Kyle Rittenhouseâs sister Faith is seeking $3,000 on a crowdfunding website in a bid to prevent the eviction of herself and her mother Wendy from their home, citing her âbrotherâs unwillingness to provide or contribute to our family.â
Kyle Rittenhouseâs sister Faith is seeking $3,000 on a crowdfunding website in a bid to prevent the eviction of herself and her mother Wendy from their home, citing her âbrotherâs unwillingness to provide or contribute to our family.â
Maybe Iâm mis-remembering the details of the case, as this isnât really something Iâve paid much attention to in the past, I donât know, 3 years, but Iâm 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 doesnât make a lot of sense. Is it that itâs 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 thatâs the short-barreled clause? Iâm not sure of the specifics.
I donât 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 doesnât happen frequently, so maybe thatâs part of it, but if I attended a protest or demonstration, particularly one that the police are antagonistic to, anyone - no matter what theyâre doing - who is carrying a gun like that is, in my mind, making the situation worse just by their presence. If theyâre a protester themselves, theyâre just inviting police violence and if theyâre not a protester, my perception would be that theyâre doing it with the intent to intimidate. Maybe thatâs an incorrect perception and I am willing to accept that, but I canât imagine that there werenât 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 itâd take is one who didnât to cause a problem.
There were people at these protests (speaking nationwide, I canât 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 âa long wayâ was poor wording but the point I was trying to get at is that he doesnât live there; itâs 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.
Itâs 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. Iâm not calling him a white supremacist (nor am I calling him not a white supremacist, I really donât know what his views are on that topic, nor do I really care), and Iâm certainly not calling him a serial killer. I think itâs pretty clear from the trial that he isnât legally guilty. However, I do think heâs 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 hadnât been for that last bit, Iâd probably hold a different view, andâŠ
Maybe youâre right, and heâs a product of the circumstances, but he didnât, and doesnât (based on his behavior after the fact) seem particularly remorseful for what happened there. Heâs 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 wasnât literally looking for trouble, but he certainly wasnât 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 donât think itâs surprising at all that everyoneâs 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.
I myself also would be very nervous around someone being armed like that in public. But I donât live in an open carry state, either, so it would be very out of place for me, as well.
That said, you donât 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. Iâd say itâs very arguable that only pre-existing bias is preventing Rittenhouse from being perceived similarly, given that every single action heâs 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 questionâI canât find a single actual act that merits criticism, and Iâve 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 canât 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 thatâs not even all of itâhis 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 placeâhe didnât âdo the right thingâ by shooting people, he protected his life against a few crazy and violent individuals, and thatâs obviously neither âgoodâ or âbadâ.
Although I will say, that one video did demonstrate that Rittenhouseâs 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 didnât 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)âif every copâs in the US was as good as his, weâd probably have a lot fewer police scandals in this country.
But again, he had family and friends thereâwhile he may not have lived there, Iâd say itâs very fair to categorize Kenosha as part of âhis communityâ, considering how many ties he has to it, and how he regularly spent time there.
I donât 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. Letâs say he was literally the far-right stereotype.
The facts of the matter are still what they areâhe took not a single action in Kenosha could be fairly/objectively described as an expression of such viewsâhe did nothing that you could look at and say âoh, itâs because of view far-right political stance X that he decided to do this action Yâ. Heâs on video at one point saying he was there "to protect this business, and part of my job is thereâs somebody hurt, Iâm running into harmâs way.â
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 donât really care what his views are. I care about what he did.
I donât think he should feel remorse. Remorse is for having done things wrong. I donât think he could have handled the situations Rosenbaum et al put him in any better than he did. I literally canât think of a course of action from the moment Rosenbaum began to charge at him thatâs 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 dayâs 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 theyâve dehumanized Rittenhouse to such an extreme degree that they canât 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. Itâs sickeningâŠbut 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 âoh, he actually just didnât give a shitâ or anything like that. We also donât know what things are like for him when heâs not in public view. Hell, he likely still has nightmares about that dayâŠ
Thatâs for sureâeven post-verdict I saw Redditors claiming âRittenhouseâs victimsâ were all black, and that it was a racially-motivated crime.
Maybe not surprising, but itâs all the more reason that itâs important to push back against misinformation, especially when itâs ideologically-driven. It deserves nothing less than relentless calling out, in my opinion.
I genuinely appreciate that youâve actually been reading what Iâm writingâmuch better than âfuck off fascist loserâ and the like, which you will find in this thread, not too far from this comment chain.
I havenât read this statement, Iâm going to look it up real quick and quote bits I find âinterestingâ:
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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 youâve referenced (none of which Iâd seen previously), and I can safely say that youâve 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. đ
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 wasnât that much more about Rittenhouse in there. Oh well, donât 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.
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 âtechnically legal to ownâ and the person that sold him the gun, because reasons, i guess, i donât 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 shouldâve been charged with at the very least, reckless endangerment. The fact that he wasnât hit with that charge is an absolute fluke of legal work.
real