The Kyle Rittenhouse Thread In Which We Take As a Given That Kyle Was Wrong and Stupid
ElJeffe
Roaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
Roaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
Hello! This is the new thread for discussing Kyle Rittenhouse and his trial. There is interesting and/or cathartic discussion to be had on this subject, pertaining to the impact and implications of this trial. There is also *gestures wildly at the old thread*, which is not terribly interesting and also impossible to moderate.
So.
It is clear that there is no feasible way to have a thread in which those upset by the verdict and those pleased by the verdict can talk about things calmly, which is pretty understandable. So this thread is exclusively for people who think the verdict was a a travesty of justice and who want to talk about it. There will not be a thread for those who think the outcome of this trial is totes awesome, because your opinions are wrong and bad and I've spent four hours between today and yesterday trying to police this shit and I'm kinda over it. If you post in here about how this was totes valid self defense and Kyle is a hero or whatever, you will be infracted and kicked. If you really need to express these opinions, there are places outside of D&D that would love to hear them.
If you think this decision is bullshit, you are welcome to complain to me directly. I'm making this call and I'll be the bullet sponge on this one.
Note that this is not a gun control thread. This is for specifically discussing the Rittenhouse case and its fallout.
So.
It is clear that there is no feasible way to have a thread in which those upset by the verdict and those pleased by the verdict can talk about things calmly, which is pretty understandable. So this thread is exclusively for people who think the verdict was a a travesty of justice and who want to talk about it. There will not be a thread for those who think the outcome of this trial is totes awesome, because your opinions are wrong and bad and I've spent four hours between today and yesterday trying to police this shit and I'm kinda over it. If you post in here about how this was totes valid self defense and Kyle is a hero or whatever, you will be infracted and kicked. If you really need to express these opinions, there are places outside of D&D that would love to hear them.
If you think this decision is bullshit, you are welcome to complain to me directly. I'm making this call and I'll be the bullet sponge on this one.
Note that this is not a gun control thread. This is for specifically discussing the Rittenhouse case and its fallout.
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It seems like everyone is still kind of catching their breath / mostly online from what I've seen so far.
when a legal system upholds murder, it shows that legal system is corrupt, broken and criminal
The police were accomplices in three pre-meditated politically motivated murders. The dude with the pistol "should" have killed the fuck, giving the fascists their martyr and the massacre they wanted to commit, and the feds should have investigated the hell out of the entire thing regardless.
Since most of, if not all, guns are carried by white men and most, if not all of the victims, are people color, it's made it just so much easier for white men to kill people of color.
I don't know what to do about this other than to ask protestors, the majority of which would be anyone who are not already white men to arm themselves prior to protesting... Which I think just gets more people dead.
I don't have any witty end cap to all of this other than it depresses the fuck out of me.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kyle-rittenhouse-just-killed-our-right-to-peacefully-protest?ref=scroll
That kind of just sums up the present situation.
I swear if the Georgia yokels (I can say it because I am one) who shot Ahmaud Arbery get off too, my faith in my country will just completely kick the bucket. It's already on life support.
Even if we concede that general all purpose open carry is fine and a thing.
Showing up at protest openly displaying as a counter protestor and then telling protestors you are pointing guns at them should just immediately result in new charges of menacing / brandishing.
Separate of whatever the trial is / was, I'm not sure it would even be double jeopardy to place new charges against Rittenhouse based on his testimony.
- John Stuart Mill
It will be the second time Atlanta burns to the ground if the people who murdered arbery get off.
The prosecutor there seems more competent and they've already done several things to fuck up their case, so here's hoping. Only takes one though. Glad they were stupid enough to release that video.
I was always amazed that groups like that existed. That people like Malcom X and Marcus Garvey got so much traction. As I got older, and seemingly at an acceleration of pace. I don't think it's as amazing. I think it's sad and inevitable that people need heroes who are willing to arm themselves and make themselves targets - with all of the questionable things that go along with the sort of morality that entails.
I'm wondering when a militant anti-police organization will take shape again and if we as a society even have the capacity to rally around the idea of uncomfortable change. It sure doesn't seem like justice is going to happen anytime soon to the magnitude it needs to.
Brunswick is very conservative, is my only concern. Also the majority white Jury gives me a fear, but it all seems very cut and dry so here's hoping!
In Savannah, we have a pretty good track record with dealing with protest. Not to say there's a fair amount of racial inequality here, but I think we do it better then most places in the south.
It’s a terrible situation for anyone protesting for racial and social justice (myself included). I refuse to carry because as a non-white person, being armed only increases my chances of dying. But with the formal and informal legitimization of deadly violence on the right, being unarmed also increases my chances of dying.
I’m not 100% sure how to do the risk assessment. But overall, I’m likely a more sympathetic victim unarmed so I’m going with that. And yes, I’m aware of how fucked up that sounds.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Possibly the cyclical repeat of history, but with a few tweaks. We are reentering the phase of history of the white posse and it’s backing by forces of the state, forgotten but thanks to a few short decades of 20th century progress. Michael Harriot of The Root has a long thread about it here that we should all read:
This is, of course, the ultimate aim of the NeoConfederate Project: the repeal of the twentieth century and the return of the Old Orders of Things.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Its less a repetition and more of a “We haven’t solved the issues brought about by the Civil War yet.”
We haven’t solved the issues that came about from Bacon’s Rebellion even.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Just another drop in the bucket of American conservative fascism.
Yup. While they might not actually have impunity*, they're going to believe they do. If they're charged and convicted after the fact, doesn't change the deaths and maimings that are caused as a result of those beliefs.
* There's argument as to how much this trial will have precedent in future trials, how other state and local laws differ and how weighted a different judge might make the case. All important, but not relevant as to whether a jagoff THINKS he has impunity or not (see "I'm blonde and white").
And given his lionization by the Republican legislators and conservative media figureheads, and the lack of condemnation from others within that bubble, it WILL happen again, it's just a matter of when, and how many are killed and maimed.
EDIT- Has anyone from the conservative blogosphere (media/pundit/legislative) been anything but silent or praising of Rittenhouse? I'm not expecting "travesty of justice", but even an "avoidable tragedy" that didn't blame the victims for their own deaths would be something.
That it's also going to see a decrease in tolerance from law enforcement with regards protest (for liberal causes), either because they think the protestors are armed, or under the guise of "protecting" the protestors from counter-protestors, the ability of people to express public disapproval is absolutely going to be curtailed.
https://www.gawker.com/news/kyle-rittenhouse-is-american
What did they tell you about the Black Panthers?
As far as my experience with the Black Panthers and Malcolm X in public education goes, they put a picture of them looking angry and scary in the textbook and have a throwaway paragraph to paint them as the violent radicals who were just too extreme for anyone, unlike Martin Luther King, Jr.
The long-running smear campaign against civil rights activists who were too fiery to be able to be sanitized in the history books as peacefully working with the system is really something else. It wasn't enough to actually assassinate so many of them, their character had to be assassinated as well.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
1. Everyone should be open carrying at all times.
2. If you see someone who is armed and who scares you, you should draw and point your weapon at them.
3. If they (being scared because you are pointing a gun at them) attempt to draw then you should shoot them otherwise there is a good chance they shoot you.
If this sounds like a deranged interpretation of the wild west you ain't wrong.
It is where we are now with the result of this trial. I really fear for the next incident that happens. It could be a genuine spree shooter up there, defending himself as if he were "threatened" and so had to kill 10+ people. Really afraid for how out of control this could get.
A ruling like this also fantastically undermines the authority of law enforcement and the governments monopoly on the use of force, since the moment you zoom out the focus of these events from the specific 5 minute time span when this occured to take in the full context of Kyle's decision making leading up to this it's clear that everything possible was done to make the situation as dangerous as possible and that in the eyes of judge fuckface that's just fine.
His presence in general was illegal and I believe that while 1st Amendment rights are seen to suupercede curfews in some cases, my understanding has been that doesn't apply for minors and under-18 curfews have been found to be perfectly lawful.
I'm just sort of surprised and unsure why that angle seemingly wasn't brought up and was entirely ignored. Maybe the prosecution thought it just muddled things up?
He wasn't even legally allowed to have the rifle in the first place. It was acquired via straw purchase and under the Law meant for hunting purposes (and the AR15 isn't exactly a good hunting rifle to begin with) with adult supervision (where the hell are they?). To accept that this was perfectly legal for him to do so requires contortions of the law that make this:
Open carry isn’t the problem; the latitude it is given is. This might not have happened if Rittenhouse had been carrying his weapon in a more reasonable manner. Having his gun in a ready position wasn’t just threatening to others; it also influenced his own reactions. He didn’t just have a gun; he had a gun he was ready to use on people, and that likely gave him the confidence to walk into a situation tha could turn dangerous (in no small part due to the threat he posed).
If you are worried about people grabbing your openly carried weapon (to answer the point honked up in the last post), then you refrain from introducing the weapon into that situation. You don’t double down and enter the situation threatening to use the weapon.
- John Stuart Mill
The curfew issue was brought up and dismissed because the judge ruled that police testimony that they were enforcing a lawful curfew order was not enough to establish that a lawful curfew order was in effect.
- John Stuart Mill
I mean, like the videos of Rittenhouse from before the protests, he didn't really have a choice, because I would have been devastating to the defence's case.
Only way to have a "fair trial" was to put your thumb on the scale.
Ah, no. The Panthers were portrayed as a group set out to protect black Californians during a period of open violence against them. My teachers were very careful to explain how the things they were 'famous' for were lawful actions that white people had been doing basically forever. Open carry, marching on Sacramento, providing legal counsel.
Generally the 'bad' stuff was talked about in the context of an organization losing it's leadership and the media capitalizing on that the same way they painted BLM as thugs and looters.
I grew up in California though, as an adult I've found out that things like SexEd and the history of slavery isn't really something everyone else learned about.
Malcom X was complicated, but he wasn't portrayed as simply the stick to Martin Luther King Jr's carrot.
Great teacher, had him in 8th grade and then again in 11th. Failed his class both times for other reasons though.
White social studies teacher if it matters.
Also a very old Jewish teacher in 6th grade that I still think about. Watching a 4' 9" little Jewish lady who is 60+ absolutely love basketball and play it with kids leaves an impression. She was good, too.
I mean, there’s a reason corrections officers and police aren’t allowed to carry firearms inside of jails and prisons. Common sense says bringing a firearm into a volatile situation can only make it worse.
And to be clear, I hate using cops as an example of how to do something right, but even they don’t fuck this part up.
And that’s kind of the point. The people carrying water for Rittenhouse and other to open carry forget that rights go hand in hand with responsibilities. If you want to carry openly in Wisconsin, that’s your right, but you are then on the hook for bringing that weapon out in public. That’s not much of an issue when you are abiding by the spirit of the law (which with long guns is clearly focused on hunting), but once you start lawyering on the letter of the law, the chances of something going wrong increase, and that’s largely going to be the responsibility of the gun bearer.
- John Stuart Mill
Many police officers may be racist, but fewer are both racist and stupid, and any non stupid person understands that unless you are willing to slaughter people en masse and have help, your gun is a liability against a hostile crowd of people.
Which really sucks.
I swear, there is no bottom to this barrel.
- John Stuart Mill