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Man, you're missing the whole point. I said it in pretty plain text before but I'll say it again: I don't believe he deserved to get attacked, and I believe he was defending himself. Clearly the person who attacked him were not justified in doing so. In the analogy you're quoting, clearly the person attempting to rape the woman in question would not be justified in doing so, and she'd be justified in shooting him.
What matters, though, is intent. In that hypothetical, the woman put herself into that situation intentionally hoping she'd get attacked because she wanted to shoot someone. I firmly believe Rittenhouse did the exact same.
Do you also defend Westborough Baptist Church? Remember them? Group who would protest at soldier's funerals, shout some really inflammatory shit with the intent of baiting the funeral-goers to attack them, then act like innocent victims and sue their attackers? Legally, they were in the right, too, but that doesn't make them any less deplorable for doing it.
But the point is that there is literally no reason to believe that, if you're actually being objective, and looking at the facts of the matter. He cleaned graffiti off a high school, then he showed up, he handed out water bottles, gave basic medical attention on request (literally walking around yelling "medic! friendly!"), and put out fires. He did nothing that any reasonable, objective person would conclude contributed the slightest bit toward 'hoping he'd get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone'.
Firstly, everything started going south because of an event nobody could have predicted: a guy who set a fire earlier had it put out by Rittenhouse, and his response to that is literal homicidal rage (?!) (later, we learned that he had literally been released from a mental health facility for a suicide attempt...looking at all the evidence and in hindsight, I think it's reasonable that Rosenbaum was actually trying to get himself killed in a manner similar to 'murder by cop', but I digress).
Secondly, if he was hoping to get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone, why didn't he shoot Rosenbaum right when he started chasing him down? This was already after Rosenbaum had literally been screaming "I'm going to kill you", so it'd be a very strong self-defense argument to put him down right there as he charged at Rittenhouse. But instead, he ran away, and continued to run away as Rosenbaum chased him. This course of action makes NO SENSE for someone who is 'hoping he'd get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone'.
He also didn't shoot when he got cornered and was no longer able to flee. At that point, Rosenbaum had not only threatened his life, but had chased him down, leaving NO question he was intending to make good on his threat. Rittenhouse could have very justifiably shot him dead then as well. But he didn't.
Rittenhouse only fired when Rosenbaum had COMPLETELY closed the distance between them, and was LITERALLY trying to wrestle the gun of someone he had just threatened to kill, out of his arms. Objectively speaking, he did everything he could to keep the situation from escalating to the point of using his weapon.
His actions toward his other two attackers was similar--no aggression from him, and when he encountered aggression toward him, he didn't 'take advantage of the opportunity to shoot someone'--instead, he fled. Consistently. Every single person he shot had literally put him in a position where he had to choose to either protect his life, or forfeit it. And he never used his weapon a moment before he was in that position, all three times.
The argument that Rittenhouse was 'hoping he’d get attacked because she wanted to shoot someone' simply does not hold water.
First off, I want to be clear that I'm not the one down-voting you; I haven't voted (up or down) anywhere in this thread, but it always makes me self-conscious when I'm having a disagreement with someone and the posts I'm replying to consistently have 1 downvote at the time I'm replying.
The result of all of this, in my eyes, is that he went to an awful lot of trouble to put himself in a situation where I feel a reasonable person would have believed they would end up in an altercation, and he made sure he had a rifle with him at the time. I will accept that he could have used it sooner than he did, but I, as someone who actively does not want to have to shoot someone, wouldn't bring a gun to a Trump rally while publicizing that I was there to keep the peace and enforce local noise ordinances. That'd just be asking to get attacked. To be put in a situation where I'd need to use that gun.
Of course, if I was going to go to that rally, and I was hoping I'd have to shoot someone, I'd make damn sure I made it look like I had only the best possible intentions.
It's not me, you're literally the only one I'm actually having some sort of actual dialogue with.
Not true--Wisconsin state law allows minors to possess shotguns and rifles as long as they’re not short-barreled.
And yet, he didn't do a single second of counter-protesting, nor did he act to inhibit the protesters in any way--in fact, it was primarily protesters who received his handed out bottles of water and basic medical aid.
The only real argument you can make that he was antagonistic is if you argue that cleaning up after and putting out the fires of rioters (those not protesting, but just running around creating havoc and destruction) is antagonistic toward them--I guess it is, technically, but...I mean, come on. No way my conscience would let me fault someone for undoing rioters' damage.
He is on record stating he supports BLM, for what it's worth.
Because it's his community, so it makes perfect sense he's more compelled to take action in his own neighborhood. He has friends in Kenosha, his father lives there, he worked as a lifeguard there, etc.. He had spent lots of time over the course of his life in that area, and had ties to it. If he had gone to one protest, and it deliberately WASN'T the one in Kenosha, that's what would look potentially suspicious, imo.
Seems pretty obvious that is the reason--he's even on video while at the protest saying exactly that, "for my protection".
Not really a long way at all (20 miles), especially not unusually long for him, who had made that exact trip countless times before. This was literally his regular commute to his lifeguard job, and spending time with his father, etc.
And if one isn't starting out trying to find fault and looks at his actions objectively in hindsight, one could easily argue that the decision to deliberately put himself at potential risk in order to undo some of the damage and maybe prevent some damage, and help people, is selflessly altruistic.
Well, owners of the Car Source denied accepting Kyle and Dominick Black's offer to help protect their business, and one of them denied even knowing who Kyle was, and then text exchange between them, with Kyle offering to help out, surfaced, and the other owner literally had his picture taken with Kyle and the rest of his group, in front of the dealership. Kyle was obviously not randomly taking the liberty upon himself to spend time defending that place, nor was he unwanted there.
All the left did was call him a white supremacist serial killer (as you can see, this continues to this day), even after all the facts came out. It's no surprise he became amicable with the only people who weren't doing that. Wouldn't be nearly the first time such a thing has happened, sadly.
Still, this is beside the point--it doesn't matter to me if he became, or always was, or whatever, someone with shitty views. All I'm talking about is what I know about, and that's the facts of this case, and what we know (or should know, given how many people still get very basic, known facts wrong)--as far as notorious legal cases go, there are few with more hard evidence easily accessible to the public, so even a 'random' civilian can have 100% of the facts anyone else does.
I speak from a position of knowing the facts, and being frustrated that, even though the facts are so readily available, there are still so many people saying things the facts don't agree with, and drawing conclusions that make zero sense in the face of said facts.
That's all there is to it.
Maybe I'm mis-remembering the details of the case, as this isn't really something I've paid much attention to in the past, I don't know, 3 years, but I'm fairly certain the person who obtained the gun for him was charged and convicted with some crime; is it a crime to give a gun to a minor but not for the minor to possess one? That doesn't make a lot of sense. Is it that it's illegal in Illinois to possess one, but not in Wisconsin? My understanding was that the gun charges against Rittenhouse were dismissed basically on a technicality using language that was written to apply to hunting rifles and was being applied to a rifle clearly not intended for that purpose. Maybe that's the short-barreled clause? I'm not sure of the specifics.
I don't know what the local culture is like in Wisconsin, so some of my view might stem from trying to view it through the lens of my local community, but I know I, for one, am immediately on edge when I see someone walking around open-carrying a firearm in a public place. It doesn't happen frequently, so maybe that's part of it, but if I attended a protest or demonstration, particularly one that the police are antagonistic to, anyone - no matter what they're doing - who is carrying a gun like that is, in my mind, making the situation worse just by their presence. If they're a protester themselves, they're just inviting police violence and if they're not a protester, my perception would be that they're doing it with the intent to intimidate. Maybe that's an incorrect perception and I am willing to accept that, but I can't imagine that there weren't plenty of people there who share that perception.
What it really comes down to (again, in my mind) is that his decision to go there, into the middle of what was already basically a powder keg, carrying an AR-15 was, at the very least, incredibly poor judgement. Even if 90% of protesters saw him as helpful, all it'd take is one who didn't to cause a problem.
There were people at these protests (speaking nationwide, I can't speak to the one in Kenosha specifically) who were there just to cause trouble - looting, vandalizing, trying to paint the peaceful protesters in a poor light.
Maybe 'a long way' was poor wording but the point I was trying to get at is that he doesn't live there; it's not like this was happening in his town.
I was only aware of the first part of this - that they denied knowing or wanting him there, so if the rest of this is true, I will concede this point.
It's relevant (to me) because he holds views (and did before the protest, as far as I recall) that put him at odds with a lot of the protesters there. I'm not calling him a white supremacist (nor am I calling him not a white supremacist, I really don't know what his views are on that topic, nor do I really care), and I'm certainly not calling him a serial killer. I think it's pretty clear from the trial that he isn't legally guilty. However, I do think he's morally guilty because he put himself in a situation where, in my view, a reasonable person should have been able to foresee that something like this might happen. Then, afterwards, rather than condemning the glorification of it, he just went along with it, hook, line and sinker.
Honestly, if it hadn't been for that last bit, I'd probably hold a different view, and...
Maybe you're right, and he's a product of the circumstances, but he didn't, and doesn't (based on his behavior after the fact) seem particularly remorseful for what happened there. He's going along with (at the very least) the glorification of his actions, and I cannot see him as anything but in the wrong as a result.
I will say that you make some compelling points and maybe my initial stance was too severe - that is to say, maybe he wasn't literally looking for trouble, but he certainly wasn't taking what I see as some very basic steps to avoid trouble.
The basic facts of the case were pretty widely misrepresented, by news outlets, never mind keyboard warriors on Twitter and Reddit; I don't think it's surprising at all that everyone's perception of the details differ so greatly. The ACLU made a statement basically condemning him post-verdict, for one, and that was pretty widely reported on.
Okay, just going to finish up skimming the ACLU statement, which has already demonstrated itself to be shamelessly dishonest, and call it a night:
Oh, I guess there wasn't that much more about Rittenhouse in there. Oh well, don't feel like randomly truncating bits here and there in my previous comment to fit this in, so second comment it stays.
Thanks again for actually being open to new information, and actual discussion. An admirable and increasingly-rare trait these days.
I myself also would be very nervous around someone being armed like that in public. But I don't live in an open carry state, either, so it would be very out of place for me, as well.
That said, you don't have to imagine. Just look at the facts of the matter:
Given those facts, it is clear that Rittenhouse was not armed to an extent that those around him found more than mundane.
Generally speaking, if someone goes to a dangerous place to try and improve the situation there to the best of their ability, despite the potential risks to their own safety, one would consider that courageous and admirable, not foolish. I'd say it's very arguable that only pre-existing bias is preventing Rittenhouse from being perceived similarly, given that every single action he's known to have taken in Kenosha that day was either morally neutral (I consider defending your life to be human nature, and not a moral or immoral act), or morally good (cleaning graffiti, extinguishing fires, handing out water bottles on request, giving basic medical aid to the extent he could from his lifeguard training).
Being as objective as possible, and going by the facts, what can one realistically argue that he did that was immoral on that day? This is a genuine question--I can't find a single actual act that merits criticism, and I've found consistently that everyone criticizing his actions either straight-up gets facts about what he literally did incorrect, and bases their conclusion on that, or colors his decision to be there as malicious in and of itself (though, again, though obviously we can't read his mind that day, the actions he took that day simply do not support that assumed malicious intent at all, quite the contrary in fact).
But that's not even all of it--his most ardent supporters on the extreme right are getting it wrong ALSO, and do ridiculous things like claiming his shooting of people we later discovered were actually pretty shitty people was itself a morally good act, and completely ignore the things he did that day that actually WERE objectively morally good (graffiti cleaning et al, as mentioned above). This is ridiculous, and focusing completely in the wrong place--he didn't 'do the right thing' by shooting people, he protected his life against a few crazy and violent individuals, and that's obviously neither 'good' or 'bad'.
Although I will say, that one video did demonstrate that Rittenhouse's trigger discipline is admirable (immediately after shooting Grosskreutz, his finger was off the trigger and around the guard, as he carefully got back up to his feet, and overall, he didn't fire a single shot that struck anyone other than his intended target, no spray and pray, no wild shots, he used his weapon to the absolute minimal extent necessary to neutralize each of the people who tried to kill him)--if every cop's in the US was as good as his, we'd probably have a lot fewer police scandals in this country.
But again, he had family and friends there--while he may not have lived there, I'd say it's very fair to categorize Kenosha as part of 'his community', considering how many ties he has to it, and how he regularly spent time there.
I don't really find that relevant though. Suppose we knew for a fact that he was a straight-up racist and/or adherent to all sorts of extreme right-wing political views. Let's say he was literally the far-right stereotype.
The facts of the matter are still what they are--he took not a single action in Kenosha could be fairly/objectively described as an expression of such views--he did nothing that you could look at and say 'oh, it's because of view far-right political stance X that he decided to do this action Y'. He's on video at one point saying he was there "to protect this business, and part of my job is there’s somebody hurt, I’m running into harm’s way.”
Hypothetically, if someone goes their whole life hating a certain race of people, but throughout their life, never actually mistreats anyone of that race, then the end result, as far as real-world consequences, is the same as if that person did not have those views.
Frankly, I don't really care what his views are. I care about what he did.
I don't think he should feel remorse. Remorse is for having done things wrong. I don't think he could have handled the situations Rosenbaum et al put him in any better than he did. I literally can't think of a course of action from the moment Rosenbaum began to charge at him that's different from what he did, and also inarguably better/smarter.
But regret? He clearly regrets that things went down the way they did. The crying he did as he relived those events during the trial, that left-wing ideologues love to mock him for, and callously claim are crocodile tears, instead of a 17 year-old coming to grips with the kind of day's events that would traumatize ANYONE for life, are a clear show of that. Frankly, just talking about this particular bit makes me feel disgusted all over again, at all of the things I saw and read around that time, on Reddit. People who pretend to be champions for mental health instantly abandon their supposed virtues because they've dehumanized Rittenhouse to such an extreme degree that they can't even fathom that he is a normal human being who just might be traumatized by having to look death in the face not once, but THREE times in a day. It's sickening...but I digress.
Now, after the fact, he has on at least one occasion I know of, poked fun at himself with that same infamous image of him weeping. But humor is a common coping mechanism, especially for young males in this country, who are scarcely allowed to deal with trauma in any other way without being criticized for it (see above). I would not look at things like that and conclude 'oh, he actually just didn't give a shit' or anything like that. We also don't know what things are like for him when he's not in public view. Hell, he likely still has nightmares about that day...
That's for sure--even post-verdict I saw Redditors claiming "Rittenhouse's victims" were all black, and that it was a racially-motivated crime.
Maybe not surprising, but it's all the more reason that it's important to push back against misinformation, especially when it's ideologically-driven. It deserves nothing less than relentless calling out, in my opinion.
I genuinely appreciate that you've actually been reading what I'm writing--much better than "fuck off fascist loser" and the like, which you will find in this thread, not too far from this comment chain.
I haven't read this statement, I'm going to look it up real quick and quote bits I find 'interesting':
Character limit, continued -->
Not trying to dredge this all up again or restart this conversation, but I thought you might like to know... I went and watched some of the videos and read some of the accounts you've referenced (none of which I'd seen previously), and I can safely say that you've at least in part changed my view on this insofar as it applies to his intentions that day. Thanks for taking the time to discuss it.
Not a problem, glad I indirectly convinced at least one person to examine the facts objectively. 👍
not reading this (fully) so ignore me if you already mentioned this, but the during the rittenhouse trial both charges against rittenhouse and the person that sold him the gun were dropped, rittenhouse i think specifically because of a loophole that made it "technically legal to own" and the person that sold him the gun, because reasons, i guess, i don't remember.
More than likely persecution was focusing on the other charges and didnt want to spend time on these charges as they seemed rather inconsequential, as well as the fact that the other kid was out of state, and so iirc that was a separate case entirely.
regardless he should've been charged with at the very least, reckless endangerment. The fact that he wasn't hit with that charge is an absolute fluke of legal work.
real