One thing has literally nothing to do with the other, this was just a desperate attempt to inject your politics, lol.
How does the fact that a criminal is running for office serve as evidence against the legitimacy of statistics about the overall incidence of crime itself?
It works in that show because the entire family are losers, and they all get mocked by all the others, regularly.
True equality, lol.
Not quite. 🤓 Humans and monkeys are both primates.
I saw the video. He waved a gun around.
Timestamped link, please.
Not a problem, glad I indirectly convinced at least one person to examine the facts objectively. 👍
Oh look, you completely ignored being pressed to support your ridiculous ‘he was pointing his gun at people for no reason repeatedly, before anyone attacked him’ claim. You prove you’re just another narrative-clinging ideologue who will throw as much bullshit at the wall as possible, hoping something sticks or isn’t challenged.
You’re a waste of time.
The point is that Rittenhouse was uniquely able to prevent 2 deaths by simply not going
Victim blaming 101, I sleep.
Someone walking around openly armed is absolutely not mundane at all.
In Wisconsin (because it’s legal), and particularly on that day, in that area, it is demonstrably/provably so that it was considered mundane, evidenced by the fact that although Rittenhouse was openly and visibly armed with that long rifle the entire time he was there, he received nary a second glance from anyone, much less an overtly negative response, neither when he showed up, nor when he was walking around the crowd offering water and medical assistance, for hours.
Nobody gave a shit. You can’t look at all that video and act like he was this intimidating scary presence because he was armed, when it’s obvious ZERO people freaked out over it that day.
Ironically, even his ATTACKERS didn’t give a shit, and charged at and chased him despite being, literally, SEVERELY outgunned.
Drone video clearly showed Rittenhouse pointing his weapon at people, repeatedly.
Link the full video (so fullest possible context can be seen), with timestamp(s)
This direct threat to others is what eventually provoked Rosenbaum into trying to take his gun off him.
Oh, please, this is nonsense (and frankly digusting that you’re trying to turn Rosenbaum of all people, into this heroic figure, considering all we know about him both on that day, and prior to it):
"Ryan Balch, one of the armed men patrolling the streets of downtown Kenosha along with Rittenhouse, told the court that 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum had appeared “aggravated” that evening and had been seen shouting “fuck you” to various protesters in the crowd.
“Every time I encountered Joseph Rosenbaum, he was hyper-aggressive and acting out in a violent manner,” Balch testified. “He was always having to be restrained by someone.”
Another witness, Richie McGinniss, testified Thursday that Rosenbaum had chased Rittenhouse into the parking lot of a car dealership and lunged for Rittenhouse’s AR-15 rifle before the teenager opened fire.
Though both Balch and McGinniss had been called to testify by the prosecution, they each emphasized that Rosenbaum had appeared to pose a threat to Rittenhouse.
But Balch said that at one point that evening, prior to the shooting, Rosenbaum had clearly grown enraged with Balch, Rittenhouse, and a third armed member of their group.
Balch testified that the other member of his group had at one point prevented Rosenbaum from lighting something on fire. Rosenbaum then began shouting at Balch and Rittenhouse when Balch tried to calm him down, according to Balch.
“When I turned around, Rosenbaum was right there in front of my face, yelling and screaming,” Balch said. “I said, ‘Back up, chill, I don’t know what your problem is.’ He goes, ‘I catch any of you guys alone tonight, I’m going to fucking kill you.’”
When Binger asked Balch to clarify that Rosenbaum’s remarks were directed at both Balch and Rittenhouse, Balch responded, “The defendant was there, so yes.”
After Rittenhouse neutralised him by shooting his pelvis, he then decided to execute him on the spot, which was well beyond self-defense.
Oh, he decided that, did he? You know that forensics confirmed Rosenbaum had his hand on the barrel when these shots were fired, don’t you? As if Rittenhouse shot once, hit Rosenbaum in the groin, and Rosenbaum INSTANTLY stopped attacking him and backed off, and then enough time passes such that it would even be possible for Rittenhouse to think ‘hm, he’s not a threat anymore, but you know what, I’ve decided I want to kill him’ and THEN shot him dead.
What a pathetic straw grasp. Laughably absurd.
He then shot two others who believed him to be an active shooter (and he demonstrated he was by killing one of them).
I like how you left out that the first of the two only got shot AFTER nailing Rittenhouse in the head with a full swing of his skateboard, and that the third only got shot after HE tried to shoot Rittenhouse with his illegally-possessed (unlike Kyle’s rifle, ironic considering how many people still accuse him of having possessed it illegally) handgun, which was literally pointed at Rittenhouse’s head when Kyle pulled the trigger and shot his arm. The fact that Kyle’s reaction time was faster is the only reason Grosskreutz didn’t succeed in his attempted murder.
Very interesting that you happened to omit every single fact that contradicts the narrative you’re trying so desperately to construct.
Unfortunately for you and your precious narrative, I’m familiar with the facts, and see right through you.
It tells me that you defend conservatives habitually.
If I do, it’s because people here lie about them habitually. I defend the truth from lies, wherever I see it happening. The political ‘alignment’ of the one being lied about means nothing to me; no matter how desperate you are to project your partisan tribalism onto me, I’m not like you.
You’ve established pretty unambiguously that you don’t care what the facts are. You’ve got your narrative, and you’re gonna cling to it with both hands, inconvenient truths be damned.
That’s not a virtue, you know. But defending the truth against lies, even if they are lies about your enemy, is. You should consider it.
It says so much that had the people he murdered not died and instead killed him they would be able to use the same defense he did.
LMAO no they wouldn’t! They chased Rittenhouse down as he fled! No jury on Earth would consider what they did self-defense, you’re completely out of your mind.
He showed up to a riot with a gun, he knew what was going to happen.
‘She was walking around with a skimpy outfit, she knew what was going to happen.’
Victim blaming. Wisconsin is an open carry state.
What does it say that the argument works both ways?
Loaded question; it DOESN’T work both ways, especially not when there is only one aggressor.
Removed by mod
the fact that he brought a gun with the intent to kill people
Literally not a fact. Even as just a hypothesis that that was his motive, every single bit of evidence (all the facts we have about what he did in Kenosha that day) contradicts the notion that he wanted to/intended to/planned to kill anyone. He literally did everything he could to avoid using his weapon, short of literally forfeiting his life to homicidal maniacs.
That’s the reality.
Wow, very unexpected, pleasant surprise, thank you for this, truly. It’s hard not to get discouraged sometimes, to see people so aggressively pushing back against even the most easily-verifiable facts.
Thanks again for going out of your way to say that. :)
Yeah, I thought shit like this was far behind us and all settled, not a problem anymore, etc., what the fuck.
the primary reason he was being threatened was because everyone else saw a random civilian with an assault rifle
This is simply objectively bullshit, and you obviously don’t live in an open carry state. Nobody gave a shit about his rifle. There is video of him walking around, rifle in plain view, and nobody is even giving him a second glance.
he knew he was sending a threatening message just being there with it
More bullshit–even if he was trying to ‘send a threatening message’, he clearly failed, see referenced video above
he then seemed shocked when people started responding to that threat
Another lie. NOBODY “responded” to him being armed. He was attacked by a maniac for putting out the dumpster fire said maniac set. Had literally nothing to do with his rifle. And that attack is what caused the two other idiots to try to kill Rittenhouse, and in turn reap the consequences.
Your delusion that he was this menacing, threatening presence just by existing in Kenosha while having a rifle strapped to him is pure fantasy, period.
Kyle decided to insert a rifle into a situation that neither he, nor the rifle, was invited to.
He had orders of magnitude more justification in being there than any of the three who attacked him. His father lives there, for crying out loud–it’s part of his community. Also, those three came from further away, and have zero ties to Kenosha. They fucked around, they found out. If they had left Rittenhouse alone, he would have continued with his graffiti cleaning, fire extinguishing, water bottle dispensing, and basic medical aid giving, until the end of the day, and gone home. That’s literally all he was doing until a maniac went into a literal homicidal rage in response to a fire he set being extinguished.
got in too deep and like the untrained and dangerous fool he was, shot his way out of it.
On the contrary, the way he handled the threats to his life was admirable and respectable, and I honestly don’t know how he could have handled it better than he did:
If every cop in the US was as disciplined in their firearm usage as Rittenhouse was that day, we’d have way fewer police shooting scandals in this country.
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 can’t imagine that there weren’t plenty of people there who share that perception.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
he didn’t, and doesn’t (based on his behavior after the fact) seem particularly remorseful for what happened there.
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…
The basic facts of the case were pretty widely misrepresented, by news outlets, never mind keyboard warriors on Twitter and Reddit;
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.
I don’t think it’s surprising at all that everyone’s perception of the details differ so greatly.
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.
The ACLU made a statement basically condemning him post-verdict, for one, and that was pretty widely reported on.
I haven’t read this statement, I’m going to look it up real quick and quote bits I find ‘interesting’:
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That is one horrendous logo, lol