The US Politics |OT|

[IvorEvilen]

coolbeans said:

IvorEvilen said:

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding about why this was such a high profile cultural flashpoint. This was a perfect storm of gun rights meets political intimidation.

That's it.

To many Americans, Kyle's act of bringing an assault rifle to that kind of situation instantly painted him as a force of intimidation meant to silence speech. Consequently, when he got himself into a situation that was way over his head, he was able to use the fact that he had an assault rifle as a part of his defense that he was afraid for his life. To many, this was basically a situation of having your cake and eating it too.

Should the first individual who went after Kyle have had more restraint? Probably. But they weren't the one holding a weapon manufactured to kill people. Kyle was. In fact, many people had guns that night. But the only person who killed anyone was Kyle. A kid who had too little respect for life and way too large of an ego.

Now people are worried of copy-cat vigilantes. I'm not implying that Kyle's intention was to kill in Kenosha. I think that was a legitimately unfortunate chain of events. But other people will see this and come to extreme conclusions about what is or is not acceptable. And just because the law deemed what Kyle did to be acceptable, it will be of little comfort to future victims of stand your ground type claims of authority over who lives and dies.

No one would have died that night had Kyle not had a gun. People need to stop bringing guns to public spaces. We are too paranoid and trigger happy to be trusted with that kind of power, and there never seems to be a good guy with a gun when you need them. Likely because the legitimately good people are rarely the type who could stomach pulling the trigger.

Trying to paint this situation WITHOUT acknowledging the riots isn't providing the proper context; stop humoring this "arming up against free assembly" narrative.  And if it still looks that way to many Americans, who're just as able to investigate the evidence themselves, then that's on them for being deliberately ignorant.  Not to mention the protests and riots in Kenosha were heavily influenced by the recent Jacob Blake shooting, which turned out to not be some racially-motivated execution (or whatever hyperbolic stories were initially brought up).

What is this limp-wristed judgment regarding Rosenbaum?  Yeah, "perhaps" you shouldn't make broad death threats towards armed individuals and then subsequently seem like you're looking to carry those out.  It's rather remarkable how your judgment cleanly shifts from half-hearted to resolute in just a couple of sentences.  For sure, there's a greater responsibility on Kyle... and he acted accordingly.  

If this were in a vacuum, maybe you'd have a case.  But there's actually been good compare/contrast scenarios to see how lines are drawn, like the ongoing Arbery case or Michael Reinoehl.  And I'm not sure why you're bringing up Rittenhouse as a "stand your ground type claim" when he was trying to retreat.  Maybe you're reflexively broadening the definition?

Plus, if this court case is anything to go by, any would-be vigilantes would probably think twice considering how dicey this open & shut case appeared:

-your right to due process damaged by a gleefully dishonest media, thereby tainting any prospective jury pool

-a target on your back by a small violent subset of political enemies (likely for years)

-gross prosecutorial malfeasance against you

If these issues (and more) can crop up here, it's an insanely risky gamble to think you'll be acquitted too.

Pure speculation.  Considering some of the other characters that'd still be there (hypothetically), that's a sketchy claim.

[EDIT: Had a misspelled word that was bothering me.

Proper context?  The proper context is that no one else died that night.  Riot or protest be damned.

There were 25 deaths over the course of 6 months during the 2020 protests, and Rittenhouse nearly accounts for 1 in 10.  An estimated 25 million people participated in the protests over the course of half a year.  There were an estimated $1-2 billion in damages from riots associated with the protests.  Most of that damage occurred in hot spots ($50 million in damages in Kenosha alone), and typically occurred during the chaos that would ensue AFTER police cracked down on demonstrations.  This was why the media often called the protests "largely peaceful".  But also, insert obligatory statement on how "property is not people".

I have no intention of defending rioters from legal consequences.  I merely ask that we as a society have a bit more respect for life when going into politically motivated conflicts.  De-escalation through prevention.  Anecdotally, I live in a major US city, and we were more worried about counter protesters coming in from out of town.  For whatever reason, the blue cities were supportive of the protests, and the red rural communities surrounding them were opposed.  And they would come into our streets with their guns... to protect us from ourselves I guess?  The riot narrative was largely overblown and fearmongered by the right-wing media, and I think that fear drove a lot of people to be nutty.

The reason my "judgment cleanly shifts from half-hearted to resolute" is because I was referring to two different details.  I do not want to imply that Rosenbaum is innocent of his involvement in the events that transpired.  But Rittenhouse was the one with the weapon, and the one who killed someone.  Rittenhouse not having a gun would have 100% changed the dynamics of that night, and crucially, would have given Kyle no means of lethal force.  Nor could Kyle have had the fear that his lethal weapon would have been taken and turned in his own direction.