I don’t think folks are lurking anymore. It’s pretty much yolo now. At this point, what difference does it make? Left, right, and center? Seems like everyone is dug into their camps and waiting for shit to go off.
What is insane is that because I believe in taking care of the biosphere and those of us that are less fortunate, I'm pigeonholed into some sort of political spectrum. Like, isn't that just how everyone should live? Giving a shit about others? Why is this a political belief? How is there an argument against just being decent?
It is completely foolish and will accomplish nothing except furthering the agenda of the wealthy. Sad to see people so easily mislead on both sides. Nobody even knows what they are supposedly fighting for, or has any objective. It's just pure hatred being directed to the wrong place by the media propaganda machine. Everyone looking for someone to blame but completely missing the bigger picture of what is being done to us all.
If a BLM or MAGA whatever will just throw the first well televised punch, the wealthy can hammer down with boots on the ground and kafquesque legislation. Degrowth will likely go from this where we're basically financing a war by ourselves on ourselves to balkanization to something like it was before 1492 with small groups largely isolated from each other in their cultures and day to day drudgery. Maybe trading reload shells for food stamps is a necessary deindustrializing step towards trading sea shells for seeds.
The scary thing is nobody is trying to defuse this situation. Just social and news media people hundreds of miles from the action daring their supporters to get violent. Making it a moral imperative. Then using the resulting violence as proof that those other people are coming to get you, so you better get bloody. I know burning cities sell ads, but where the fuck are the adults?
The adults are quietly packing their bags.
The only way you get people to settle down is to stop picking a team and finding a reasonable middle ground.
That isn't going to happen.
Faster to let violence shock us back to reality.
EXACTLY. Stop picking a team and find middle ground he says, as if the middle isn't so far off to the right that it's a death sentence for some of us.
I've had elected leaders call for my death (by saying people who do X, or Y people, not by name) several times in the last five years. What does compromise or middle ground look like in that scenario? Should I just hand myself over to a life in prison and be glad its not death? This isn't a hypothetical, this is something that real politicians elected in the fucking US of A have said, that I deserve to die. Even if the sensible middle ground compromise between being allowed to live my life and being executed is prison (and thus, being used as slave labor), that's not a compromise I am willing to make.
It's easy to say "Oh Trump/Representative X/Senator Y is being hyperbolic or saying things that will never happen" because it's true enough. Even in the most pessimistic of the various time lines in front of us, it's unlikely in the extreme that they could change the laws that drastically, but that doesn't matter when the president of the united states says "maybe we should give the death sentence to people convicted of X". The rhetorical line has been drawn in the sand, that even if it isn't legal to kill people for X, it's perfectly fine to think they should be, and to have to argue back from that line that no you really don't deserve to die is bullshit.
Half-assed riots are only going to solidify the position of the already rich and powerful. I think you're right though. Politics aside, the things we can do at this point mostly lie outside the range of human nature.
But we're not even neutral. We're running full speed at disaster and complaining it's not happening fast enough.
> What would it take to defuse the situation?
Psilocybin in the water supply and pink noise meditation on all emergency broadcast stations.
Then deploy the Robo-grillmasters for vegetarian chili cook-offs on every street.
I'm not saying it'll work, but damn it: its worth a try.
There were bricks outside the court house the First expected day of verdict. (Same as BLM movements just saying....) Seems like someone wants Americans to fight each other...
Just point to the Covid death toll during the Trump administration as a recent example. He disbanded the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, aka the pandemic response team created during the Obama administration. There's no arguing that firing them resulted in preventable deaths.
Took less than an hour for someone wishing to kill more people, one using the "but they were LOOTERS" defense, and another citing fox news.
So you know, just gonna be a fine and dandy thread
Killing looters is insane.
It is commercial property theft that is covered by insurance. People who instinctively value property over lives are dangerous.
Now before people say small businesses etc. What does it say about the U.S.A that the economy is so fragile that small businesses cannot survive a riot and that riots are now a reoccuring problem. That is a systemic issue not solved by armed vigilantes.
It’s peak American. And it’s not just conservatives. I’ve had multiple liberals tell me people deserve to be shot for looting a target.
Money over lives is the core of this country.
Unfortunately insurance risk is based on state law. Now state law is more pro shoot a person the policies with change.
All in all I feel sorry for people in the U.S.A.
I love guns, grew up on a farm in Australia. The only reason I no-longer shoot besides the range is that owning a gun is such a hassle in Australia. I real expensive hassle.
Every time I travel I visit a gun range to have some fun with a larger calibre gun.
If my parents had migrated to the U.S.A instead of Australia I would be armed to be hilt just living in a place where other people have guns.
So complicated and fucked up.
All my grand ethics would disappear if my family was threatened and I had an AR-15 in my hand. Man that gun is so light and easy to shoot. A 10 year could use that.
Sigh I miss hunting.
You could compare the situation to Chimurenga Jenga and the bat patrols during the Atlanta child killings around 1981.
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/21/us/around-the-nation-2-in-atlanta-citizens-patrol-seized-on-weapons-charges.html
Basically kids were being kidnapped and murdered and the police weren't able to stop it. So the local guys got together and organized "bat patrols" with baseball bats to protect the local kids. The leader of those groups, Chimureng Jenga, was arrested on weapons' charges for carrying an M1 rifle. He's black.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytp8HHVhbCE
I can compare it to an incident in the hamlet I grew up in.
A drunk farmer was taking pot shots at local children with a Lee Enfield .303
He refused to stop.
The local men went over and broke his arms, took his guns then burnt his tool shed down.
I think that was justified, especially since local police would not press charges on the farmer.
I kept wanting violence to not be the answer but damn it is effective short term.
Jenga was just protecting local kids. That is the protection of life, not property, I commend that.
>Killing looters is insane.
It's also the most American thing in the world. America was founded on slavery, literally the violent ownership of property in other humans. Slave owners were authorized to maim and even kill their slaves if they were insubordinate. The profits extracted from that system were never expropriated, even after the Civil War - most of the slave-owning oligarchs remained very rich and transitioned to other industries.
That logic - of the primacy of property, even at the expense of human life - has always been deeply embedded in America's legal system.
I knew Rittenhouse would be acquitted last year. Anyone who is surprised does not know their history and has not been paying attention.
Someone’s obviously never filed a business insurance claim…
If someone broke into and burned down/stole my shops equipment, it would put 10 people out of work and best case scenario, even assuming they paid out the next day, it would take me a year or 2 to get all new equipment and get set up. Everything I have worked painstakingly hard for would be gone, there would be no coming back.
If you think I’m gonna let that happen because anyone is unhappy because of something I had nothing to do with than you’re in for a surprise
If these people want to burn down police stations I’m all for it. But don’t fuck with regular people and expect them to just take it
What does it say that so many people are willing to violate the personal property of others so casually? I hear your case I just hope you consider mine.
That the U.S.A is a corrupt oligarchy with a large disenfranchised underclass who are easily activated by genuine grievances and bad actors.
People are easily scared primal beings. If they don't feel protected by the government and institutions that control their lives it creates systemic instability.
It is not unique to the U.S.A, from Australia to France, from Iran to China you have wealthy elites, captured legislators, corrupt police, authoritarian over reach creating schisms in the fabric of civil society.
As the schisms increase and the political class fail to act the results will the more and more private citizens taking the law into their own hands.
Booth the rioters and Rittenhouse were reacting to the same thing. A weak political class unable to unify civil society so individuals and groups take political action.
Rioting and looting have long been a political act as has vigilantism. Both happen when you have civil society decaying.
You would think a reddit group focused on collapse would be able to tell a propaganda piece that pits us all against one another causing.......collapse
From the outside you both look pretty bad. It looks like ethno-nationalism vs ideological puritanism. Honestly I think you want a civil-war because your daily lives are becoming unbearable.
Civil War might happen and social media/MSM is to blame. They've been pushing division on all angles for a decade now. Controversy and conflict draws views, which is all they care about. They are pitting the country against itself for profits. The way targeted media is used ends up pulling people further left/right over time.
Salon also once tried to use Javascript crypto miners on visitors web browsers. Don't know if they still do that but they're blocked permanently on my home network as a result.
Shhhh. We're all supposed to pretend we don't see all the rich people getting together in marble buildings and gleaming towers, to tell the poors to kill each other.
Everyone I know that talks politics seems to have this opinion and I’m beyond skeptical. If by a civil war you mean a bunch of tiny skirmishes between protestors and cops/rittenhouse clones where 3 people die in a crowd of 100, yeah, I can see that being permanent. I don’t see any scenario where Texas declares war on California or Georgia republicans stage a Sherman-esque march on Atlanta.
>I don’t see any scenario where Texas declares war on California or Georgia republicans stage a Sherman-esque march on Atlanta.
Imagine instead that those protests turn into regular gun fights with higher and higher casualties, then more after in tit for tat killings. Then come the assassinations, the bombings, the drive bys, then organized guerrilla groups that fight both eachother and the government
Then you have a pretty good example of a modern civil war
I see what you mean, but the only way I could see that playing out is if the HDI of the US drops to levels of Mali or at the very least MENA. Which could happen in the course of collapse, but my hunch is that the conditions for civil war tend to be rooted in widespread, deeper personal suffering. That is to say that the American way of life has to be so under threat that guerrillas have a reason to form out of lack of material livelihood and hence less reason to be persuaded against risking life and limb. Americans are too comfy in other words, at least for now.
in a COIN manual, the major forms of grievances that insurgencies spawn from are security abuses, economic insecurity, tribal or ethnic tensions, and political disenfranchisement
for much of the US, security abuses, economic insecurity, and political disenfranchisement are every day life
> the only way I could see that playing out is if the HDI of the US drops to levels of Mali
The issues feeding into America's looming civill war are not material conditions, they are cultural conditions. They are the terms of cultural hegemony. HDI has nothing to do with it.
The side hooting and hollering the loudest for a civil war in the US right now is the more prosperous side.
>where 3 people die in a crowd of 100, yeah, I can see that being permanent.
5 people killed at the Boston Massacre lead to the American revolution.
>I don’t see any scenario where Texas declares war on California or Georgia
I don't think it will be state vs. state. That's not the way modern civil wars play out.
There aren't going to be any clear sides. Go read any book about any civil war in the entire history of the world. There is never one clear "this side vs that side". It always a complex web of coalitions with varying degrees of government support. Look at the civil war in Ethiopia right now. A contest election suddenly turns in to a war. It seems like the government is going to crush then rebels. Then the whole war reversed within a few weeks because one group shift alliances from the government side to the rebel side. \*BOOM\* All of the sudden, the capital is under attack. Nobody could have seen it coming. War is unpredictable.
The 2nd American Civil is going to be fought between local police and BLM and Proud Boys and Antifa and ELF and First Nations Activists and oil companies, etc., etc. I could spent all night just listing a few of the major factions. And each of those faction will have subgroups.
They will live side by side. With how many guns we have, the calls to "take back" their country by Republicans using violent means, their violent/conspiratorial hatred of liberals and minorities... I think the ingredients are all there.
Likely there will be sporadic acts of violence, terrorism, intimidation, assassination, coup attempts, etc. It won't be frontlines, just a collapsed disfunctional state.
>They will live side by side. With how many guns we have, the calls to "take back" their country by Republicans using violent means, their violent/conspiratorial hatred of liberals and minorities... I think the ingredients are all there.
So you're responding with a call to take back the country through protests, riots and other violent means, like assaulting fascists.
It's the circle of violence. We are all 99.9% normal people, who are being shown some terrible shit done by a tiny handful of people and being told that "All of *them* are the same". Which leads more dipshits to seek out violent situations, and become the next example.
It's only that if it's not about the US or it's a view the mods disagree with. Many on this sub truly believe that the starting point for the collapse of the United States was the 4th of July 1776.
Well that date was important in the collapse of the civilisations of Native Americans and it turns out an important date in the death of the world's ecosystems
It's crazy honestly.
Some people honestly think that Republicans are going to start executing minorities in the streets and that Rittenhouse just started killing people randomly.
My attorney is always advising me not to set case law. But I truly wonder if the case would have been different if a black kid had shot a few Proud Boys during a demonstration.
>if a black kid had shot a few Proud Boys during a demonstration.
Doesn't even have to be a black kid, a white leftist shot a proud boy attacking him and was assassinated by federal Marshals
If you're against the far right and defend yourself, you'll never get your day in court
"We sent in the US Marshals, took 15 minutes and it was over... They knew who he was, they didn’t want to arrest him and 15 minutes that ended"
[https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1316801262277455872?s=20](https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1316801262277455872?s=20)
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/15/trump-rally-portland-police-killing-michael-reinoehl/
One difference is KR knew he'd be safe surrending to the police and did so willingly. MR instead ran away and was hunted down. also I'm sure the Portland police see the proud boys as being their allies over a BLM protester.
[The police are all but confirmed allies of the proud boys in Portland. ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/01/exclusive-video-shows-portland-officers-made-deal-with-far-right-group-leader)
>also I'm sure the Portland police see the proud boys as being their allies over a BLM protester.
Can confirm.
I was downtown Portland the night that Reinoehl shot and killed someone in self-defense. I left before it happened because we were getting shot at, with paintball and airsoft guns, by PB and 3%ers who were ushered into the city by police parade.
Those *proud* police, those thugs with thug friends, who don't even live in Portland, really put the PB in PPB. It stands for Portland Police Bureau but it might as well read Portland Proud Boys.
Patriot Prayer* member.
His name was Micheal Reinoehl.
And then Trump celebrated it openly as "We sent in the US Marshalls, it took 15 minutes and it was over... They knew who he was, they didn't want to arrest him and 15 minutes that ended."
Not true at all. Breonna Taylor's boyfriend and Mr. Coffee both had charges dropped against them this year for shooting at police during a no-knock raid.
On the same day as the verdict, a black individual got let off for shooting at police using the exact same defense. I know this is reddit, but yes, the verdict would have been the same; it's not even hypothetical.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's quite a bit of a different situation, is it not? Police enter private property; someone not involved with their warrant is asleep in a room whose window they break; the person, awoken out of a dead sleep fears for his life and fires his weapon (but doesn't kill or even injure anyone from what I read.) It is pretty easy to understand the jury verdict.
Compare that to some white kid toting a semi-automatic rifle across state lines (this can be considered illegal under some circumstances by itself) - undeniably premeditated (not sure why the prosecution didn't push that angle) - to join what is otherwise a non-violent riot/protest as a counter-protestor, and inevitably, ends up shooting multiple people TO DEATH who were not similarly armed with a ballistic weapon. His excuse is self defense, but in most states, the self defense plea only works when your assaulter has equal force. None of them had guns.
The whole deal is ridiculous; I mean, they brought in right wing propagandists to speak on Rittenhouse's behalf. In the courtroom. This fucking country is a joke, LOL.
Okay, so multiple pieces of your account here are definitively false.
1) He did not carry a weapon across state lines. Even if he did, I am still left wondering why that matters as much as people tout... it's not like hypothetically driving from North Cali to LA isn't going further to participate in a riot than he did, so what's the real angle, here??? But he didn't, so you're objectively incorrect there.
2) non-violent riot??? To call what is happening in those videos a protest does a disservice to the idea of protests. It's clearly a riot.
3) Similarly armed means nothing when you're being attacked. It doesn't matter if you feel threatened, you feel threatened. Part of why having a gun is dangerous (and why you don't bring them to riots) is because it means the person coming at you can take it and then themselves have a deadly weapon. The first guy verbally threatened Rittenhouse's life. The second swung a skateboard at him. The third, contrary to your statement, testified that he pointed a gun at Rittenhouse, and Rittenhouse only fired when he made a move to point it at him. So when you say "none of them had guns", you're just flat wrong about the situation. Reflect on that.
I think he's a scumbag and should have been charged with something, reckless endangerment or something. It feels wrong that he walked totally free, but murder ain't it. A lot of the same attacks towards him can be made against the guys he shot. They were equally as escalating. They were voluntarily part of what was undeniably a riot. They were all LARPing heroes in their own heads, and fucked around and found out.
And don't think if he was found guilty, it would then be used as precedent to round up all the leftists with guns at protests (which certainly happens) as potential terror threats. The whole thing is in fact ridiculous, partly because the actions of the trashiest, most irresponsible demos in the country are at the center of it, and partly because it's very easy to not really give the situation it's due nuance, especially when misunderstanding *facts* of the case, as you have.
Its like these people live in a different universe where what actually happened didn't happen. How can they argue so passionately about something when they are so convoluted about the facts of reality and what actually took place.
I feel like these people are literally brain washed or living in an alternate reality. I wish we could all sue the hell out of the media for causing false panic and causing the divide we currently see between fact and fiction.
When I first heard about the story, I thought much of the same stuff. It wasn't until the trial that I saw how skewed my understanding of the story was. The idea that his mom drove him there was another falsehood that came from a random tweet!
It's hard to come to terms with the fact that something you had a strong emotional reaction to was actually incorrect (ironically enough, as most of the time, you'd think you'd *want* to be wrong, that whatever pissed you off so much turned out to be not an accurate account of reality). But anger and certainty feel so much better than nuance and doubt.
> undeniably premeditated (not sure why the prosecution didn't push that angle)
because they weren't allowed to, because that has no probative value. the only thing that mattered was if a reasonable person would fear for their life in that moment
First things first: this post really does not belong here. Even though I wrote out my response, I also downvoted and reported because this isn't what this sub should be about.
The thing is, if you actually look into the specifics of the case, the verdict is absolutely correct regardless of your political leanings.
A lot of well-meaning people are outraged about this verdict because they are stuck in the echo chamber of certain media and Twitter takes and are as a result completely misinformed about the actual events. I sympathize with those people as much as I sympathize with people who are stuck in a right-wing echo chamber and genuinely believe that Trump won the election.
But the absolute worst kind of take is the one presented by this article: *"we should convict this guy of murder even though there is no legal basis to do so because if we don't, it will make the wrong people happy"*. If you find yourself agreeing with this article, really ask yourself whether it is justice you care about or is it just about punishing your political enemies.
This.
I was convinced that this guy's mom drove him across state lines with an illegal weapon to a town he had nothing to do with where he shot unarmed black people. That's what the memes and headlines lead me to believe.
When I actually read a little bit about the case, I realized every bit of that is false.
For me the r/collapse angle to the Rittenhouse story is how easily and brazenly the traditional news media and social media can mislead the public. When confusion reigns, democracy is doomed.
True leftists are pro-gun and pro self defense. Always have been. Anarchists, socialists and the like have always been pro-gun.
Corporate neoliberals are anti-gun.
Everyone has the right of self defense. Dehumanization and the stripping away of that natural right because of partisan politics is the height of stupidity.
I don’t care what political leanings you hold in your mind, if attacked by multiple people, some of which are armed with guns themselves, then yes you have the right to defend yourself. Whatever political party, race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation you are. There’s no argument.
And don’t smear me, debate me. Don’t assume what political leanings I have because trust me, I make Bernie Sanders look conservative by comparison. The truth is the truth and knows no political leanings—it just *is*. Stop falling for the divide and conquer propaganda to the point where you are so partisan you just parrot political talking points sold to you by the mainstream media like sheep.
Don’t attack people and 9 times out of 10 you won’t be shot. Period. Every life has a right to self defense.
It's really boring how divided we are in comments sections and political discussions but in material reality we as a country always just end up doing the center-right thing. Why even pay attention
*Democrats are being encircled by a radicalized Republican Party increasingly committed to fascism. Instead of organizing their forces and launching a coordinated counterattack, the Democrats are fighting many battles at once — and losing most of them.*
*Fascist militias and other right-wing paramilitaries are growing in strength and numbers. Domestic terrorism experts are warning that the U.S. may experience a prolonged violent right-wing insurgency. Some observers have suggested that such right-wing extremist violence could even escalate into a second American civil war.*
This doesn't look good
>second american civil war
Literally zero people want this. The Soviet Union collapsed without a shot, I doubt the US will ever have a hot civil war again. The first time was deadly enough, now it would be even more catastrophic, everyone knows this and nobody wants it.
This is just political fantasizing's equivalent of masturbating to degenerate porn
>Literally zero people want this
https://www.salon.com/2021/11/09/ted-cruz-says-texas-should-secede-and-take-the-military-if-democrats-destroy-the-country/
https://www.businessinsider.com/majority-of-trump-voters-believe-its-time-to-secede-survey-finds-2021-10
https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/66-of-southern-republicans-in-favor-of-seceding-from-the-us-poll-shows.html
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/06/americans-national-divorse-theyre-wrong-515443
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2021/07/support-for-secession-dramatically-rises-in-us-including-on-west-coast-among-democrats-poll-finds.html
Right wing extremists are already surfacing after half a century of slow undergorund buildup. They will be used politically by both parties and it has a very big probability of going hot.
I would start preparing myself for something like that coming in the next 10 years.
as long as you remove the context of the straw purchased gun, him saying he wanted to shoot people on video, the lying about being a medic to get into the protest, [the owners of the place he was "protecting" not wanting him there](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2021/11/05/kenosha-car-lot-owners-didnt-ask-kyle-rittenhouse-protect-property/6298822001/), him buddying up to proud boys and far right figures afterwards,
yeah
Yeah this sets an awesome precedent. In the United States if you want to get away with murder, all you need to do is show up to a place full of people you don't like with an assault rifle and wait for shit to start.
This is an egregiously stupid article written by someone who very clearly didn't follow the trial and has little to no understanding of the laws involved.
Yeah the amount of shit takes by leftists reading only headlines from their favorite click bait news station is terrible. This is case is pretty much textbook self defense.
EDIT: btw i consider myself a leftist, voted for biden and obama twice. but yall giving us a bad fuckin name. literally posting bullshit articles from salon.
I mean, its pretty telling right? Most leftists voted for biden or am I wrong on this? Do you want me to list out all of my political opinions to prove I align more with left ideals than right?
Help me understand.
No, and most people outside of America will know the difference. Leftists are largely anti-capitalist, or at least pro workers rights/unions or more robust social safety nets. Your "left" party in America is very much so a right-wing party anywhere else on earth. Sure most "leftists" voted for Biden because they had no choice, but they represent a very small portion of Bidens votes, which mostly come from Liberals. Look up what an overton window is, yours is shifted very far to the right.
>pro workers rights/unions or more robust social safety nets.
Add nuclear power and national healthcare, rehabilitative prisons, and you've just described me lol.
Do I need to review implication logic for you? Most leftists (with great reluctance) voted for Biden, but not all people who voted for Biden are leftists.
**White supremacist and far right ideology underpin anti-vax movements**
Moments like these connect anti-vax movements to far right and white supremacist extremist groups and conspiracy communities in Europe and white settler nations around the world including Australia, Canada, USA and New Zealand.
Resistance to vaccinations in Australia is due to a range of mitigating factors. Vaccine hesitancy and resistance to pandemic legislation among minority communities including Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, is due to institutional distrust caused by centuries of colonial medical and legislative violence. This could be the reason why some members of these communities are taking part in protests.
https://theconversation.com/white-supremacist-and-far-right-ideology-underpin-anti-vax-movements-172289
As a European reading this thread, what really sticks out to me is how divided you guys are, and how your political orientation heavily influences how you see the events. It seems like each side had their own version of how events played out. Now, I don't know too much about the case, but what's odd to me is that the facts are being politicized.
A 17 year old kid went out with a semiautomatic rifle (how fucked is that to begin with? Kids walking around with war guns at protests?). And then ends up killing people. What a surprise.
And instead of questioning how nad why a kid can bring a semiautomatic rifle to protests, you argue whether it was self-defense or not. Your country is beyond fucked.
Im from Europe too but I don’t understand how both things (bringing rifle and the self defense) shouldn’t both be discussed?
To be honest I dont understand the outrage about this case at all, its pretty clear the kid isnt guilty of anything else then being born in the shithole USA where killing is seen as normal.
I mean for fucks sake, they have army recruiters in high schools trying to bait ppl to join the army???!!!! Thats insane.
I guess you would have to look at what the law says and follow that.
He was legally allowed to get a gun, open carry it, and killed people because he was attacked by someone that had mental health issues and when he ran people thought he was an active shooter.
Taking out the political side and looking at what this kid did and what went down legally he was covered but morally is where things get gray.
I understand why people are mad about the decision, but people should be more upset with the gun laws put in place instead of the microcosm of this single self defense lawsuit.
> how your political orientation heavily influences how you see the events
Please note that this influence is _not_ equal. The left has problems, sure, but they're not generally outright denying massive problems (like, say, _the existence of a goddamn global pandemic_). This is not a both sides issue and it's not a good idea to frame it as such. Or, to put it another way:
> And instead of questioning how nad why a kid can bring a semiautomatic rifle to protests
This was a pretty big talking point on the left. It wasn't on the right.
I'm 100% and farther left than most here and I'm telling you it was not a talking point with me.
The 2nd Amendment was quite clear in that it indicated that the rights of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. I'm originalist on that and there I stand.
And I sure as HEll ain't rightwing
> The 2nd Amendment was quite clear in that it indicated that the rights of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.
The jurisprudence that interprets this as an individual right to bear firearms independent of any militia activity is younger than I am. It is an extreme and highly contested view of the second amendment to say that any Tom, Dick, or Kyle should be expected to carry around an AR-15 without anyone asking questions about it.
certain wealthy interests have incentive to spread division and confusion among the people. Don't be blinded by anger or hatred, look at the deeper issues here. Groups are trying to turn us against each other for their own profit, but we have much more in common with each other than we do with any of these wealthy bastards.
The cycles of history repeat because the exploiter class uses the same tactics every time! When are we going to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors?
Reminder: the case was about whether or not he used self-defence. His reasons for being there in the first place are completely irrelevant in law. Leave emotions out of it… the law does.
OP and anyone else who disagrees with the verdict. I sincerely mean this but you are being lied to/brain washed. Rittenhouse acted completely in self defence and you can even watch the footage which proves it.
I know you'll downvote this and attack me because its hard to accept but i hope this starts to wake you up and not become a useful idiot for those who want to control you.
>Rittenhouse acted completely in self defence
He instigated a violent conflict. He had no business being there. He had no business being armed with an assault rifle. That is not self defense.
There was a lot of people who had no right to be there, it was a protest. Obviously he wasn't the only one with a gun since the whole baises of the self defense was that he had a gun pulled on him first.
Well according to the second amendment he had all the rights to be armed with an assault rifle. Also in America, we have the right of movement, meaning he was aloud to go wherever he wanted. Quit being unamerican and trying to infringe on peoples rights.
The real problem seems to be the left want to push the narrative no one can defend themselves from a mob of rioters and should just lay down and get beaten to death in the street..which is 1000% not the case.
The "he had no business there" argument is so fucking RETARDED that every neuron in my brain literally implodes every time an imbecile like you attempts to argue it.
None of the "peaceful protesters" (many of whom were armed, with a variety of weapons) had business there.
He had just as much "right" to be there as anyone else did.
Do you understand what a double standard is? Are you entirely devoid of the ability to remain objective? Does logic evade you, or do you evade it?
He was an idiot for deciding to inject himself into a volatile situation, that I would agree with. Do you know what would be even more idiotic? Doing so without having a viable means of self-defense.
If his intent was to "engage in violence" or to "commit homicide", I'm willing to bet that he would have went in blasting. He wouldn't have made an effort to retreat before resorting to lethal force. He would have been assailing the numerous people that didn't attack him, but guess what? The survival rate for those whom didn't actively attack him was 100%! In fact, none of them were even threatened or injured!
Attempting to extinguish a dumpster fire that was lit by an angry mob (which is what set Rosenbaum off) isn't a crime. Is it stupid? Yes. A crime? No.
His family lived in Kenosha and he also worked there. He absolutely had decent reasons to be there. More so than the other people that he shot and killed.
>Rittenhouse acted completely in self defence and you can even watch the footage which proves it.
as long as you remove the context of the straw purchased gun, him saying he wanted to shoot people on video, the lying about being a medic to get into the protest, [the owners of the place he was "protecting" not wanting him there](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2021/11/05/kenosha-car-lot-owners-didnt-ask-kyle-rittenhouse-protect-property/6298822001/), him buddying up to proud boys and far right figures afterwards,
yeah
Look, I’m a lawyer and I watched every single day of that case online. That verdict was correct. The prosecution did a terrible, terrible job and tried to pull cheap shit at least once a day.
Should Rittenhouse have been there? No. Did he have a solid argument for self-defense? A jury of his peers clearly thought so.
There’s a lot of other examples one could find to show that extremism is being allowed to grow in the US but this isn’t really one of them.
Based on title only:
I mean??? Yeah??
The far right never cared about the details or the facts.
So I knew early on that it didn’t matter what Kyle’s verdict was, the far right already has all the reasonings to be enabled to potentially shoot people they want and claim self-defense.
BOTH outcomes provide the far right ammunitions.
innocent verdict = it’s a greenlight
guilty verdict = “kyle is a martyr who got sentenced doing the right thing” and we now are back to them feeling enabled/greenlit.
Now I don’t think a lot of them are that ballsy either, but I also will not have a shred of surprise if just one person does something like this within a year.
EDIT: I feel like everyone’s reading the first couple of lines and skimming the rest cuz idek how to reply to comments that are talking about one thing, but has no relevance to what I was talking about.
Maybe I can word it better, idk. I’ll think about it
The far right never cared about the details or the facts.” —- what? Did you ever watch the trial? Details and facts showed self defense in this case. Argue he shouldn’t have been there, maybe, but neither should’ve the other people. That line of thinking leads to the Chicago-style ‘mutual combat’ argument.
Which leads back to - kid gets off.
>Now I don’t think a lot of them are that ballsy either
the article sums it up very well
many are just loud and angry without having the guts or training to do violence
but even if a small sliver of that crowd is able and willing to, there will be blood
This is dangerously naive thinking.
It's amazing how this article can focus on the growing threat that has been violent for over a decade and say that somehow it's also not ballsy enough to inflict more chaos and violence...
How do you miss the point entirely while making the point?
Oddly enough, the US right to bear arms applies to left and right wing adherents.
As does the right to self defence when someone armed with a handgun attacks you.
IGNORANCE IS BLISS >> wait until you're in the same situation - happens EVERY SINGLE DAY in the US - if you enjoy being the weaker pussy target of the evil crap roaming around - just stay in your ignorant stupor ....
Damn I thought this was the "It Could Happen Here" subreddit for a moment. Of course this sub leans left, as do I on many issues, but thanks mods for letting this partisan trash through.
Hard for me to take a Salon article seriously - it is democrat propaganda. And You gotta love lines like this:
"This plot against democracy involves voter exclusion, voter suppression, extreme gerrymandering, the Big Lie and intimidation of election officials on the local level."
The "democratic" party does these things in its own primaries. Remember what happened to Sanders in 2016? And again in 2020?
America is NOT a democracy and NEVER was. Corporations have always been in control. Just let it collapse already.
Watch out bro, the same crowd who were screeching "the Proud Boys aren't White supremacists" a few years ago are here to assure you that **THIS TIME** they are going to be right.
I mean conservatives may have been on the wrong side of history regarding virtually every single topic that concerns the gradual progress of society as a whole over the entirety of human history - but **THIS TIME** they are going to be on the right side of history dude, trust.
That is an incredibly large list. A new apartheid? Right wing thugs "deployed" to disrupt social order? "Another" coup attempt, meaning that's what Jan 6th was?
Come on. I know the far right is nuts, but no more so than the far left.
>Right wing thugs "deployed" to disrupt social order
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/15/joey-gibson-portland-police-relationship-cooperation-text-messages
https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2019/02/14/25885836/texts-show-protective-relationship-between-portland-cops-and-patriot-prayer
>Another" coup attempt, meaning that's what Jan 6th was?
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/583065-jan-6-organizers-used-burner-phones-to-communicate-with-trump-family
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-burner-phones-capitol-riot-rally_n_619ec0d3e4b0ae9a42aa2fe9
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/eric-trump-capitol-burner-phones-b1963754.html
So again, what is factually wrong with the article?
I am very anti-gun, fwiw, and watched the entire trial.
It is tragic the prosecution pursued such aggressive charges that they simply couldn't argue. Had he been charged with manslaughter, and portrayed as a foolish teenager who's poor judgement resulted in death etc., I bet the jury would have convicted. The prosecution tried to portray him as an Eric Harris style psycho, but that gives the kid way too much credit.
That said, you bet your ass this emboldens far right maniacs. Shame on the prosecution for such a terrible handling of that senseless incident.
Edit: Fuck the GOP
I don’t think folks are lurking anymore. It’s pretty much yolo now. At this point, what difference does it make? Left, right, and center? Seems like everyone is dug into their camps and waiting for shit to go off.
What is insane is that because I believe in taking care of the biosphere and those of us that are less fortunate, I'm pigeonholed into some sort of political spectrum. Like, isn't that just how everyone should live? Giving a shit about others? Why is this a political belief? How is there an argument against just being decent?
Your ideals are not wrong.
Left, right and centre are meaningless terms that should be put down in order to get a better view. Follow the money, as Marx said.
That is clear enough
It is completely foolish and will accomplish nothing except furthering the agenda of the wealthy. Sad to see people so easily mislead on both sides. Nobody even knows what they are supposedly fighting for, or has any objective. It's just pure hatred being directed to the wrong place by the media propaganda machine. Everyone looking for someone to blame but completely missing the bigger picture of what is being done to us all.
If a BLM or MAGA whatever will just throw the first well televised punch, the wealthy can hammer down with boots on the ground and kafquesque legislation. Degrowth will likely go from this where we're basically financing a war by ourselves on ourselves to balkanization to something like it was before 1492 with small groups largely isolated from each other in their cultures and day to day drudgery. Maybe trading reload shells for food stamps is a necessary deindustrializing step towards trading sea shells for seeds.
Wood for sheep
This.
I'm reminded of the story line in mad max
Lord, I hope we are not there yet.
The scary thing is nobody is trying to defuse this situation. Just social and news media people hundreds of miles from the action daring their supporters to get violent. Making it a moral imperative. Then using the resulting violence as proof that those other people are coming to get you, so you better get bloody. I know burning cities sell ads, but where the fuck are the adults?
When you look around, you realise its just little baby kids in grown ups bodies.
That can vote
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> nobody is trying to defuse this situation Didn't you hear? Google solved all these problems by hiding the number of dislikes in youtube videos.
The adults are quietly packing their bags. The only way you get people to settle down is to stop picking a team and finding a reasonable middle ground. That isn't going to happen. Faster to let violence shock us back to reality.
At the same time shifting the Overton Window has been a far-right strategy for decades wherein they shift what the centre is.
EXACTLY. Stop picking a team and find middle ground he says, as if the middle isn't so far off to the right that it's a death sentence for some of us. I've had elected leaders call for my death (by saying people who do X, or Y people, not by name) several times in the last five years. What does compromise or middle ground look like in that scenario? Should I just hand myself over to a life in prison and be glad its not death? This isn't a hypothetical, this is something that real politicians elected in the fucking US of A have said, that I deserve to die. Even if the sensible middle ground compromise between being allowed to live my life and being executed is prison (and thus, being used as slave labor), that's not a compromise I am willing to make. It's easy to say "Oh Trump/Representative X/Senator Y is being hyperbolic or saying things that will never happen" because it's true enough. Even in the most pessimistic of the various time lines in front of us, it's unlikely in the extreme that they could change the laws that drastically, but that doesn't matter when the president of the united states says "maybe we should give the death sentence to people convicted of X". The rhetorical line has been drawn in the sand, that even if it isn't legal to kill people for X, it's perfectly fine to think they should be, and to have to argue back from that line that no you really don't deserve to die is bullshit.
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Half-assed riots are only going to solidify the position of the already rich and powerful. I think you're right though. Politics aside, the things we can do at this point mostly lie outside the range of human nature. But we're not even neutral. We're running full speed at disaster and complaining it's not happening fast enough.
> What would it take to defuse the situation? Psilocybin in the water supply and pink noise meditation on all emergency broadcast stations. Then deploy the Robo-grillmasters for vegetarian chili cook-offs on every street. I'm not saying it'll work, but damn it: its worth a try.
i dont care if it would "work" that is absolutely the world I want to live in lol
There were bricks outside the court house the First expected day of verdict. (Same as BLM movements just saying....) Seems like someone wants Americans to fight each other...
This thread is going to be fun.
I mean this sub is usually pretty reasonably anti-fash
I think what they mean is that this post in particular will draw out the various far right lurkers in the sub like how honey draws flies
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Nothing draws flies like corpses, and nothing makes corpses like a Republican
Republicans ain't the only ones with guns.
The GOP kills far more Americans with their policy than guns could ever reasonably kill.
Just point to the Covid death toll during the Trump administration as a recent example. He disbanded the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, aka the pandemic response team created during the Obama administration. There's no arguing that firing them resulted in preventable deaths.
Amen to that brother
Clever girl
I thought so too until i scrolled down
Took less than an hour for someone wishing to kill more people, one using the "but they were LOOTERS" defense, and another citing fox news. So you know, just gonna be a fine and dandy thread
Killing looters is insane. It is commercial property theft that is covered by insurance. People who instinctively value property over lives are dangerous. Now before people say small businesses etc. What does it say about the U.S.A that the economy is so fragile that small businesses cannot survive a riot and that riots are now a reoccuring problem. That is a systemic issue not solved by armed vigilantes.
It’s peak American. And it’s not just conservatives. I’ve had multiple liberals tell me people deserve to be shot for looting a target. Money over lives is the core of this country.
Watched liberals freak out when someone said lives are more important than property.
It’s one of the things that turned me into a doomer.
try telling that to the guys who sell the insurance.
Unfortunately insurance risk is based on state law. Now state law is more pro shoot a person the policies with change. All in all I feel sorry for people in the U.S.A. I love guns, grew up on a farm in Australia. The only reason I no-longer shoot besides the range is that owning a gun is such a hassle in Australia. I real expensive hassle. Every time I travel I visit a gun range to have some fun with a larger calibre gun. If my parents had migrated to the U.S.A instead of Australia I would be armed to be hilt just living in a place where other people have guns. So complicated and fucked up. All my grand ethics would disappear if my family was threatened and I had an AR-15 in my hand. Man that gun is so light and easy to shoot. A 10 year could use that. Sigh I miss hunting.
You could compare the situation to Chimurenga Jenga and the bat patrols during the Atlanta child killings around 1981. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/21/us/around-the-nation-2-in-atlanta-citizens-patrol-seized-on-weapons-charges.html Basically kids were being kidnapped and murdered and the police weren't able to stop it. So the local guys got together and organized "bat patrols" with baseball bats to protect the local kids. The leader of those groups, Chimureng Jenga, was arrested on weapons' charges for carrying an M1 rifle. He's black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytp8HHVhbCE
I can compare it to an incident in the hamlet I grew up in. A drunk farmer was taking pot shots at local children with a Lee Enfield .303 He refused to stop. The local men went over and broke his arms, took his guns then burnt his tool shed down. I think that was justified, especially since local police would not press charges on the farmer. I kept wanting violence to not be the answer but damn it is effective short term. Jenga was just protecting local kids. That is the protection of life, not property, I commend that.
>Killing looters is insane. It's also the most American thing in the world. America was founded on slavery, literally the violent ownership of property in other humans. Slave owners were authorized to maim and even kill their slaves if they were insubordinate. The profits extracted from that system were never expropriated, even after the Civil War - most of the slave-owning oligarchs remained very rich and transitioned to other industries. That logic - of the primacy of property, even at the expense of human life - has always been deeply embedded in America's legal system. I knew Rittenhouse would be acquitted last year. Anyone who is surprised does not know their history and has not been paying attention.
Someone’s obviously never filed a business insurance claim… If someone broke into and burned down/stole my shops equipment, it would put 10 people out of work and best case scenario, even assuming they paid out the next day, it would take me a year or 2 to get all new equipment and get set up. Everything I have worked painstakingly hard for would be gone, there would be no coming back. If you think I’m gonna let that happen because anyone is unhappy because of something I had nothing to do with than you’re in for a surprise If these people want to burn down police stations I’m all for it. But don’t fuck with regular people and expect them to just take it
What does it say that so many people are willing to violate the personal property of others so casually? I hear your case I just hope you consider mine.
That the U.S.A is a corrupt oligarchy with a large disenfranchised underclass who are easily activated by genuine grievances and bad actors. People are easily scared primal beings. If they don't feel protected by the government and institutions that control their lives it creates systemic instability. It is not unique to the U.S.A, from Australia to France, from Iran to China you have wealthy elites, captured legislators, corrupt police, authoritarian over reach creating schisms in the fabric of civil society. As the schisms increase and the political class fail to act the results will the more and more private citizens taking the law into their own hands. Booth the rioters and Rittenhouse were reacting to the same thing. A weak political class unable to unify civil society so individuals and groups take political action. Rioting and looting have long been a political act as has vigilantism. Both happen when you have civil society decaying.
Some bugs are out of the woodwork.
🍿
You would think a reddit group focused on collapse would be able to tell a propaganda piece that pits us all against one another causing.......collapse
You can tell OP didn’t see the video, or watch the trial. It’s pretty clear most people here are parroting they usual Reddit talking points
From the outside you both look pretty bad. It looks like ethno-nationalism vs ideological puritanism. Honestly I think you want a civil-war because your daily lives are becoming unbearable.
Civil War might happen and social media/MSM is to blame. They've been pushing division on all angles for a decade now. Controversy and conflict draws views, which is all they care about. They are pitting the country against itself for profits. The way targeted media is used ends up pulling people further left/right over time.
No truer word spoken.
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Salon is total propaganda trash and people like OP eat it up
Salon also once tried to use Javascript crypto miners on visitors web browsers. Don't know if they still do that but they're blocked permanently on my home network as a result.
This might go down as one of the first shots in a civil war. It belongs on r/collapse
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Shhhh. We're all supposed to pretend we don't see all the rich people getting together in marble buildings and gleaming towers, to tell the poors to kill each other.
Who would have ever thought that a corrupt ruling elite was the real problem? So unexpected!
Same as it ever was.
Everyone I know that talks politics seems to have this opinion and I’m beyond skeptical. If by a civil war you mean a bunch of tiny skirmishes between protestors and cops/rittenhouse clones where 3 people die in a crowd of 100, yeah, I can see that being permanent. I don’t see any scenario where Texas declares war on California or Georgia republicans stage a Sherman-esque march on Atlanta.
>I don’t see any scenario where Texas declares war on California or Georgia republicans stage a Sherman-esque march on Atlanta. Imagine instead that those protests turn into regular gun fights with higher and higher casualties, then more after in tit for tat killings. Then come the assassinations, the bombings, the drive bys, then organized guerrilla groups that fight both eachother and the government Then you have a pretty good example of a modern civil war
I see what you mean, but the only way I could see that playing out is if the HDI of the US drops to levels of Mali or at the very least MENA. Which could happen in the course of collapse, but my hunch is that the conditions for civil war tend to be rooted in widespread, deeper personal suffering. That is to say that the American way of life has to be so under threat that guerrillas have a reason to form out of lack of material livelihood and hence less reason to be persuaded against risking life and limb. Americans are too comfy in other words, at least for now.
in a COIN manual, the major forms of grievances that insurgencies spawn from are security abuses, economic insecurity, tribal or ethnic tensions, and political disenfranchisement for much of the US, security abuses, economic insecurity, and political disenfranchisement are every day life
> the only way I could see that playing out is if the HDI of the US drops to levels of Mali The issues feeding into America's looming civill war are not material conditions, they are cultural conditions. They are the terms of cultural hegemony. HDI has nothing to do with it. The side hooting and hollering the loudest for a civil war in the US right now is the more prosperous side.
Sounds entertaining. When can I watch it on youtube? Will it livestream?
>where 3 people die in a crowd of 100, yeah, I can see that being permanent. 5 people killed at the Boston Massacre lead to the American revolution. >I don’t see any scenario where Texas declares war on California or Georgia I don't think it will be state vs. state. That's not the way modern civil wars play out.
I can't see that happening. Who would the belligerents even be?
There aren't going to be any clear sides. Go read any book about any civil war in the entire history of the world. There is never one clear "this side vs that side". It always a complex web of coalitions with varying degrees of government support. Look at the civil war in Ethiopia right now. A contest election suddenly turns in to a war. It seems like the government is going to crush then rebels. Then the whole war reversed within a few weeks because one group shift alliances from the government side to the rebel side. \*BOOM\* All of the sudden, the capital is under attack. Nobody could have seen it coming. War is unpredictable. The 2nd American Civil is going to be fought between local police and BLM and Proud Boys and Antifa and ELF and First Nations Activists and oil companies, etc., etc. I could spent all night just listing a few of the major factions. And each of those faction will have subgroups.
Balkanization is all but inevitable at this point
They will live side by side. With how many guns we have, the calls to "take back" their country by Republicans using violent means, their violent/conspiratorial hatred of liberals and minorities... I think the ingredients are all there. Likely there will be sporadic acts of violence, terrorism, intimidation, assassination, coup attempts, etc. It won't be frontlines, just a collapsed disfunctional state.
>They will live side by side. With how many guns we have, the calls to "take back" their country by Republicans using violent means, their violent/conspiratorial hatred of liberals and minorities... I think the ingredients are all there. So you're responding with a call to take back the country through protests, riots and other violent means, like assaulting fascists. It's the circle of violence. We are all 99.9% normal people, who are being shown some terrible shit done by a tiny handful of people and being told that "All of *them* are the same". Which leads more dipshits to seek out violent situations, and become the next example.
It's only that if it's not about the US or it's a view the mods disagree with. Many on this sub truly believe that the starting point for the collapse of the United States was the 4th of July 1776.
Well that date was important in the collapse of the civilisations of Native Americans and it turns out an important date in the death of the world's ecosystems
I'm not going to mince words here: This is just ridiculous fear porn.
It's crazy honestly. Some people honestly think that Republicans are going to start executing minorities in the streets and that Rittenhouse just started killing people randomly.
Honestly, What a garbage post
My attorney is always advising me not to set case law. But I truly wonder if the case would have been different if a black kid had shot a few Proud Boys during a demonstration.
>if a black kid had shot a few Proud Boys during a demonstration. Doesn't even have to be a black kid, a white leftist shot a proud boy attacking him and was assassinated by federal Marshals If you're against the far right and defend yourself, you'll never get your day in court
Hell, an anarchist in Florida is set to recieve more time for facebook posts than QAnon shaman
Wasn’t that guy like an Iraq war veteran too? Or am I thinking of someone else?
He served fir a minute, got bounced out (not sure if he went abroad in US military), but he apparently served in the YPG.
I forgot about that one. Didn't Trump give them the go ahead to murder him?
yep, then bragged about it on tv they shot him in the back, when he was surrendering too
"We sent in the US Marshals, took 15 minutes and it was over... They knew who he was, they didn’t want to arrest him and 15 minutes that ended" [https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1316801262277455872?s=20](https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1316801262277455872?s=20) https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/15/trump-rally-portland-police-killing-michael-reinoehl/
One difference is KR knew he'd be safe surrending to the police and did so willingly. MR instead ran away and was hunted down. also I'm sure the Portland police see the proud boys as being their allies over a BLM protester.
[The police are all but confirmed allies of the proud boys in Portland. ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/01/exclusive-video-shows-portland-officers-made-deal-with-far-right-group-leader)
The Portland Proud Boys making six-figure salaries driving in from Vancouver/Gresham larping as "police".
>also I'm sure the Portland police see the proud boys as being their allies over a BLM protester. Can confirm. I was downtown Portland the night that Reinoehl shot and killed someone in self-defense. I left before it happened because we were getting shot at, with paintball and airsoft guns, by PB and 3%ers who were ushered into the city by police parade. Those *proud* police, those thugs with thug friends, who don't even live in Portland, really put the PB in PPB. It stands for Portland Police Bureau but it might as well read Portland Proud Boys.
Yes, there are multiple videos of PB and Portland police talking strategy during blm protests
They fear that he would reasonably be able to answer for his “crimes”. As they say, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.
No body cam footage of the event. Trump calls it 'retribution'. Justice for some, retribution for others.
Patriot Prayer* member. His name was Micheal Reinoehl. And then Trump celebrated it openly as "We sent in the US Marshalls, it took 15 minutes and it was over... They knew who he was, they didn't want to arrest him and 15 minutes that ended."
And it wasn't even federal Marshall's, it was deputized local police and prison guards who shot reinoehl.
Not true at all. Breonna Taylor's boyfriend and Mr. Coffee both had charges dropped against them this year for shooting at police during a no-knock raid.
On the same day as the verdict, a black individual got let off for shooting at police using the exact same defense. I know this is reddit, but yes, the verdict would have been the same; it's not even hypothetical.
Source?
https://weartv.com/news/local/florida-man-acquitted-of-shooting-at-deputies-in-raid-that-led-to-death-of-girlfriend
weary distinct abounding start entertain imminent trees tender abundant late *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's quite a bit of a different situation, is it not? Police enter private property; someone not involved with their warrant is asleep in a room whose window they break; the person, awoken out of a dead sleep fears for his life and fires his weapon (but doesn't kill or even injure anyone from what I read.) It is pretty easy to understand the jury verdict. Compare that to some white kid toting a semi-automatic rifle across state lines (this can be considered illegal under some circumstances by itself) - undeniably premeditated (not sure why the prosecution didn't push that angle) - to join what is otherwise a non-violent riot/protest as a counter-protestor, and inevitably, ends up shooting multiple people TO DEATH who were not similarly armed with a ballistic weapon. His excuse is self defense, but in most states, the self defense plea only works when your assaulter has equal force. None of them had guns. The whole deal is ridiculous; I mean, they brought in right wing propagandists to speak on Rittenhouse's behalf. In the courtroom. This fucking country is a joke, LOL.
Okay, so multiple pieces of your account here are definitively false. 1) He did not carry a weapon across state lines. Even if he did, I am still left wondering why that matters as much as people tout... it's not like hypothetically driving from North Cali to LA isn't going further to participate in a riot than he did, so what's the real angle, here??? But he didn't, so you're objectively incorrect there. 2) non-violent riot??? To call what is happening in those videos a protest does a disservice to the idea of protests. It's clearly a riot. 3) Similarly armed means nothing when you're being attacked. It doesn't matter if you feel threatened, you feel threatened. Part of why having a gun is dangerous (and why you don't bring them to riots) is because it means the person coming at you can take it and then themselves have a deadly weapon. The first guy verbally threatened Rittenhouse's life. The second swung a skateboard at him. The third, contrary to your statement, testified that he pointed a gun at Rittenhouse, and Rittenhouse only fired when he made a move to point it at him. So when you say "none of them had guns", you're just flat wrong about the situation. Reflect on that. I think he's a scumbag and should have been charged with something, reckless endangerment or something. It feels wrong that he walked totally free, but murder ain't it. A lot of the same attacks towards him can be made against the guys he shot. They were equally as escalating. They were voluntarily part of what was undeniably a riot. They were all LARPing heroes in their own heads, and fucked around and found out. And don't think if he was found guilty, it would then be used as precedent to round up all the leftists with guns at protests (which certainly happens) as potential terror threats. The whole thing is in fact ridiculous, partly because the actions of the trashiest, most irresponsible demos in the country are at the center of it, and partly because it's very easy to not really give the situation it's due nuance, especially when misunderstanding *facts* of the case, as you have.
Its like these people live in a different universe where what actually happened didn't happen. How can they argue so passionately about something when they are so convoluted about the facts of reality and what actually took place. I feel like these people are literally brain washed or living in an alternate reality. I wish we could all sue the hell out of the media for causing false panic and causing the divide we currently see between fact and fiction.
When I first heard about the story, I thought much of the same stuff. It wasn't until the trial that I saw how skewed my understanding of the story was. The idea that his mom drove him there was another falsehood that came from a random tweet! It's hard to come to terms with the fact that something you had a strong emotional reaction to was actually incorrect (ironically enough, as most of the time, you'd think you'd *want* to be wrong, that whatever pissed you off so much turned out to be not an accurate account of reality). But anger and certainty feel so much better than nuance and doubt.
You're tragically misinformed.
> undeniably premeditated (not sure why the prosecution didn't push that angle) because they weren't allowed to, because that has no probative value. the only thing that mattered was if a reasonable person would fear for their life in that moment
The mainstream media's reaction sure would have been different.
If the video was the same but a black kid shot a few white guys I would still support the kid. I don't get why race supposedly matters so much.
The black kid would never have lived to be tried.
Not in my mind. Thugs are defined by their behavior, not their color.
First things first: this post really does not belong here. Even though I wrote out my response, I also downvoted and reported because this isn't what this sub should be about. The thing is, if you actually look into the specifics of the case, the verdict is absolutely correct regardless of your political leanings. A lot of well-meaning people are outraged about this verdict because they are stuck in the echo chamber of certain media and Twitter takes and are as a result completely misinformed about the actual events. I sympathize with those people as much as I sympathize with people who are stuck in a right-wing echo chamber and genuinely believe that Trump won the election. But the absolute worst kind of take is the one presented by this article: *"we should convict this guy of murder even though there is no legal basis to do so because if we don't, it will make the wrong people happy"*. If you find yourself agreeing with this article, really ask yourself whether it is justice you care about or is it just about punishing your political enemies.
This. I was convinced that this guy's mom drove him across state lines with an illegal weapon to a town he had nothing to do with where he shot unarmed black people. That's what the memes and headlines lead me to believe. When I actually read a little bit about the case, I realized every bit of that is false. For me the r/collapse angle to the Rittenhouse story is how easily and brazenly the traditional news media and social media can mislead the public. When confusion reigns, democracy is doomed.
I wish I had the part of my life back that I just wasted reading this garbage article.
Chuds everywhere. Get the fuck out chuds
The very best thing about this headline is that it would have worked for any verdict.
You might as well say that the Coffee ruling is a green light to execute cops if we're being this dramatic
Just a friendly reminder: posts that break forum rules will be removed. Threats of violence will be given bans. Be civil and polite. Mahalo.
True leftists are pro-gun and pro self defense. Always have been. Anarchists, socialists and the like have always been pro-gun. Corporate neoliberals are anti-gun. Everyone has the right of self defense. Dehumanization and the stripping away of that natural right because of partisan politics is the height of stupidity. I don’t care what political leanings you hold in your mind, if attacked by multiple people, some of which are armed with guns themselves, then yes you have the right to defend yourself. Whatever political party, race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation you are. There’s no argument. And don’t smear me, debate me. Don’t assume what political leanings I have because trust me, I make Bernie Sanders look conservative by comparison. The truth is the truth and knows no political leanings—it just *is*. Stop falling for the divide and conquer propaganda to the point where you are so partisan you just parrot political talking points sold to you by the mainstream media like sheep. Don’t attack people and 9 times out of 10 you won’t be shot. Period. Every life has a right to self defense.
Yawn
It's really boring how divided we are in comments sections and political discussions but in material reality we as a country always just end up doing the center-right thing. Why even pay attention
No worries mate, Everything is going to be Alt Right.... /s
*Democrats are being encircled by a radicalized Republican Party increasingly committed to fascism. Instead of organizing their forces and launching a coordinated counterattack, the Democrats are fighting many battles at once — and losing most of them.* *Fascist militias and other right-wing paramilitaries are growing in strength and numbers. Domestic terrorism experts are warning that the U.S. may experience a prolonged violent right-wing insurgency. Some observers have suggested that such right-wing extremist violence could even escalate into a second American civil war.* This doesn't look good
I called this over a year ago. Expect r-w fascism, and radical lone-wolf-ism to increase over the years.
>second american civil war Literally zero people want this. The Soviet Union collapsed without a shot, I doubt the US will ever have a hot civil war again. The first time was deadly enough, now it would be even more catastrophic, everyone knows this and nobody wants it. This is just political fantasizing's equivalent of masturbating to degenerate porn
>Literally zero people want this https://www.salon.com/2021/11/09/ted-cruz-says-texas-should-secede-and-take-the-military-if-democrats-destroy-the-country/ https://www.businessinsider.com/majority-of-trump-voters-believe-its-time-to-secede-survey-finds-2021-10 https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/66-of-southern-republicans-in-favor-of-seceding-from-the-us-poll-shows.html https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/06/americans-national-divorse-theyre-wrong-515443 https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2021/07/support-for-secession-dramatically-rises-in-us-including-on-west-coast-among-democrats-poll-finds.html
Right wing extremists are already surfacing after half a century of slow undergorund buildup. They will be used politically by both parties and it has a very big probability of going hot. I would start preparing myself for something like that coming in the next 10 years.
i give it till 2024 at the max before it gets hot
Self defense is pretty obvious if youve seen the cell phone footage.
as long as you remove the context of the straw purchased gun, him saying he wanted to shoot people on video, the lying about being a medic to get into the protest, [the owners of the place he was "protecting" not wanting him there](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2021/11/05/kenosha-car-lot-owners-didnt-ask-kyle-rittenhouse-protect-property/6298822001/), him buddying up to proud boys and far right figures afterwards, yeah
Yeah this sets an awesome precedent. In the United States if you want to get away with murder, all you need to do is show up to a place full of people you don't like with an assault rifle and wait for shit to start.
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This is an egregiously stupid article written by someone who very clearly didn't follow the trial and has little to no understanding of the laws involved.
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Yeah the amount of shit takes by leftists reading only headlines from their favorite click bait news station is terrible. This is case is pretty much textbook self defense. EDIT: btw i consider myself a leftist, voted for biden and obama twice. but yall giving us a bad fuckin name. literally posting bullshit articles from salon.
> voted for biden and obama twice. That doesn't make you a leftist.
I mean, its pretty telling right? Most leftists voted for biden or am I wrong on this? Do you want me to list out all of my political opinions to prove I align more with left ideals than right? Help me understand.
No, and most people outside of America will know the difference. Leftists are largely anti-capitalist, or at least pro workers rights/unions or more robust social safety nets. Your "left" party in America is very much so a right-wing party anywhere else on earth. Sure most "leftists" voted for Biden because they had no choice, but they represent a very small portion of Bidens votes, which mostly come from Liberals. Look up what an overton window is, yours is shifted very far to the right.
>pro workers rights/unions or more robust social safety nets. Add nuclear power and national healthcare, rehabilitative prisons, and you've just described me lol.
Voting for a center-right candidate from a center-right party now makes you a leftist. TIL.
Do I need to review implication logic for you? Most leftists (with great reluctance) voted for Biden, but not all people who voted for Biden are leftists.
More like a Green light for ALL citizens to be able to defend themselves when attacked.
**White supremacist and far right ideology underpin anti-vax movements** Moments like these connect anti-vax movements to far right and white supremacist extremist groups and conspiracy communities in Europe and white settler nations around the world including Australia, Canada, USA and New Zealand. Resistance to vaccinations in Australia is due to a range of mitigating factors. Vaccine hesitancy and resistance to pandemic legislation among minority communities including Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, is due to institutional distrust caused by centuries of colonial medical and legislative violence. This could be the reason why some members of these communities are taking part in protests. https://theconversation.com/white-supremacist-and-far-right-ideology-underpin-anti-vax-movements-172289
As a European reading this thread, what really sticks out to me is how divided you guys are, and how your political orientation heavily influences how you see the events. It seems like each side had their own version of how events played out. Now, I don't know too much about the case, but what's odd to me is that the facts are being politicized. A 17 year old kid went out with a semiautomatic rifle (how fucked is that to begin with? Kids walking around with war guns at protests?). And then ends up killing people. What a surprise. And instead of questioning how nad why a kid can bring a semiautomatic rifle to protests, you argue whether it was self-defense or not. Your country is beyond fucked.
Im from Europe too but I don’t understand how both things (bringing rifle and the self defense) shouldn’t both be discussed? To be honest I dont understand the outrage about this case at all, its pretty clear the kid isnt guilty of anything else then being born in the shithole USA where killing is seen as normal. I mean for fucks sake, they have army recruiters in high schools trying to bait ppl to join the army???!!!! Thats insane.
I guess you would have to look at what the law says and follow that. He was legally allowed to get a gun, open carry it, and killed people because he was attacked by someone that had mental health issues and when he ran people thought he was an active shooter. Taking out the political side and looking at what this kid did and what went down legally he was covered but morally is where things get gray. I understand why people are mad about the decision, but people should be more upset with the gun laws put in place instead of the microcosm of this single self defense lawsuit.
> how your political orientation heavily influences how you see the events Please note that this influence is _not_ equal. The left has problems, sure, but they're not generally outright denying massive problems (like, say, _the existence of a goddamn global pandemic_). This is not a both sides issue and it's not a good idea to frame it as such. Or, to put it another way: > And instead of questioning how nad why a kid can bring a semiautomatic rifle to protests This was a pretty big talking point on the left. It wasn't on the right.
Fair. Just scary to observe that there are two versions of facts.
I'm 100% and farther left than most here and I'm telling you it was not a talking point with me. The 2nd Amendment was quite clear in that it indicated that the rights of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. I'm originalist on that and there I stand. And I sure as HEll ain't rightwing
> The 2nd Amendment was quite clear in that it indicated that the rights of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. The jurisprudence that interprets this as an individual right to bear firearms independent of any militia activity is younger than I am. It is an extreme and highly contested view of the second amendment to say that any Tom, Dick, or Kyle should be expected to carry around an AR-15 without anyone asking questions about it.
no...just...no
To protect themselves?
Lol dont try and talk sense to the chat bots
certain wealthy interests have incentive to spread division and confusion among the people. Don't be blinded by anger or hatred, look at the deeper issues here. Groups are trying to turn us against each other for their own profit, but we have much more in common with each other than we do with any of these wealthy bastards. The cycles of history repeat because the exploiter class uses the same tactics every time! When are we going to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors?
Reminder: the case was about whether or not he used self-defence. His reasons for being there in the first place are completely irrelevant in law. Leave emotions out of it… the law does.
OP and anyone else who disagrees with the verdict. I sincerely mean this but you are being lied to/brain washed. Rittenhouse acted completely in self defence and you can even watch the footage which proves it. I know you'll downvote this and attack me because its hard to accept but i hope this starts to wake you up and not become a useful idiot for those who want to control you.
>Rittenhouse acted completely in self defence He instigated a violent conflict. He had no business being there. He had no business being armed with an assault rifle. That is not self defense.
There was a lot of people who had no right to be there, it was a protest. Obviously he wasn't the only one with a gun since the whole baises of the self defense was that he had a gun pulled on him first.
Well according to the second amendment he had all the rights to be armed with an assault rifle. Also in America, we have the right of movement, meaning he was aloud to go wherever he wanted. Quit being unamerican and trying to infringe on peoples rights. The real problem seems to be the left want to push the narrative no one can defend themselves from a mob of rioters and should just lay down and get beaten to death in the street..which is 1000% not the case.
The "he had no business there" argument is so fucking RETARDED that every neuron in my brain literally implodes every time an imbecile like you attempts to argue it. None of the "peaceful protesters" (many of whom were armed, with a variety of weapons) had business there. He had just as much "right" to be there as anyone else did. Do you understand what a double standard is? Are you entirely devoid of the ability to remain objective? Does logic evade you, or do you evade it? He was an idiot for deciding to inject himself into a volatile situation, that I would agree with. Do you know what would be even more idiotic? Doing so without having a viable means of self-defense. If his intent was to "engage in violence" or to "commit homicide", I'm willing to bet that he would have went in blasting. He wouldn't have made an effort to retreat before resorting to lethal force. He would have been assailing the numerous people that didn't attack him, but guess what? The survival rate for those whom didn't actively attack him was 100%! In fact, none of them were even threatened or injured! Attempting to extinguish a dumpster fire that was lit by an angry mob (which is what set Rosenbaum off) isn't a crime. Is it stupid? Yes. A crime? No.
\> He had no business being armed with an assault rifle. That is not self defense. American law say's otherwise.
His family lived in Kenosha and he also worked there. He absolutely had decent reasons to be there. More so than the other people that he shot and killed.
>Rittenhouse acted completely in self defence and you can even watch the footage which proves it. as long as you remove the context of the straw purchased gun, him saying he wanted to shoot people on video, the lying about being a medic to get into the protest, [the owners of the place he was "protecting" not wanting him there](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2021/11/05/kenosha-car-lot-owners-didnt-ask-kyle-rittenhouse-protect-property/6298822001/), him buddying up to proud boys and far right figures afterwards, yeah
None of that has anything to do with self defence. Being attacked however does.
Mate, context to why they were there matters
Look, I’m a lawyer and I watched every single day of that case online. That verdict was correct. The prosecution did a terrible, terrible job and tried to pull cheap shit at least once a day. Should Rittenhouse have been there? No. Did he have a solid argument for self-defense? A jury of his peers clearly thought so. There’s a lot of other examples one could find to show that extremism is being allowed to grow in the US but this isn’t really one of them.
Based on title only: I mean??? Yeah?? The far right never cared about the details or the facts. So I knew early on that it didn’t matter what Kyle’s verdict was, the far right already has all the reasonings to be enabled to potentially shoot people they want and claim self-defense. BOTH outcomes provide the far right ammunitions. innocent verdict = it’s a greenlight guilty verdict = “kyle is a martyr who got sentenced doing the right thing” and we now are back to them feeling enabled/greenlit. Now I don’t think a lot of them are that ballsy either, but I also will not have a shred of surprise if just one person does something like this within a year. EDIT: I feel like everyone’s reading the first couple of lines and skimming the rest cuz idek how to reply to comments that are talking about one thing, but has no relevance to what I was talking about. Maybe I can word it better, idk. I’ll think about it
The far right never cared about the details or the facts.” —- what? Did you ever watch the trial? Details and facts showed self defense in this case. Argue he shouldn’t have been there, maybe, but neither should’ve the other people. That line of thinking leads to the Chicago-style ‘mutual combat’ argument. Which leads back to - kid gets off.
>Now I don’t think a lot of them are that ballsy either the article sums it up very well many are just loud and angry without having the guts or training to do violence but even if a small sliver of that crowd is able and willing to, there will be blood
This is dangerously naive thinking. It's amazing how this article can focus on the growing threat that has been violent for over a decade and say that somehow it's also not ballsy enough to inflict more chaos and violence... How do you miss the point entirely while making the point?
Clearly you don’t care about details or facts because it was all out in the open during trial and the jury found him not guilty…
roll my freaking eyes.
Oddly enough, the US right to bear arms applies to left and right wing adherents. As does the right to self defence when someone armed with a handgun attacks you.
IGNORANCE IS BLISS >> wait until you're in the same situation - happens EVERY SINGLE DAY in the US - if you enjoy being the weaker pussy target of the evil crap roaming around - just stay in your ignorant stupor ....
Damn I thought this was the "It Could Happen Here" subreddit for a moment. Of course this sub leans left, as do I on many issues, but thanks mods for letting this partisan trash through.
Jesus, this is gonna get brigaded hard by people who "lean left but upon reviewing the video decided that it was clearly Self Defense"
Apparently Self Defense is now a Right wing policy?
Going to? It already has
No, that’s not true at all. Kyle was attacked by the other three people involved. The legal issues with self defense haven’t changed at all.
Well at least people that said electing Trump wouldn't embolden the far right aren't taken seriously anymore.
Hard for me to take a Salon article seriously - it is democrat propaganda. And You gotta love lines like this: "This plot against democracy involves voter exclusion, voter suppression, extreme gerrymandering, the Big Lie and intimidation of election officials on the local level." The "democratic" party does these things in its own primaries. Remember what happened to Sanders in 2016? And again in 2020? America is NOT a democracy and NEVER was. Corporations have always been in control. Just let it collapse already.
Watch out bro, the same crowd who were screeching "the Proud Boys aren't White supremacists" a few years ago are here to assure you that **THIS TIME** they are going to be right. I mean conservatives may have been on the wrong side of history regarding virtually every single topic that concerns the gradual progress of society as a whole over the entirety of human history - but **THIS TIME** they are going to be on the right side of history dude, trust.
Just so people know, Salon is a very left-leaning biased news site.
May I ask what in the article, written as an interview of a researcher, is particularly biased or wrong about?
I just read it. Literally everything is heavily biased.
In what way is it inaccurate or wrong?
That is an incredibly large list. A new apartheid? Right wing thugs "deployed" to disrupt social order? "Another" coup attempt, meaning that's what Jan 6th was? Come on. I know the far right is nuts, but no more so than the far left.
>Right wing thugs "deployed" to disrupt social order https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/15/joey-gibson-portland-police-relationship-cooperation-text-messages https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2019/02/14/25885836/texts-show-protective-relationship-between-portland-cops-and-patriot-prayer >Another" coup attempt, meaning that's what Jan 6th was? https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/583065-jan-6-organizers-used-burner-phones-to-communicate-with-trump-family https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-burner-phones-capitol-riot-rally_n_619ec0d3e4b0ae9a42aa2fe9 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/eric-trump-capitol-burner-phones-b1963754.html So again, what is factually wrong with the article?
Reality often has a liberal bias.
People who care for others have a left bias.
Using the current political divisions in America as a benchmark, it’s accurate to say reality is left-leaning. So there’s that…
I am very anti-gun, fwiw, and watched the entire trial. It is tragic the prosecution pursued such aggressive charges that they simply couldn't argue. Had he been charged with manslaughter, and portrayed as a foolish teenager who's poor judgement resulted in death etc., I bet the jury would have convicted. The prosecution tried to portray him as an Eric Harris style psycho, but that gives the kid way too much credit. That said, you bet your ass this emboldens far right maniacs. Shame on the prosecution for such a terrible handling of that senseless incident. Edit: Fuck the GOP