were him who was killed. The third person shot and wounded was also a medic carrying a gun "just in case" it was needed, but nobody is condemning him for being there and armed.
"Prosecutors have repeatedly tried to introduce evidence of Mr. Rittenhouse’s associations with the far-right Proud Boys, as well as a cellphone video taken weeks before the shootings in Kenosha in which Mr. Rittenhouse suggested that he wished he had his rifle so he could shoot men leaving a pharmacy. The judge did not allow either as evidence for trial."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-victims.html
I suppose now you want to quibble over "suggested"
Surprise me: modify your opinion.
Um, almost. All you have is allegations from the prosecution about what evidence they wanted to present. If you follow trials, you know that both sides puff up their assertions, and only sometimes succeed in providing evidence to support it which survives scrutiny.
This particular prosecutor did not earn my respect; one of the worst I've observed, more political than legal. I do not trust his word.
So I give a bit more weight to the assertion, but I still want to see the actual evidence, not the assertion by a partisan that such evidence exists. Was that cellphone video released by anybody? Have you seen it? Do you have a link? I promise that I will watch it and get back to you if so. But I do not trust the prosecution's characterization to be accurate and in full context. (Nor would I trust assertions from the defense about evidence not actually presented).
Such a cell phone video would go much further towards changing my mind. Failing that, you claimed there were "many witnesses", which usually means 3 or more. Where are their words, so we can judge fairly?
I am through with you