The Kyle Rittenhouse case really is the story that keeps on giving. Even though I wrote about it back in November, I still occasionally get people popping up in the comments to dispute facts that, by now, should be common knowledge. But that’s the problem. Rittenhouse’s case got people especially mad because the reporting around it was especially bad. By the time the details were widely available, some people couldn’t reset. As the saying goes; “my mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts.”
Dreadful event. No question. Kyle shouldn’t have been there but he was. A town he knew was being looted and burned to the ground by opportunists. What would you do to defend your town, your local businesses from wanton destruction?
I’m not capable of shooting another human. Kyle evidently was. The video of his fear-ridden behavior in light of adults chasing him isn’t pretty. It also has nothing to do with the cause of Black Lives Matter. There’s panic, there’s fear, there’s a mob.
The attempt to twist this into some weird white supremacist narrative is seriously warped.
I want good police, well trained, to patrol the streets and neighborhoods and protect the vulnerable from those who would do harm. Isn’t that the essence of the social compact? I don’t want to have to arm to ensure I’m safe. If police are demonized and we lose the rule of law, what’s left is the rule of the jungle. Is that really preferable to our current system, warts and all?
Let’s build a better system on the core of the rule of law, equally applied. Each of those phrases can use more scrutiny, but scrutiny and reform is better than tossing it in the trash bin and creating a free-for-all on the streets.
This is absolutely the most simple, concise summary of the argument against defunding the police *and* for proper gun legislation that I've ever seen. This captures it all for me. And should for any sane person. Well said.
While I agree with the sentiments expressed, sometimes it is prudent to do what we'd rather not do. It is also often prudent to adapt to your environment before trying to change it in order to up your odds of surviving to change it.
My hope for the best but be prepared for the worst mindset was instilled in a different time and place. I understand that, but in the worst case scenarios, no one is coming to save you.
Unfortunately, faith in America's justice system is eroding badly and rightfully so. You mentioned not being capable of shooting another human. I used to do a lot of international business travel, leaving my wife home alone for weeks at a time. She doubted that she would shoot someone and preferred depending upon our dog as her defender and wanted the gun locked in the gun safe when I was gone. Sadly, the good boy crossed the rainbow bridge last week. Many people do need a defender and when society believes that no one is coming to defend them (and they aren't) it is a bad situation. People will welcome Paul Kersey.
Bless your sweet dogness. Mine walked the rainbow bridge a month ago. Buried on the land, facing the ocean.
We do need defenders, no question. As someone who has been attacked at knifepoint with intent to rape…I survived through dumb instinct. But I wish I could make him pay.
In the immediacy of our need we need something more than blind belief. A dog, a pepper spray, a knife chop to the eyes - each of us could use a self defense class with a barbed edge. And I don’t like knowing this.
Good to read that you survived the attack though I have no doubt that it left mental/emotional scars. Sad to read of the loss of your furry friend. People who don't have dogs in their family underestimate the impact.
This has been a bad year so far. The passing of my mother, a good friend of mine, my wife's best friend, another of her dear friends (close like a sister) losing her father and husband, our dog and two cats. All this year. If all the death would stop for a while it would be just great.
With regard to self-defense classes, looking back I taught some inappropriate ones. You can only teach what you know and teaching women to fight like the large man that I am really is a poor plan. Some women are man strong, some. Effective self-defense is a complex issue where one size does not fit all and there is no panacea, but "something" is often better than nothing since luck is also always a factor. People will carry a blade when they would not a firearm, but people bleed out slowly enough that they are still a lethal threat after they are walking dead. Nothing is perfect in our imperfect world. A horrible conversation isn't it.
Yes, but a real one. I remember finding the group Pink Pistols after the slaughter of gays in the nightclub and loved their strength and resolute determination not to be pray.
Very well said Steve. Thanks for your indefatigably well reasoned and researched analyis. I so appreciate your opposition to racism and hate and your determination to do so in a way that is fair and consistent with the facts, as best we can ascertain them. As an old guy who has worked on these issues for many years as an elected official, teacher, and activsit, your perspective is very inspirational for me and gives me a lot of hope.
I think that your assessment is thoughtful and fair. The court of public opinion was fed a bunch of bullshit for long enough for it to entrench opinions with disregard for actual facts as they became available. That is the norm in this day and age and good reason for a real court system even though I have a very low opinion of it. It is difficult to not form an opinion too soon with emotionally charged issues, but it seems even more difficult to change our minds when that opinion algins with our worldview.
There is so much dishonesty around the Rittenhouse case that it takes a helicopter with a powerful engine to stay above the rising pile of bullshit. Those who insist he was acting in self-defense are pretending that he was asleep in his own bed but awoke and found himself in the middle of a riot with an assault rifle, that there was no choice in his being there armed to kill.
Never mind the fact that he had told his friends that he wanted to shoot looters a few days before. The biased judge ruled the video of that statement inadmissible.
If you've seen any video of this kid you know that he is unintelligent and brainwashed by right wing nonsense.
His presence in Kenosha was planned and prepared. He bought his gun just before going there and anyone who thinks he wasn't hoping to shoot some people has stars in the eyes. There had been, and there was, no other killing going on in Kenosha, it was property damage that the local police were turning a blind eye to just as they did nothing in Uvalde. There had been no indication of any urgent need for self-defense. Yet this fish-eyed kid killed two people and disabled a third. And shedding a few tears in court got him released.
In the months since he has been some sort of right wing darling and is now trying to sue the news media for defamation. He will probably not be admitted to any college or have anything like a career but his tendency to drama will probably get him killed anyway.
"Those who insist he was acting in self-defense are pretending that he was asleep in his own bed but awoke and found himself in the middle of a riot with an assault rifle, that there was no choice in his being there armed to kill."
Again, I'm not defending Rittenhouse's stupidity, but Rittenhouse was very clearly acting in self-defence. The shootings are all on video. In each of the incidents, he tries to run away from the threat before firing only when he is physically attacked or when a gun is aimed at him. And in each case, once the threat is over, he lowers his gun and tries to leave the situation. It's hard to imagine a more perfect definition of self defence.
All the arguments about whether he should have been there at all or whether he should have had access to a gun are valid. But they're nothing to do with whether he acted in self defence. The question of whether somebody is acting in self defence is unrelated to whether they were being stupid beforehand. As long as that stupidity didn't legitimately make somebody else fear for their life or safety.
If I walked into a sundown town after dark with a gun and a sign on my back saying "I love white women," that would be a stupid thing to do. But if somebody attacked me, and I shot them, that would still be self defence.
We really need to separate our personal dislike for a person's actions and the question of self defence. They're nothing to do with each other. And for good reason.
OK I phrased that poorly, it sounds as if I am denying the self-defense and saying he was just shooting people for sport. All me to rephrase:
"Those who emphasize the role of self-defense in Rittenhouse's three shooting ..."
Is that better?
Suppose I ran into a crowd of yelling bigots protesting some LGB ruling that didn't go their way, waving a rainbow flag and festooned with gay regalia like long acronyms carrying a rifle. Suppose I killed a dozen of them and video showed that every one I shot had attacked me in some way first. Would I be blameless? With matters reversed, would I not be seen as someone who went looking for trouble, inviting attack by bursting among unstable people already enraged?
The general issue I see missing in your formulation is that Rittenhouse carried a weapon of massacre into a chaotic riot situation and strutted around with his rifle at a ready angle, not strapped to his back. The only murders were his. To me that is the very image of looking for trouble and while yes he technically acted in self-defense in each carefully decontextualized situation but is he innocent?
"Those who emphasize the role of self-defense in Rittenhouse's three shooting ..."
But this is the only element relevant to Rittenhouse's self-defence case. So of course it's emphasised. All the other stuff, the pictures with the Proud Boys, the "back the Blue" posts on Instagram, even the video of him saying he wsh he had his gun, none of it is relevant to whether he should have been convicted of murder in this case.
When you say he's not innocent, what is the crime you're saying he's not innocent of? His crime can't be that you or I think he's stupid.
If you ran into an LGBT crowd with a rifle, they'd almost certainly be able to argue that they feared for their safety. And so the question of who was acting in self defence would be a lot less clear. But this is nothing like what happened with Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse was away from the main body of the protests, and he wasn't, from anything we've seen, behaving in a threatening manner at all.
But Rosenbaum, who set the whole sequence of events in motion, was absolutely behaving in a threatening manner. Both before he saw Rittenhouse, and afterwards, where he chased after him, threw his bag at him and tackled him to the ground. If you do that to a man carrying a rifle, one who, let's bear in mind, hadn't done anything wrong at that point, why are we pretending it's shocking that he was shot?
The commentary was about reaction to early misinformation which I addressed. My opinion on Rittenhouse is not relevant to that but you raised an important issue.
Was he foolhardy in walking around with a rifle? He put himself in a dangerous position so that can be said. Did he want to shoot someone, or did he think that the display of the rifle would keep him safe? We don't know the answer to that, we can only speculate in keeping with our biases. Perhaps if he lives to the prefrontal cortex development that comes at around age 25, he will look back on the event with maturity. Unfortunately, Nicole's Kool-Aid drinkers are glorifying the event which I see as having two problems. One for him shedding the image that he has of himself and the more dangerous one for society of people seeing vigilantism as a good thing.
While he placed himself in a position where he ended up in a self-defense situation it no more negates his right to self-defense than for a woman who just gave a lap dance to someone in a "gentlemen's club" for money to defend herself in the parking lot from the guy trying to rape her or a man in a gay steam room defending himself. Unwise, but legal actions, don't negate self-preservation. As a young man I did some foolish things and was lucky. The same could probably be said for you. Thank Odin we didn't kill someone or get killed as a result.
I'm the kind who seeks to avoid risk. I have always believed that when one does certain foolhardy things, like draw a gun, one has opened a door better left closed and should not be surprised if what passes through isn't the video game fantasy that was expected. You won't hear a lot of sympathy for Matthew Shepard from me either. Details on request.
I never said circumstances negate anyone's right to self-defense but if he'd been killed the fact that he placed himself in the situation would sure as hell negate any sympathy I might have otherwise had.
I've never gone in for the "she led him on" or "gay panic" rationalizations.
I don't think maturity lies in Kyle's future. I had a neighbor kid in Norfolk whose mom had drunk heavily while pregnant. Rittenhouse has the same eyes he did.
Avoiding conflict is a wise choice and one that I'm better at with age than when I was young. There was a lot of dumb ass going on at that event. I suspect that the trio thought that he wouldn't actually shoot. It takes a special kind of stupidity to attack someone who is running around with a rifle. He didn't attack anyone, they did. It might be hard for you to have sympathy for them for the same reason. We do live in an ideocracy don't we.
I have the same objections to glorifying him as you. To quote the fictional character, Kwai Chang Cane, "To kill a man does no one honor."
Ummm, with an almost insignificant change of circumstances, attacking a guy with a rifle could be an act of heroism. The guy who rushes an armed shooter and saves lives would be viewed in a very different light.
All your responses about gun matters focus heavily on the right to self-defense. I don't think this is a central concern with firearm ownership; yes it does happen but most statistics on its frequency are muddled by the RKBA crowd determined to push their arguments, and being able to purchase assault rifles from vending machines in airports is more important to them than any honest discussion. The same people who say Stalin killed a hundred million people say that guns are used in a hundred thousand acts of defense every year.
It's like the old argument about having the runaway train kill one person or six people; I don't say this of you, you strike me as reasonable, but the strident arguments about self-defense show a fascination with helplessness only mirrored by the S&M bondage crowd. Right now gun ownership in the USA is simply doing too much harm, not only the mass shootings but the fanaticism and rage.
The small difference was that the guy with the rifle did not initiate the violence.
I suspect that self-defense is often sighted as a response to "need." The world would be a very different place if we were limited to needs and most people wouldn't like that world. I don't respond with that to the "What does anyone need with..." argument because I don't really care about what people think others need a need for. Next thing you know they'll say I don't need my banjo. ;0)
The odds of me needing to defend myself with a gun are almost as low as the odds of me being a victim of a mass shooting and both are probably overemphasized in the discussion.
In a recent conversation with my wife, she revealed for the first time just how afraid she was that I would be killed on my last return to Vietnam. For some reason it inspired me to reread James Webb's classic "Fields of Fire" for a trip back in time. Things shoved down the memory hole returned which are making me think about how much those formative years shaped my views for a lifetime. Things no longer relevant. A productive thing for the discussion is to honestly address why we hold the views that we hold which are not as often about pure logic as we like to believe. People are very good at bullshitting themselves. Not as some accusatory bullshit to insult or win an argument in your own mind, making the divide worse, but genuine self-assessment.
If you like to read, I recommend it. It is a book that could not be written today. Brutal honesty with all the magic racist words of that time, place and people meant to dehumanize. That is why I so often address the issue of demonization and dehumanization, something I never chose to forget its purpose.
If you want to talk in generic terms about presumptions of what other people need you're wasting your time. Do I *need* a room full of boxes of physics books I don't have shelves for? No. Do I *need* saxophones and flutes I don't play? No.
Does anyone *need* a firearm? That gets hazy. In a high crime neighborhood where burglary and robbery are common it would be hard to justify denial.
But: does anyone need a military weapon of massacre for self-defense? Absolutely not. Homes are not invaded by armies, they're invaded by addicts looking for a stereo or an iPad to steal and sell to buy dope. You don't need to be able to kill dozens of people in a minute to defend against that, and the availability of such firepower to demonstrably unstable people is doing the nation a lot of harm.
Antifa, huh? You mean the people who invaded the Capitol? Sorry those were Trump trash, Fa without the Anti.
Antifa, huh? OK. where is their headquarters, what is their organizational structure, what is their political agenda? Who is their head honcho?
While we're at it, how did we go from 2 to 8,000,000,000 people in 6000 years with no women but the mother of one surviving son? How was the moon landing faked? Why is Dr, Fauci suppressing the curative miracle of ivermectin and spraying Clorox up your ass?
Chris. This isn't Twitter. I'm deleting this post. I'm asking you to be more productive and respectful when you speak to people. You're capable of so much better than this.
A five year old article that writes in vague terms about a twitter following and treats opposition to hate-speakers in the same tone as beating a man to death with a baseball bat.
Did you even read it?
"Antifa" is a fantasy created by the fascist right to garner sympathy and to revel in the joy of feeling persecuted, just like another group we discuss in here a lot.
"Leftist" violence, defined by opposition to the right, and right-wing violence with its tens of millions of followers. Talk about motes and beams.
""Antifa" is a fantasy created by the fascist right to garner sympathy and to revel in the joy of feeling persecuted, just like another group we discuss in here a lot."
I really don't understand why you're so determined to ignore the flaws of the extremists on the Left. Yes, there are dangers on the Right. But nobody here is denying them. It's just silly to say things like "there is no such thing as Antifa."
Where are the headquarters of QAnon? What is their organisational structure? Who is their head honcho? Would questions like these persuade you that the QAnon doesn't exist? Or would you be more likely to accuse anybody making them of being disingenuous?
Please point out my determination to ignore extremism on the left. I can't recall writing a word like that in my life. OTOH I've written copiously against the irresponsibility of the "social" left. With 95% of the political violence coming from the right, I'm not taking a lot of symmetry seeking. Left wing political violence makes me think of the 1968 Chicago DNC and the Weathermen, not this decade.
Qanon has video channels, web sites, an organizational network to summon people to gatherings. The only mystery is the identity of its titular leader.
From all I've seen, Antifa is just a bogeyman, a shorthand for alleged "perpetrators of leftist violence" but without any identified members. The masked man who punched Richard Spencer, presumed antifa. The guys who beat up Andy Ngo, presumed antifa.
After sending his own followers to trash the Capitol, Trump said it was antifa.
Your article did not establish that antifa exists and none of the authoritative sites, all of them considerably more recent, did either. They say that antifa is just a name, short for anti-fascist or anti-fascist action.
There are lots of widespread sentiments and political views with a lot of believers but not actually organizations. Anti-Fascism goes back as far as fascism because there have always been people who rightfully found it to be abhorrent. There may have been millions of antifascists in their beliefs and there were in fact organizations in the 30s, with membership and strategy. And not only in Germany; Communist and Fascist dockworkers fought brutally before the ACP dissolved in 1939. Iron pipes to the teeth.
I don't see the gray area that you and Steve do. What is the threshold between a widespread sentiment and an identifiable organization? The KKK, the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers, these are organizations. They have leaders, they have organization, they have strategy. The KKK is an organization founded on racism. Racism itself is not an organization, it is a sentiment. Antifa is a sentiment.
Where does the line cross? Buying a web domain? Renting a building and electing a hierarchy? Bombing a post office? (I just checked. There is no antifa.com, it redirects to whitehouse.gov).
Take any nutty belief you like. I'm sure there are creationist web sites; are creationists a movement? Are they going to invade museums and smash fossils?
This is getting kind of ridiculous, frankly. That Jason guy said an acolyte of James O'Keefe was beaten up at some rally and he claimed it was antifa beating him. None of his assailants were identified but Jason confidently asserted that this was proof of antifa's existence. The acolyte was an Asian named Andy Ngo and he was filming a Proud Boys rally. OK, an Asian at a white supremacist rally beaten up by unknown assailants so blame antifa, never even freaking consider the fact that a nonwhite guy at a supremacist rally could have been beaten for being nonwhite. JFC.
Just as Trump tried to blame them for the Capitol invasion he incited at his own rally.
Thugs and criminals. I lived near Seattle at the time of the WTO protests, where a "left wing" mob demonstrating was blamed for widespread property damage. That lie had circled the globe before the truth that the smashers were a bunch of violence junkies got its shoes laced.
Chaos always attracts violence junkies. The press is quick to call them "left wing thugs" when in reality most of we on the left are a little too savvy to short-circuit our press coverage like that. I'm willing to concede, starry-eyed though I might be in doing so, that violence junkies play similar roles at right wing events but then we have federal statistics that 95% of domestic terrorism is right wing.
But then, I'm gay and have been to "pride" parades where the whole goal was to be as offensive as possible. Maybe not violent, but disgusting.
You go ahead and believe that antifa is as real and organized as the KKK. I would need a lot more evidence.
Dreadful event. No question. Kyle shouldn’t have been there but he was. A town he knew was being looted and burned to the ground by opportunists. What would you do to defend your town, your local businesses from wanton destruction?
I’m not capable of shooting another human. Kyle evidently was. The video of his fear-ridden behavior in light of adults chasing him isn’t pretty. It also has nothing to do with the cause of Black Lives Matter. There’s panic, there’s fear, there’s a mob.
The attempt to twist this into some weird white supremacist narrative is seriously warped.
I want good police, well trained, to patrol the streets and neighborhoods and protect the vulnerable from those who would do harm. Isn’t that the essence of the social compact? I don’t want to have to arm to ensure I’m safe. If police are demonized and we lose the rule of law, what’s left is the rule of the jungle. Is that really preferable to our current system, warts and all?
Let’s build a better system on the core of the rule of law, equally applied. Each of those phrases can use more scrutiny, but scrutiny and reform is better than tossing it in the trash bin and creating a free-for-all on the streets.
"I don’t want to have to arm to ensure I’m safe"
This is absolutely the most simple, concise summary of the argument against defunding the police *and* for proper gun legislation that I've ever seen. This captures it all for me. And should for any sane person. Well said.
While I agree with the sentiments expressed, sometimes it is prudent to do what we'd rather not do. It is also often prudent to adapt to your environment before trying to change it in order to up your odds of surviving to change it.
My hope for the best but be prepared for the worst mindset was instilled in a different time and place. I understand that, but in the worst case scenarios, no one is coming to save you.
Unfortunately, faith in America's justice system is eroding badly and rightfully so. You mentioned not being capable of shooting another human. I used to do a lot of international business travel, leaving my wife home alone for weeks at a time. She doubted that she would shoot someone and preferred depending upon our dog as her defender and wanted the gun locked in the gun safe when I was gone. Sadly, the good boy crossed the rainbow bridge last week. Many people do need a defender and when society believes that no one is coming to defend them (and they aren't) it is a bad situation. People will welcome Paul Kersey.
Bless your sweet dogness. Mine walked the rainbow bridge a month ago. Buried on the land, facing the ocean.
We do need defenders, no question. As someone who has been attacked at knifepoint with intent to rape…I survived through dumb instinct. But I wish I could make him pay.
In the immediacy of our need we need something more than blind belief. A dog, a pepper spray, a knife chop to the eyes - each of us could use a self defense class with a barbed edge. And I don’t like knowing this.
Good to read that you survived the attack though I have no doubt that it left mental/emotional scars. Sad to read of the loss of your furry friend. People who don't have dogs in their family underestimate the impact.
This has been a bad year so far. The passing of my mother, a good friend of mine, my wife's best friend, another of her dear friends (close like a sister) losing her father and husband, our dog and two cats. All this year. If all the death would stop for a while it would be just great.
With regard to self-defense classes, looking back I taught some inappropriate ones. You can only teach what you know and teaching women to fight like the large man that I am really is a poor plan. Some women are man strong, some. Effective self-defense is a complex issue where one size does not fit all and there is no panacea, but "something" is often better than nothing since luck is also always a factor. People will carry a blade when they would not a firearm, but people bleed out slowly enough that they are still a lethal threat after they are walking dead. Nothing is perfect in our imperfect world. A horrible conversation isn't it.
Yes, but a real one. I remember finding the group Pink Pistols after the slaughter of gays in the nightclub and loved their strength and resolute determination not to be pray.
Sorry about the dog, Dave.
Thanks Chris.
Very well said Steve. Thanks for your indefatigably well reasoned and researched analyis. I so appreciate your opposition to racism and hate and your determination to do so in a way that is fair and consistent with the facts, as best we can ascertain them. As an old guy who has worked on these issues for many years as an elected official, teacher, and activsit, your perspective is very inspirational for me and gives me a lot of hope.
Thanks a lot Joseph! I do my best.😁
I think that your assessment is thoughtful and fair. The court of public opinion was fed a bunch of bullshit for long enough for it to entrench opinions with disregard for actual facts as they became available. That is the norm in this day and age and good reason for a real court system even though I have a very low opinion of it. It is difficult to not form an opinion too soon with emotionally charged issues, but it seems even more difficult to change our minds when that opinion algins with our worldview.
Another great take.
Love that phrasing: "allow ourselves to be confused by the facts." It'd make a great bumper sticker: "Allow yourself to be confused by the facts."
There is so much dishonesty around the Rittenhouse case that it takes a helicopter with a powerful engine to stay above the rising pile of bullshit. Those who insist he was acting in self-defense are pretending that he was asleep in his own bed but awoke and found himself in the middle of a riot with an assault rifle, that there was no choice in his being there armed to kill.
Never mind the fact that he had told his friends that he wanted to shoot looters a few days before. The biased judge ruled the video of that statement inadmissible.
If you've seen any video of this kid you know that he is unintelligent and brainwashed by right wing nonsense.
His presence in Kenosha was planned and prepared. He bought his gun just before going there and anyone who thinks he wasn't hoping to shoot some people has stars in the eyes. There had been, and there was, no other killing going on in Kenosha, it was property damage that the local police were turning a blind eye to just as they did nothing in Uvalde. There had been no indication of any urgent need for self-defense. Yet this fish-eyed kid killed two people and disabled a third. And shedding a few tears in court got him released.
In the months since he has been some sort of right wing darling and is now trying to sue the news media for defamation. He will probably not be admitted to any college or have anything like a career but his tendency to drama will probably get him killed anyway.
"Those who insist he was acting in self-defense are pretending that he was asleep in his own bed but awoke and found himself in the middle of a riot with an assault rifle, that there was no choice in his being there armed to kill."
Again, I'm not defending Rittenhouse's stupidity, but Rittenhouse was very clearly acting in self-defence. The shootings are all on video. In each of the incidents, he tries to run away from the threat before firing only when he is physically attacked or when a gun is aimed at him. And in each case, once the threat is over, he lowers his gun and tries to leave the situation. It's hard to imagine a more perfect definition of self defence.
All the arguments about whether he should have been there at all or whether he should have had access to a gun are valid. But they're nothing to do with whether he acted in self defence. The question of whether somebody is acting in self defence is unrelated to whether they were being stupid beforehand. As long as that stupidity didn't legitimately make somebody else fear for their life or safety.
If I walked into a sundown town after dark with a gun and a sign on my back saying "I love white women," that would be a stupid thing to do. But if somebody attacked me, and I shot them, that would still be self defence.
We really need to separate our personal dislike for a person's actions and the question of self defence. They're nothing to do with each other. And for good reason.
OK I phrased that poorly, it sounds as if I am denying the self-defense and saying he was just shooting people for sport. All me to rephrase:
"Those who emphasize the role of self-defense in Rittenhouse's three shooting ..."
Is that better?
Suppose I ran into a crowd of yelling bigots protesting some LGB ruling that didn't go their way, waving a rainbow flag and festooned with gay regalia like long acronyms carrying a rifle. Suppose I killed a dozen of them and video showed that every one I shot had attacked me in some way first. Would I be blameless? With matters reversed, would I not be seen as someone who went looking for trouble, inviting attack by bursting among unstable people already enraged?
The general issue I see missing in your formulation is that Rittenhouse carried a weapon of massacre into a chaotic riot situation and strutted around with his rifle at a ready angle, not strapped to his back. The only murders were his. To me that is the very image of looking for trouble and while yes he technically acted in self-defense in each carefully decontextualized situation but is he innocent?
No.
"Those who emphasize the role of self-defense in Rittenhouse's three shooting ..."
But this is the only element relevant to Rittenhouse's self-defence case. So of course it's emphasised. All the other stuff, the pictures with the Proud Boys, the "back the Blue" posts on Instagram, even the video of him saying he wsh he had his gun, none of it is relevant to whether he should have been convicted of murder in this case.
When you say he's not innocent, what is the crime you're saying he's not innocent of? His crime can't be that you or I think he's stupid.
If you ran into an LGBT crowd with a rifle, they'd almost certainly be able to argue that they feared for their safety. And so the question of who was acting in self defence would be a lot less clear. But this is nothing like what happened with Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse was away from the main body of the protests, and he wasn't, from anything we've seen, behaving in a threatening manner at all.
But Rosenbaum, who set the whole sequence of events in motion, was absolutely behaving in a threatening manner. Both before he saw Rittenhouse, and afterwards, where he chased after him, threw his bag at him and tackled him to the ground. If you do that to a man carrying a rifle, one who, let's bear in mind, hadn't done anything wrong at that point, why are we pretending it's shocking that he was shot?
The commentary was about reaction to early misinformation which I addressed. My opinion on Rittenhouse is not relevant to that but you raised an important issue.
Was he foolhardy in walking around with a rifle? He put himself in a dangerous position so that can be said. Did he want to shoot someone, or did he think that the display of the rifle would keep him safe? We don't know the answer to that, we can only speculate in keeping with our biases. Perhaps if he lives to the prefrontal cortex development that comes at around age 25, he will look back on the event with maturity. Unfortunately, Nicole's Kool-Aid drinkers are glorifying the event which I see as having two problems. One for him shedding the image that he has of himself and the more dangerous one for society of people seeing vigilantism as a good thing.
While he placed himself in a position where he ended up in a self-defense situation it no more negates his right to self-defense than for a woman who just gave a lap dance to someone in a "gentlemen's club" for money to defend herself in the parking lot from the guy trying to rape her or a man in a gay steam room defending himself. Unwise, but legal actions, don't negate self-preservation. As a young man I did some foolish things and was lucky. The same could probably be said for you. Thank Odin we didn't kill someone or get killed as a result.
I'm the kind who seeks to avoid risk. I have always believed that when one does certain foolhardy things, like draw a gun, one has opened a door better left closed and should not be surprised if what passes through isn't the video game fantasy that was expected. You won't hear a lot of sympathy for Matthew Shepard from me either. Details on request.
I never said circumstances negate anyone's right to self-defense but if he'd been killed the fact that he placed himself in the situation would sure as hell negate any sympathy I might have otherwise had.
I've never gone in for the "she led him on" or "gay panic" rationalizations.
I don't think maturity lies in Kyle's future. I had a neighbor kid in Norfolk whose mom had drunk heavily while pregnant. Rittenhouse has the same eyes he did.
Avoiding conflict is a wise choice and one that I'm better at with age than when I was young. There was a lot of dumb ass going on at that event. I suspect that the trio thought that he wouldn't actually shoot. It takes a special kind of stupidity to attack someone who is running around with a rifle. He didn't attack anyone, they did. It might be hard for you to have sympathy for them for the same reason. We do live in an ideocracy don't we.
I have the same objections to glorifying him as you. To quote the fictional character, Kwai Chang Cane, "To kill a man does no one honor."
Ummm, with an almost insignificant change of circumstances, attacking a guy with a rifle could be an act of heroism. The guy who rushes an armed shooter and saves lives would be viewed in a very different light.
All your responses about gun matters focus heavily on the right to self-defense. I don't think this is a central concern with firearm ownership; yes it does happen but most statistics on its frequency are muddled by the RKBA crowd determined to push their arguments, and being able to purchase assault rifles from vending machines in airports is more important to them than any honest discussion. The same people who say Stalin killed a hundred million people say that guns are used in a hundred thousand acts of defense every year.
It's like the old argument about having the runaway train kill one person or six people; I don't say this of you, you strike me as reasonable, but the strident arguments about self-defense show a fascination with helplessness only mirrored by the S&M bondage crowd. Right now gun ownership in the USA is simply doing too much harm, not only the mass shootings but the fanaticism and rage.
The small difference was that the guy with the rifle did not initiate the violence.
I suspect that self-defense is often sighted as a response to "need." The world would be a very different place if we were limited to needs and most people wouldn't like that world. I don't respond with that to the "What does anyone need with..." argument because I don't really care about what people think others need a need for. Next thing you know they'll say I don't need my banjo. ;0)
The odds of me needing to defend myself with a gun are almost as low as the odds of me being a victim of a mass shooting and both are probably overemphasized in the discussion.
In a recent conversation with my wife, she revealed for the first time just how afraid she was that I would be killed on my last return to Vietnam. For some reason it inspired me to reread James Webb's classic "Fields of Fire" for a trip back in time. Things shoved down the memory hole returned which are making me think about how much those formative years shaped my views for a lifetime. Things no longer relevant. A productive thing for the discussion is to honestly address why we hold the views that we hold which are not as often about pure logic as we like to believe. People are very good at bullshitting themselves. Not as some accusatory bullshit to insult or win an argument in your own mind, making the divide worse, but genuine self-assessment.
If you like to read, I recommend it. It is a book that could not be written today. Brutal honesty with all the magic racist words of that time, place and people meant to dehumanize. That is why I so often address the issue of demonization and dehumanization, something I never chose to forget its purpose.
Headed for bed but let me tell you one quote I live by: people are far better at rationalizing than at rationality.
But yeah so much discourse online is childish competitiveness. I will admit when I am wrong, that's very important to my sense of who I am.
If you want to talk in generic terms about presumptions of what other people need you're wasting your time. Do I *need* a room full of boxes of physics books I don't have shelves for? No. Do I *need* saxophones and flutes I don't play? No.
Does anyone *need* a firearm? That gets hazy. In a high crime neighborhood where burglary and robbery are common it would be hard to justify denial.
But: does anyone need a military weapon of massacre for self-defense? Absolutely not. Homes are not invaded by armies, they're invaded by addicts looking for a stereo or an iPad to steal and sell to buy dope. You don't need to be able to kill dozens of people in a minute to defend against that, and the availability of such firepower to demonstrably unstable people is doing the nation a lot of harm.
Antifa, huh? You mean the people who invaded the Capitol? Sorry those were Trump trash, Fa without the Anti.
Antifa, huh? OK. where is their headquarters, what is their organizational structure, what is their political agenda? Who is their head honcho?
While we're at it, how did we go from 2 to 8,000,000,000 people in 6000 years with no women but the mother of one surviving son? How was the moon landing faked? Why is Dr, Fauci suppressing the curative miracle of ivermectin and spraying Clorox up your ass?
There is no such thing as antifa
Look up Andy ngo. Antifa beat him.
"He blamed his injuries on antifa counter-protesters. No individual attackers were identified."
Yeah I'm convinced. /s
Are you for real?
Troll.
Chris. This isn't Twitter. I'm deleting this post. I'm asking you to be more productive and respectful when you speak to people. You're capable of so much better than this.
You'll have to refresh my memory, I have no recollection of what I wrote there.
A five year old article that writes in vague terms about a twitter following and treats opposition to hate-speakers in the same tone as beating a man to death with a baseball bat.
Did you even read it?
"Antifa" is a fantasy created by the fascist right to garner sympathy and to revel in the joy of feeling persecuted, just like another group we discuss in here a lot.
"Leftist" violence, defined by opposition to the right, and right-wing violence with its tens of millions of followers. Talk about motes and beams.
""Antifa" is a fantasy created by the fascist right to garner sympathy and to revel in the joy of feeling persecuted, just like another group we discuss in here a lot."
I really don't understand why you're so determined to ignore the flaws of the extremists on the Left. Yes, there are dangers on the Right. But nobody here is denying them. It's just silly to say things like "there is no such thing as Antifa."
Where are the headquarters of QAnon? What is their organisational structure? Who is their head honcho? Would questions like these persuade you that the QAnon doesn't exist? Or would you be more likely to accuse anybody making them of being disingenuous?
Please point out my determination to ignore extremism on the left. I can't recall writing a word like that in my life. OTOH I've written copiously against the irresponsibility of the "social" left. With 95% of the political violence coming from the right, I'm not taking a lot of symmetry seeking. Left wing political violence makes me think of the 1968 Chicago DNC and the Weathermen, not this decade.
Qanon has video channels, web sites, an organizational network to summon people to gatherings. The only mystery is the identity of its titular leader.
From all I've seen, Antifa is just a bogeyman, a shorthand for alleged "perpetrators of leftist violence" but without any identified members. The masked man who punched Richard Spencer, presumed antifa. The guys who beat up Andy Ngo, presumed antifa.
After sending his own followers to trash the Capitol, Trump said it was antifa.
Sorry I am not seeing the equivalence.
Your article did not establish that antifa exists and none of the authoritative sites, all of them considerably more recent, did either. They say that antifa is just a name, short for anti-fascist or anti-fascist action.
There are lots of widespread sentiments and political views with a lot of believers but not actually organizations. Anti-Fascism goes back as far as fascism because there have always been people who rightfully found it to be abhorrent. There may have been millions of antifascists in their beliefs and there were in fact organizations in the 30s, with membership and strategy. And not only in Germany; Communist and Fascist dockworkers fought brutally before the ACP dissolved in 1939. Iron pipes to the teeth.
I don't see the gray area that you and Steve do. What is the threshold between a widespread sentiment and an identifiable organization? The KKK, the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers, these are organizations. They have leaders, they have organization, they have strategy. The KKK is an organization founded on racism. Racism itself is not an organization, it is a sentiment. Antifa is a sentiment.
Where does the line cross? Buying a web domain? Renting a building and electing a hierarchy? Bombing a post office? (I just checked. There is no antifa.com, it redirects to whitehouse.gov).
Take any nutty belief you like. I'm sure there are creationist web sites; are creationists a movement? Are they going to invade museums and smash fossils?
This is getting kind of ridiculous, frankly. That Jason guy said an acolyte of James O'Keefe was beaten up at some rally and he claimed it was antifa beating him. None of his assailants were identified but Jason confidently asserted that this was proof of antifa's existence. The acolyte was an Asian named Andy Ngo and he was filming a Proud Boys rally. OK, an Asian at a white supremacist rally beaten up by unknown assailants so blame antifa, never even freaking consider the fact that a nonwhite guy at a supremacist rally could have been beaten for being nonwhite. JFC.
Just as Trump tried to blame them for the Capitol invasion he incited at his own rally.
Thugs and criminals. I lived near Seattle at the time of the WTO protests, where a "left wing" mob demonstrating was blamed for widespread property damage. That lie had circled the globe before the truth that the smashers were a bunch of violence junkies got its shoes laced.
Chaos always attracts violence junkies. The press is quick to call them "left wing thugs" when in reality most of we on the left are a little too savvy to short-circuit our press coverage like that. I'm willing to concede, starry-eyed though I might be in doing so, that violence junkies play similar roles at right wing events but then we have federal statistics that 95% of domestic terrorism is right wing.
But then, I'm gay and have been to "pride" parades where the whole goal was to be as offensive as possible. Maybe not violent, but disgusting.
You go ahead and believe that antifa is as real and organized as the KKK. I would need a lot more evidence.