Rittenhouse verdict
My opinions:
- Rittenhouse is an asshole, but the killings in Kenosha did seem to be in self-defense.
- The prosecution was a joke, and the 5th amendment stuff is worrisome. Wonder what the prosecution would do off-camera?
- That Rittenhouse got off scotch free is bullshit, underage possession of a firearm + reckless endangerment should have been maintained. That kid was stupid for role-playing the hero with a deadly weapon, and now he's a celebrity. This will set a precedent for young male vigilantes, if it did not already exist.
Comments (371)
It was good to hear the verdict because the American justice system is usually a woke joke. It’s not surprising that state’s case resembled the media’s narrative, which was so obviously threadbare and unhinged from the start.
When 17-year-old kids have to stand up to defend the community from violent mobs I think immaturity is the least of your worries.
Violent mobs were roving around town burning down people’s property and livelihoods. Your “professionals” could do and did do little to stop it.
Rittenhouse was clearly responsible for defending himself against violent attack, exercising his most basic rights.
A jury of your peers, the evidence, and the trial all disagree with you. One was armed and then subsequently, quite literally, disarmed. Rittenhouse provoked none of it. The pedophile and other rioters who attacked him should have known better.
The Wisconsin law allows a minor to possess a rifle as long as it's a certain length, so he violated no law there.
The first shot fired was by a pursuer and Rittenhouse shot back 2.5 seconds later. It was entirely self defense.
Yes, that's the weird thing. If police encountered an armed man who wouldn't disarm, they'd shoot him, and that would be fine. And R didn't want to be disarmed so shot his disarmer, and that's fine. I guess the ethic is: as long as somebody is shooting somebody.
That doesn't even match Rittenhouse's testimony.
https://theconversation.com/rittenhouse-verdict-flies-in-the-face-of-legal-standards-for-self-defense-171908
The same argument, more or less, was included in prosecutor Linda Dunikoski's rebuttal to the specious "self-defense" argument used by Ahmaud Arbery's lynchers. In that case, however, "common sense" which she implored the jury to use, prevailed.
"You can't create the situation and then say that you were defending yourself." ~Linda Dunikoski
I saw once a movie on the recommendation of a female librarian. It was titled "Shoot 'Em Up". I laughed through the whole movie. It appeared that there was no motivation, no plot, no nothing, just senseless shooting up of people into piles. The scene was in America.
Then I watched the same movie the second time. It appeared that there was, after all, a plot; it was not as funny as it was during the first viewing; it was not funny in any way.
"Art lies in the eye of the beholder."
I don't do news these days and I still heard the rallying round this guy like he's a hero.
I think that's the legacy of Trump, that it's ok for all the racists to hang their butts in the wind for everyone to smell.
There are no easy answers.
It's important to analyze all events and the timeline of events through a color-blind and non-sensationalized lens. This is not a trial to determine if racial biases are present in court or one or more systems that make up the justice system, that is an independent issue that must be addressed later. The key item at hand was which (if any) discharging of a firearm by a citizen towards another citizen with intent were justified at the time of discharge.
You got a young kid openly carrying an assault weapon, barely legally, at an American demonstration. This is not illegal per local laws. Nor is this a privilege restricted to any one group of people, all 17 year old citizens present could, as a result, have done the same and perhaps outnumbered him and told their own version of events. That's what people don't understand about this case, you don't have to be a certain color to open carry an assault weapon at a protest. Do I think this is wise? Not necessarily. Nevertheless, this is codified law. You can change the law, but to do so you first must abide by it and allow others to.
Before getting to the "first" physically aggressive action, the assault and attempted battery on Rittenhouse by the first deceased person, you must recognize there are two states a weapon can be in when one carries one on their person. Rest state and "ready state". A rifle slung on your back or pointed downward is not "ready state". Carrying it with both hands and your finger on or near the trigger, and obviously as well as pointing the barrel at a person where if fired would either strike them or nearby them, is "ready state". This is a very important factor in determining if one is reasonable in assuming they would soon be shot in an environment where guns are present and therefore not automatically a threat to life and limb.
You have two "groups" (though what's important to realize is the individual nature of offenses) utilizing their right to protest and publicly assemble, while yes, being armed. Free speech and provocative speech is generally allowed but there are exceptions that are (usually) made on a case-by-case basis. Inciting a riot, fire in a theater, etc. these are all vaguely defined and largely depend on the circumstances and reasonably assumable intentions of the defendant. If, and only if the Kyle Rittenhouse did not engage in assault (threatening, menacing, etc.) before himself becoming assaulted and nearly battered, the discharge of a weapon on a person who literally just got done assaulting and attempting to batter you before chasing you is not such a stretch from a justified homicide in an inherently chaotic and violent setting. Not one to speak ill of the dead but the guy shot has a record, not just criminally but mental health concerns as well. That doesn't look good for character or legal defense. I'm not saying it's right that he's no longer here or that he decided to fire upon him I'm saying a 17 year old does not have the ability to perform a mental health analysis and diagnosis whilst being attacked by unknown projectiles in an unfamiliar environment. When attacked, it is not a citizen's job to play psychiatrist or doctor in the heat of a moment assault when your life is threatened. It's a tragedy, perhaps a failure of the mental health or criminal justice system, nothing more. It's not so much about the degradation of the deceased's character more so about the circumstances and environment both men created leading up to the moment the weapon was discharged. Sure you could say since the guy was hospitalized for trying to kill himself, it only makes sense that if he doesn't value his own life, how could or why would he value the life of others, basically suggesting he tried to cause severe bodily harm to Rittenhouse by throwing a plastic bag of unknown items which could have been anything. Rocks, frozen water bottles, etc. if you're struck at the right spot at the right velocity you could end up unconscious, perhaps in a coma, fatal bleeding, TBI if you fall and your head stikes a rock, etc.
Huber's is a lot more complicated. Will expand on him and the third later but essentially it's like if a mob of people says an undercover/plain clothes cop just shot someone and he's a "mass shooter" with a fake badge. Who's really at fault. The people who believe they are acting in the scope of the law and the interests of the nation who fatally subdue him, or those who in turn let him go when he turns out to actually be a mass shooter and 50 people get killed at a nearby school. None of this is simple really.
In short, mistakes were made.
Rittenhouse was 17, lived in another state, and came to Kenosha with a gun knowing that things were gonna get ugly. I've felt since last year that he acted in self-defense, but he certainly wasn't wise in getting involved in the first place.
I have mixed feelings about this point. R shouldn't have involved himself in this situation, as it was not in his own community, but rather in a foreign city, and involved no property of his own family. If the circumstances were such, however... (?) I am not of the mind that we should be utterly dependent upon the police for our safety and security, as it involves a transfer of too much personal authority to the state. Each individual is primarily responsible for his own safety and the protection of his property. Let me ask this: if it was the owners of the various buildings being damaged who had stood on the roof of their buildings and treated the mob as the ducks in a shooting gallery when their building was attacked, would you feel differently?
Peace. Humility. Grace.
Well said.
Quoting Outlander
And again, you succinctly state the two issues of malfeasance in this case. The goddamned kid should have been at home attending to the business of his own life, which at age 17 should be trying to gain acceptance to the highest tier college that you can, given your HS record. In like manner, the goddamned demonstrators should have been at home attending to the important business of their own lives, instead of being out in the streets of a city not their own, stirring up trouble. From my perspective, I wonder what the hell is wrong with my culture, within which the need for confrontation takes such precedence over what should be personally important. Why can we not be more sensible in this country, more like....well, more like the Swiss, who know well enough to avoid conflict and to focus on their own prosperity? I think the answer has to do with the mass glorification of archetypes, particularly of "culture warrior" archetypes, within American culture, which appears as a theme. Not a theme worth getting killed for, was it?
Well said, Michael. But my impression has been that the Swiss have or had a very homogeneous population. Perhaps that has changed. And homogeneity may be simplistic.
Dog brain
How can a mixture of Germans, Frenchmen, Italians and Romansch be considered homogeneous? These cultures are like potatoes, croissants, cannolis and Red's super hot sauce...not very congenial ingredients for one's casserole.
More or less traditional Europeans. Middle Eastern and African refugees bring in different cultures, religions, etc. I could easily be wrong. I haven't traveled in Europe in the last fifteen years.
I'm not sure if anyone can really make any absolute statement about Rittenhouse's state of mind at the time, but just suppositions based on his behavior. But here is the sense I got: from videos of him earlier of the night of the killings, one can see that he had a swaggery, self-important personality that is common in boys his age who are anxious to prove themselves and want to be a hero. He wanted to become a cop and he probably just couldn't wait to get out there with a gun and intimidate people, so he went LARPing across town, where there was a riot and he could be a badass. Things got ugly, reality shattered his stupid fantasy, then he killed people and almost got himself killed. He's a stupid kid with delusions of grandeur who got himself into a bad situation, and is now celebrated as a national hero by the right because it technically was self-defense, and the left just can't deal with it.
Quoting Michael Zwingli
I don't think there's any reason to limit personal action to your own community. If there is some cause that you deeply believe in, and you think it is important to involve yourself in this cause, then it doesn't matter if that involvement happens in your backyard or halfway across the world.
Rittenhouse is a stupid asshole, but in all fairness he has a right to participate in things that he believes in. As I see it, the problem isn't that Rittenhouse got acquitted, but that not everyone would have gotten the same treatment, i.e. black people. If Rittenhouse had been black, he probably would have been shot in the street that night by the cops, or if he reached the courtroom, would have gotten convicted.
Yes, and though with differing cultures, sharing a common "alpine heritage". Perhaps the answer to the issue at hand lies in the fact that it involves "more or less traditional Americans", within which population there appear certain psychic idiocyncracies conducive to conflict and irresponsibility. As for Switzerland, it benefitted from the highly responsible mindset of the Swiss Germans (the largest group), which early on had a formative effect in greater Swiss culture.
A bit heavy-handed, but not without merit. :cool:
I decided my thoughts were bad for me, and that I could put it out of my mind, at least temporarily, by honoring the rule of law and awaiting action, if any, from the justice system. Some time went by.
Then the verdict came down, and my heart went bad again.
Lots of couldashouldawoulda went through my mind: actions that might have been different, from onlookers, police, victims, shooter. What I would have done. That all means nothing. Nothing.
I went to bed that night and dreamt "Peace, humility, grace."
Those things are not me. But I decided they would be advisable, and that I should try to change. It is hard. Very hard. For those of you who have these things innate to your character, give thanks.
You have a right to "involve" yourself in any cause you want, wherever it be, but not to use force in so doing. However, one does have the right to use force in defense of one's own family and property, in my opinion. The instant problem, again in my view, involves the fact that [I]R was not in Kenosha in order to defend himself or his wealth[/I].
If on the day in question, instead of R being misplaced, the mob was moving up the street upon which R lives in the town within which R himself has his home, or upon which his family's business is situated, and some of them started fucking with either of those, then to my mind he had a right to "fire for effect", regardless of what the mob's "cause" was. I clearly remember that, in preparation for the arrival of a major hurricane (I forget which), the Cuban business owners of Miami took to the roofs of their businesses with what certainly appeared to be automatic weapons. The message was clear: "just go on and try to loot [I]this[/I] store!". As a necessary step to keep the monkeys in control, I agree fully with such a stance, and I believe there was little looting in the wake of that event.
If we do not allow people to protect their own property through the use of deadly force, then how are we to keep people from vandalism of the property of others within our society? To my mind, there are only two ways to address the problem of vandalism by "demonstrators": to give police the power to absolutely disallow demonstration, or to allow the public to use lethal force in the protection of private property. Since the first of those options appears unconstitutional on it's face, the remedy seems clear to me. As it was, R was in the wrong, since he had no personal interest in events in Kenosha. Even so, where the hell were the owners of the properties being damaged? [I]They[/I] should have been on the rooftops with weapons. [I]I[/I] certainly would have been if [I]I[/I] owned one of those buildings being vandalized.
The bigger picture is that Americans in general love "causes" too much, imho, certainly because of the American predilection for glorifying archetypes. So many freaking Americans seem to want to be bloody Ghandi or MLK Jr, that we create more problems than we solve. I live in a nation of goddamned "busybodies" to whom the demonstrative impetus appears overpowering.
Running away from people and being attacked whilst on the ground is not putting oneself in a position where you wish to use the full force in your possession.
Carrying a weapon (in this case) wasn’t and isn’t provocation in the eyes of the law.
Running away from and trying to deter someone screaming that they wanted to kill you isn’t provocation.
Falling to the ground after being chased and pelted by a mob, hit and kicked in the head and neck isn’t provocation.
Shooting someone who points a gun at you isn’t provocation.
Rittenhouse is guilty of being naive. He is a teenager though so that isn’t exactly shocking. I can only assume you have a vested emotional interest in this case yet cannot believe you actually watched much of the trial when you state ‘not self defence’.
I personally don’t see why a 17 yr old should be allowed to carry a gun around legally. It is insane to push for someone to be sent to prison for following the law instead of looking to change the law.
From what I can tell there is outrage simply because he was white and the police didn’t shoot him. There are clearly too many cases where the police use excess force resulting in the death of people. It would be manslaughter at least if they weren’t police officers.
Pretty much. That was the source of my outrage.
If you interested/concerned then why not watch the trial and put your mind at rest rather than listening to stories? It looked crazy to me so I watched large portions of the trial. I still think it’s weird that a 17 yr old, or anyone, can walk around with a gun. That said, he clearly acted in self defence.
You see, that the thing about video. I saw the cops all butt-hole buddy with him before the shoot. That's my outrage. Had he been black, he would have been on his face, or shot down like a dog.
I know about heat of the moment. That's not the source of my chagrin.
If the police were there it would have been different. They weren’t. That was one failing but they were literally pushed out. The incident that sparked the protests and riot should be the focus not Rittenhouse - I don’t see the use in framing Rittenhouse as hero or villain (just a naive teenager).
Maybe, maybe not. I’m sure given the circumstances the police were extremely mindful and trying to avoid such a thing though so I wouldn’t just assume they’d shoot someone black on that night for carrying a gun. Arrested? Very likely.
Bullshit. They were there and they did shit. Apparently it's you that didn't watch what was going on. Maybe the judge ruled the cops interaction with the shooter as inadmissible and thus, you, like the jury, didn't see it. Because, you know, you watched the trial. Don't know. Anyway, as an apparent lay-person on the law, maybe you should learn to distinguish between the trial and and the facts.
Yeah, because he was white. That's the point.
Quoting I like sushi
I'd laugh, but it's not funny.
Anyway, I'm going to leave you with the floor. I'm done.
Quoting I like sushi
:roll:
You missed my point. I meant in respect to someone black carrying gun because that is what I said. You sound emotional so I’ll stop.
Had they done their fucking job there would not have been any shooting. There were only three people shot that night.
No, I got your point. I just snipped your response where you should have stopped.
Yes, I remember that...in Louisiana, I think. But, surely you recognize that the fellow was too quick to the trigger because of a mental problem...probably a paranoia of some kind. This should not mean that a person whose life, health, property, or wealth is [I]actually[/I] under attack should be without recourse to forcefully violent opposition, should it?
Quoting tim wood
Absolutely, this plays its part.
I am. Thank you for putting me back on track.
1. Did R defend himself with his AR-15?
Yes
2. All but one of his victims were unarmed?
Yes.
3. Did R go well out of his way to unjustifiably put himself in harm's way?
Yes.
4. Was R's three casualties the only three persons shot during the entire, heavily policed pro-BLM demonstration that night in Kenosha?
Yes.
5. Weren't (mostly) unarmed demonstrators, exercising their constitutional right to protest (and the moral principle of civil disobedience), more justified defending themselves against R brandishing his AR-15 than R was against them?
Yes.
Ergo .
My guess based on his profile is that he just wanted to pull a political stunt more than anything, and fortunately for him he got just what he wanted out of all of this. If this were an anti-vax riot or a men's right riot then I don't see him going out of his way to "help" in the same way as he did here.
Haha...methinks you suppose too much, although the IBPO would have us believe that line of shit, I am sure. I do not share your seemingly unqualified confidence in coppers. Is it not the unwarranted police shootings of "black" (hate that term) citizens which precipitates such situations as this in the first place?
I would think that your average professional man has better personal judgement than your average copper. You are certainly old enough to remember that, back in the day, the high school students who were tracked and encouraged towards civil service jobs...firefighting and coppery...were those who scored too poorly on the ASVAB to recommend them for "the professions". Of course, today, in the age of militarized policing, the ranks of departments are filled by those ETSing from the military who want a career with a pension which will allow them to continue "playing soldier", and has the added benefit of allowing them to "throw their weight around" in general, on a daily basis (believe me, I know many of my fellow vets, and how they think).
The job of the police is to provide security for citizens in that anyone, regardless of race or religion or any other nonsense we've come to distinguish and identify ourselves with has freedom of movement across any national territory, unimpeded and free from threat of bodily harm or other grievance per specific constitution. Sometimes the police do their job, and it results in grievous bodily harm whether it be being pelted with rocks, frozen water bottles, or bottles filled with volatile bodily fluids. If the local police force cannot perform this duty due to civil unrest the state is to call a "state of emergency" and send in the "national guard" which is actually a misnomer as it is a state agency to enforce law and order. They are essentially trained using the same mindset of the national military. Only in the event several states and their enforcers cannot maintain order is when they call "martial law" which suspends every citizen's constitutional rights entirely and essentially is civil war which means, nothing is accounted for or "on the books" as it were. As to why a minority group would wish this to occur seeing as there is absolutely zero chance of coming out on top is not only a mystery to me but frankly makes me think there's something else afoot. As in, those who wish for the destruction of minority groups want them to push for this seeing as, like i said, absolutely zero chance of coming out on top. It would be a purge or ethnic cleansing if enough people are indoctrinated to believe this "ghetto mentality" of, despite the law codifying you as equal, and yes many others who are actually simply in violation of this law and subject to removal and/or prosecution, stand in your way and abuse this law, your sole solution is to fight law and equality itself when in fact it's what you seek. It's sad. So many fall victim to this trap.
So basically, had "they done their fucking job" lots of people may have been harmed or killed. Believe me, there would have been plenty of shooting. Assault is threatening another citizen. Battery is striking one with your fists or an object. That's illegal. If you assault a cop, you are going down. If you have friends who also pose a threat, so are they. In no light mood or sentiment, that's a lot of bullets and a tremendous waste of life. Capital murder usually carries the death penalty, attempted (which is what they usually try to spin battering a cop as, or shooting, which is understandable) doesn't come far behind.
And for the record I'm the first to admit there are plenty of pieces of shite that wear the uniform, traitorously take the oath (the punishment for treason is still death btw, that has never changed), then hide behind the badge. And even more who look the other way. But there are also plenty of citizens and non-officers who do the same, those who kill and wreck havoc on the lives of law-abiding citizens. There's no easy solution. Not really, anyway.
Quoting _db
Up until the probably, nowhere is any law violated. Yet, if you continue reading between the lines and the italicized text, nowhere is any law violated.
Perhaps we can go through these one at a time?
Starting with number 1 I don’t think ‘Yes’ is sufficient. How do you know he defended himself rather than attacked someone? When we ‘defend myself’ what do we mean?
It could be proposed that he in fact went out with the intent to shoot someone and looked for conflict. If so what evidence could there be that would back up this position and is the evidence strong enough to warrant us to take it seriously?
Quoting 180 Proof
The judge in this case did not allow the people you refer to to be called ‘victims’. The one that was armed was moving towards Rittenhouse and pointing his gun at him when he was shot (he also said that Rittenhouse acted in self defence).
The other two involved circumstances where they were actively lunging at Rittenhouse. Were they merely trying to disarm him? In the first shooting this doesn’t seem to be so as there were threats to kill Rittenhouse. In the second instance Rittenhouse was on the ground after being attacked by several people. The second person shot was trying to take his gun from him during this attack on Rittenhouse. I don’t see how it isn’t a reasonable threat under the circumstances.
Quoting 180 Proof
This is what I would call an unclear statement without any attempt to mark out what is meant by ‘unjustifiably put himself in harm’s way’. Where is the line between justified and unjustified? To say he went ‘well out of his way’ is unclear.
If you meant geographically that doesn’t really hold up given that he had relatives living in the area. This may be assumed when you hear people talking about him ‘crossing state lines’ which sounds like a long long way away, but he couldn’t hand himself into the police in Kenosha.
That aside, it was foolish and naive of him to go alone. He did state in the trial that he was cut off from his original group and the police wouldn’t allow him through. He should’ve realised that things were getting heated maybe? Whether he was aware or not of the danger he was in he did go out alone to apparently deal with a fire in a car. This was stupid. Would I call this going ‘well out of his way’ to ‘put himself in harm’s way’? Going well out of his way is at best a stretch, but putting himself in harm’s way was clearly the case given what happened. He reported trying to make his way back to the group he had found himself with but the way was blocked by those who then proceeded to chase him and threaten him.
What part of this, or other points reported in the trial, lead you to the ‘Yes’ answer?
Quoting 180 Proof
Heavily policed yet there were no police around during the shootings. Rittenhouse was not going to ‘get away’ and he was moving towards the police yet people were attacking him with violent intent (ie. hitting him about the head or trying to stamp on his head). If you watched enough of the trial you would know already that he didn’t simply shoot the first person who threw a rock at him.
Other than you maybe trying to portray that the police were all around I don’t see much relevance to this point.
Quoting 180 Proof
If they were attacked by Rittenhouse. They were not attacked by him though. If someone with a gun is running away from you and trying to avoid conflict you are absolutely not justified in any violent action against them and any serious violent action against them could be framed as ‘wantonly and unjustifiably putting yourself into harm’s way’ more so than someone having a weapon and offering medical aid to people.
I don’t agree with the gun laws in the US and I think he is guilty of being naive. He clearly understood the situation was potentially dangerous but he almost certainly underestimated how dangerous. I hope this instance will bring a change to the laws. I see no good reason why anyone, let a alone a teenager, should be allowed to walk around openly displaying a firearm of any kind - and I would include the police in this too unless it was special forces police. I think any change in the law will be quite difficult as I see no reason to disallow members of the public from owning firearms. The problem becomes how and why weapons are carried and to regulate their use. Also, not having regular police armed is problematic in the US too due to the proliferation of firearms. It is easy to idealise what should be but it is difficult to transition sometimes.
More focus on the incidents that led to the protests and how police are trained and recruited is better all round for everyone. Politics and media don’t seem to be helping the situation so more protests and demonstrations are something I would actively encourage even though they will inevitably be used to bolster this or that political agenda, or as media content for the sake of increasing revenues for media outlets.
I’ve said it before though. I don’t see the US surviving as one unit into the next century so I’m just looking at how nations may split up with minimal conflict and how they such splits can be used to make things better rather than assuming such historical moments have to involve violence and death.
That aside, this little boy shouldn't have been there in the first place, and should have left the situation up to law enforcement. But like the capitol insurrectionists, here's another example of a person whipped into a frenzy by conservative media and the very stable genius.
Or maybe he is a hero.
and maybe vigilantism is what happens when democrats defund police
the people he shot were all white, and convicted criminals
maybe your fear of realizing you are a coward prevents you from seeing the truth when you see a hero
two wrongs dont make a right. just because a black man gets a wrong sentence doesn't mean you should give white men wrong sentences too
good!
more funding to police!
You mean exercising his free right to be outside just like all the other protesters?
Dont be a hypocrite.
You think a skateboard to the head cant kill someone? wow. let me use a skateboard to your head then.
kyle was pepper sprayed by the police when he tried to turn himself in
Quoting 180 Proof
You're all trees, sushi, and no forest. Too many questions fallacy. Moving the goal posts fallacy. Etc. Like many, your complexity-blindness bias trumps defeasible reasoning. I'm done. On political and ethical grounds, I'm opposed to, in effect, granting self-deputized civilians an unconditional "license to kill". You, like many others, disagree with my (and prosecutors') argument that 'Rittenhause forfeited "self-defense" by deliberately (by his own account) putting himself in danger'. Okay. Good luck with that. :shade:
The main problem is people don’t want to talk as much as they want to shout at each other about why they are right and someone else is wrong.
There is nothing ‘heroic’ about what he did. There are clearly a number of people who are not aware of several facts about this case and that is not exactly unusual.
or every single thing he did that night was heroic
I did my best to offer up reasons for your Yeses but never held that they were your reasons. I also asked if you’d watched much of the trial which you didn’t answer so I a inclined to belief ou haven’t (rightly or wrongly).
You set out the questions and answered them with a simple ‘Yes’. I probed and you accused me of fallacies. I do actually want to know the reason for the Yeses but if you’re unwilling so be it.
That is a hard sell to say the least. I guess you might have a certain view of what a ‘hero’ is that I don’t share.
Don't even think he'd make it to court to be honest since he'd likely be killed by the police before then. Fact is there are racial disparities in how people are treated by law enforcement which is borne out through the statistics which do need to be addressed, but for a lot of people either it doesn't exist at all or it's because cops are Nazis or something so I don't see it being addressed anytime soon.
Too fucking late. They had plenty of opportunity to disarm him before hand. You know, when they were palling around with him, showing him where the water was, joking, etc.
They failed, when they let the shooter walk around with the AR, off private property, joking and palling around, showing him where their water was, you know, in case he got thirsty.
Had he been black, he would have been shot down as soon as the AR went to port arms, if not before.
Let me see if I can.. be an ambassador of rationality here. Sure, a skateboard has hard metal parts, "trucks" I believe they're called. That if violently swung at a person have a reasonably high chance to result in serious injury, sure as can a fist, or a random rock or bottle found on the ground. So an item created for leisure and recreation is not quite equatable to an item created to be a weapon, a weapon some say is for war and mass casualty. Let's be honest, say you're told to kill as many as possible, would you grab the plaintiff's skateboard or Kyle's rifle?
Here’s a recent case that ticks all the racial boxes for you. This case in particular shows how malicious the State is. They tried to convict him for murder even though it was the police who gunned her down.
https://weartv.com/news/local/florida-man-acquitted-of-shooting-at-deputies-in-raid-that-led-to-death-of-girlfriend
The distinction between R and an [I]actual[/I] child, is that the child is under the authority of another, it's guardian, while R is under no authority but his own.
No effin' doubt. E.g. during a traffic stop a cop killed Philando Castile, a black man, when he informed the officer he had a firearm in his glove compartment which he was licensed to carry. Cop was acquitted and the municipality paid a wrongful death settlement to Mr. Castile's family.
Wrong. At the time, R was a 17 y/o minor dependent living at home with his guardian – his mother (who, incidently, had to drive him across state-lines to go kill some people).
The arbitrariness of the age of majority is regularly subverted by trial of minors as adults when that is called for. Myself, I feel the age of majority should be much lower than it is.
Begging the question. By your logic, a guardianless child is an adult.
No, but a child [I]always[/I] has a guardian in this society. Unless the child lives outside of regular society, as a runaway in homeless camps, for instance, then it is not allowed to exist without a guardian by law.
:rofl: Namesake guardians i.e. no guardians?
But on the (positive?) side, you didn't have riots in the US because of the verdict, did you?
I think people have been lucky that there hasn't been an incident where two Rittenhouse -characters on opposing sides (like Michael Reinoehl) with semi-automatic weapons face off. There simply are so many guns.
No, the guy he shot who survived admitted he'd pulled a gun on him. This alone can't acquit him. For instance, of the murder of the two unarmed men.
I never said it did. Why you focused on that puzzles me given that I gave a blow by blow account of what I learnt from watching the trial directly after those two sentences.
You claim the witness said he was not guilty. That is untrue.
2. Less obvious and perhaps more technical is that the prosecution didn't have to go after a murder charge here and could conceivably have pinned Rittenhouse on a lesser offence. Once witness testimony began to poke big holes in the prosecution's case, there was too much doubt to convict. Prosecutors overcharged and underproved.
Of course people are upset. No justice has been done. But who expects justice in the USA?
The witness admitted he was shot in self defence. That is basically the same as saying (in that instance) he wasn’t guilty. I didn’t mean to imply he said anything about his guilt regarding the deaths.
It was a pretty clear cut case as I tried to outline in the post you picked those first sentences from. Even clearer for anyone who bothered to watch a significant proportion of the trial - which is how I know what I am saying isn’t due to newsreel clips, chat show parading or social media comments (some of which are scarily absent of the most basic facts and others of which perpetuate blatant lies at both ends of the spectrum).
I’d rather people move to discussions of how to address people being shot by poorly trained police officers for next to no reason. It is clear enough in the US that simply complying with the police as much as possible isn’t always going to end well.
Can you see a future in the US where police officers carrying firearms is unusual? I think that would be the ideal to work towards but I’ve no idea how that can be achieved anytime soon nor what the incremental steps towards it would look like. A starter would be addressing police training and who is allowed to openly walk around with guns.
In the country I was born I have never seen a police officer with a gun. In fact I cannot ever recall seeing a gun in that country other than on TV.
Ya my view of a hero is batman, and yours is robin hood.
I would rather be alive in jail then dead.
false analogy, kyle lowered his weapon when the criminals backed off.
Robinhood was aimed more specifically at tyranny. I wouldn’t complain strongly about him being framed as a hero but he doesn’t quite fit my rigid definition.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/580073-detective-shot-fired-before-rittenhouse-began-shooting%3famp
Like a cop does.
But you did say that. And, no, the paramedic did not say he was shot in self-defence. He said he had a gun pointed at Rittenhouse and thought Rittenhouse was an active shooter. Which of course he was.
Quoting I like sushi
It was a very clear cut case. Rittenhouse went to Kenosha to shoot black people, did so, but was acquitted by a jury instructed to ignore anything Rittenhouse did to cause concern to others.
This cognitive dissonance was imposed by the judge. By instructing the jury to only factor in R's testimony as to his own headspace, there was no room for logic, or rather no means by which a breach of logic could be a barrier to an unjust acquittal. The jurors were forbidden from considering the fact that R's second victim had more reason to suspect R -- who had a gun -- would shoot him in cold blood than that [EDIT] second victim -- who had no gun -- would shoot R. The armed R didn't even need to feel threatened by his unarmed victim (i.e. the jury did not need to make sense of that), he merely had to claim that he did. Since nothing but his claims could be considered, the judge ensured a prejudiced jury, and an inevitable miscarriage of justice.
The defense is obviously preposterous. Consider a terrorist being acquitted with the defense: "I detonated the bomb I planted in the building, but only because I was worried they'd find it and blow my house up with it." Stupid, no? But exactly the same kind of stupid as: "Yes, I shot an unarmed man, but only because I was worried he'd take the gun I brought to threaten him with off me and shoot me with it."
...which is undoubtedly the most fucked-up aspect of this case. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh?
My point with this, however, is that no sensible person can regard R, and conclude that "this is a child", guardian or not...whether he is under the authority of his mother or not.
The protestors were armed as well. The first guy who got shot was next to a person who shot a handgun as they charged him and the third guy who got shot admitted on the stand he has his pistol pointed at R's head when he got shot. The other person shot was wrestling him for his gun on the ground.
There was insanity on the streets to be sure (literally, actually, as the 2 dead had histories of mental illness), but R didn't commit a crime. He's an idiot no doubt though.
Quoting coolazice
The jury did consider lesser charges.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/12/jury-rittenhouse-lesser-charges-521226
You raise an important issue. So-called "guardianship", the essence of which is authority, is a paper tiger within the context of modern American society. At one time in more traditional, and frankly [I]patriarchal[/I] societies, one's father had immense authority over nearly every aspect of his children's lives, an authority having a direct relationship with social class. For instance, if the judgement came down that "you will not marry that young man/woman", then unquestioning obedience was expected by all in society, and that expectation was informally enforced by immense socio-cultural pressure. Within American society, because of both cultural decay and the unwarranted interposition of the state into the private sphere regarding family matters (think DSS), all of the germane aspects of the aforementioned socially stabilizing relationship have been stripped away, leaving only the insubstantial form..a shell without substance. Today, what was once a relationship of near absolute authority has become no more than advisory. Because in American society only the law is assumed to have the power of command (save in the military context), what was once the command of a parent has become no more than the advice of a mentor. This is, in my view, unfortunate as it has a degenerative cultural effect.
Bullets has just been fired, so your insistence that R just opened fire on a peaceful civil rights crowd doesn't reference this case. They were also trying to stomp his face in.
Again, R's arrival as a counter protestor before a volatile mob brandishing a military grade firearm in order to protect the streets was stupid as shit and it cost lives, and almost his own. The world is worse off for his presence that day.
An apt analogy would be if I choose to wander the poorest gritiest part of town drunk wearing a Rolex, money falling from my pockets and then complaining I got robbed. Sure, robbery is robbery, and I acted legally and they acted illegally, but I'm a screaming dumb ass.
Where in my text you've quoted did I say R fired into a peaceful civil rights crowd? I was talking about his second victim.
Two violent criminals are dead. I'd say the world is better off for his presence that day. Who knows what other violent crimes those two would have committed in their lives. Just look at the Wisconsin parade killer.
Actually, a more apt analogy would be more like chasing and attacking an armed individual while you are unarmed, or out-gunned.
Since when does defending yourself against an active shooter make you a "violent criminal"?
:up:
:100:
Then R must be color blind because all three people he shot were white. What evidence do you have for this claim? Someone with a "D" next to their name told you?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Stupid. People that think there is an active shooter typically run from the scene, not towards the active shooter. What did he expect to accomplish running at a man with a gun, if not to get shot?
Just like the men in the Aubury case, call the police if you see something, or think something is going down. Don't try to get involved. At most, follow the man so that you can report his whereabouts to the police. Anything above and beyond that is considered vigilantism. So the guys attacking R where more of a vigilante than R was. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Not until there are far, far fewer guns in the hands of the public, so never. It is true that there has been a militarization of police departments in the United States, but it was already true that it would be hard to find any place on earth, outside of a warzone, where so many people are so well armed.
How many black people did he shoot? And why would you assume their skin-color?
The prosecution, however, was an absolute disaster. The whole trial was a farce. They made so many bizarre blunders it’s a wonder they graduated law school at all. They pressed charges for first degree reckless homicide and first degree murder, neither of which were easy, both have an extraordinarily high bar legally for the state to prove. Never should have pursued some of those charges, they had enough to get a jury to convict him on reckless endangerment and the gun charges. They fucked it up.
He showed up with a rifle he wasn’t legally allowed to carry (this law was confusing and gun charges dismissed by judge, in my opinion completely incorrect interpretation of the hunting provision of the law). He was illegally possessing this rifle, and it was illegally obtained through a straw purchase by his friend who did so despite knowing the illegality of it and that KR wasn’t legally allowed to possess it in the state until he turned 18. He then utilized this weapon to defend himself costing two lives and severely injuring Gaige Grosskreutz, who in my opinion is exceptionally brave and heroic.
However, the jury doesn’t say what the law should be, and they don’t get to give their moral opinions. They interpret the law and assess the evidence. That is all. Under Wisconsin law in the USA, what the videos show give him a clear self defense case when charged with first degree murder, there is plenty of reasonable doubt, especially considering he ran away and didn’t shoot two individuals who backed away with hands raised.
Overall he’s a wannabe gravy seal cop loving right wing proud boy type generally awful person engaging in vigilantism, and he acted in a way that created the situation that otherwise wouldn’t have existed, and bears some responsibility. But he isn’t the Vegas shooter, either. It’s a complex and nuanced case, and the prosecution’s ineptitude resulting in him getting off completely free is highly worrisome in the precedent it sets. Far right counterprotesting vigilantes will use this as an excuse to antagonize people while heavily armed and plead self defense once they provoke some hostile action, then shoot everyone in the crowd who tries to disarm them, thinking they’ll get off. Very dangerous precedent. However, this wasn’t really the jury’s fault. Blame cops, the judge and prosecution, the US justice system as a whole, the way the laws are written in so many states in the US, blame Rittenhouse too, and Rosenbaum if you want. But the jury had no choice but to issue a not guilty verdict.
I’m very concerned for the near future of protests in the United States.
That he took a machine gun to a protest against police murdering black people? That the group he approached with said gun was largely black? That said, I did cause a mispeak in my edit. I originally wrote "shoot people". So to clarify, he "did shoot people".
Quoting Harry Hindu
And they chased him even after he proved his willingness to murder people by stopping his retreat to shoot Rosenbaum. Stupid, right, if self-preservation should override concerns about an armed murderer running about crowded streets. But maybe, just maybe Harry, these people are better than you and would risk their lives to try and disarm a murderous lunatic with a machine gun.
The second person had knocked him to the ground, beating him in the neck with a skateboard and was wrestling his gun away when shot.
He was trying to get R's gun off him after R had just threatened a crowd and shot a man, yes. R's defense was that he felt, if his gun was seized, he'd be shot with it. The judge had instructed the jury to consider only R's described perspective, and not whether R had good reason to believe that his assailant had good reason to disarm him.
This conversation would be more meaningful if you read the facts. Instead it's just a continual correction of your factual errors.
What data do you have that the Kenosha protest was mostly black?
Kenosha is 80% white.
It wasn't a machine gun. Are you now arguing he was spraying the crowd with an automatic rifle, as if those are actual legal?
No, neither deserved death if justice were served in a deliberate way. That is, had they not been shot, they would have faced some charges, not none deserving terribly long sentences, and certainly not death.
Saying the self defense was justified is not equivalent to saying he got his just dessert.
:clap:
"KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The first man shot by Kyle Rittenhouse on the streets of Kenosha was “hyperaggressive” that night, threatened to kill Rittenhouse and later lunged for his rifle just before the 17-year-old fired, witnesses testified Thursday.
The testimony at Rittenhouse’s murder trial came from two witnesses who had been called to the stand by the prosecution but gave accounts often more favorable to the defense in the politically polarizing case."
https://apnews.com/article/kyle-rittenhouse-wisconsin-shootings-george-floyd-kenosha-3b74864f491347cfdd09cfc22ffdf557
These witnesses were prosecution witnesses. This evidence is not in controversy.
It's entirely possible to admit that there are serious problems with the US judicial system as it pertains to racial disparity AND acknowledge the Rittenhouse trial isn't evidence of it.
?
Reminder:
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Quoting Hanover
:up:
Quoting Hanover
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Quoting Hanover
:up:
Quoting Hanover
Fine, I'm pleased to report I don't know jack shit about guns.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Quoting Hanover
Quoting Hanover
:up:
Did you know that human offspring require, comparatively, the most care if they're to "make it" in an evolutionary sense? Last I checked, human babies are more helpless than a fawn in the midst of famished lions. The care infants need seems to extend, as per existing social theories/norms, up to the 18th year.
The assumption here is that in the 18 formative years, parents, family, friends, society at large, will actually deliver good mentorship; an assumption that's been blown clear out of the water by studies. A double-edged sword, it is.
You're right in that social structures that were once tailored to bringing up children (in the right way) have collapsed and society, by and large, is tending towards a child-unfriendly milieu. I guess this is the point at which philosophers step in and develop pediatric philosophy for there is such a thing as flourishing (eudaimonia) in children too and we need to find out how it is that we adults may render our assistance towards that end.
However, laissez-faire (leave children alone, let 'em do their thing) doesn't seem like a bad idea at all. Economies, at least within current paradigms, are described as having "matured"; minds & bodies may too.
"Race" (another word I hate) may or may not have played a role in the police actions; this is largely dependent upon the individual cops involved. We should not, however, unadvisedly state that it did with any degree of certainty, since we cannot know that. I note that in discussing this aspect of the incident, we are remiss if we do not include the fact that the three who were shot by R were all "white" guys. To not make that overt while insinuating that "race" played a role in the police behavior tends to tacitly suggest to the uninformed that the three who were shot were "black" people, and that therefore the cops didn't give a fuck...a horrible accusation even if only implied.
:roll:
Gotcha. :shade:
Correct. Rittenhouse may or may not have acted in self-defense (though this seems to have been the case).
But it is beyond dispute that the guys he shot (Rosenbaum, Huber, and Grosskreutz) were all white, NOT black.
So, I fail to see how anyone can construe Rittenhouse's actions as "racially motivated" or responsible for the wider "racial injustice" in society.
Many seem to take for granted that if R had been Atrican-American, that the cops present would simply have shot him dead, because what...all cops are prejudiced against African-Americans? However, is not the statement that "the cops who were present would have shot R if he had been a 'black' guy" not a prejudicial statement by definition? We have no basis to make such a judgement, since we do not know the minds of said particular cops.
This after your speech about how stupid and thuggish police officers are?
That having been said, I do not see any necessary connection between either intelligence level or a dominant persona and racial prejudice, do you?
I don't. Intelligence, to start with, isn't one thing, and certainly isn't the same thing as academic success.
Quoting Michael Zwingli
More armchair sociology. I think there are some studies about "type A" being overrepresented in the military, but there are a lot of subcultures in the military. Mostly they're ordinary people.
Quoting Michael Zwingli
I just wondered why you were so comfortable sketching out the psychology of the typical citizen in uniform (not too bright, likely a bully) but suddenly felt a pang of intellectual conscience at attributing racial bias without some very specific sort of evidence (statistics showing disproportionate use of force, for instance, don't count, it seems). Why so skittish just on this point?
A juror is specifically called upon to use his subjective life experience in finding facts. However, the scope of the juror's review is limited by law (in this case, the so-called "judge"). The scope of review was limited to three separate time frames, which were the moments immediately preceding, up to, and including the pulling of his trigger by the defendant. The question: what was in his mind?
I'm not talking about that, and never have. Nor am I talking about what the shooter was thinking that brought him there. I can apply my subjective life experience to answer that question. And so can you. We all know what brought him there. He's a little POS.
No, I'm talking about the irrelevancy of those questions to the problem at hand.
I'm concerned with the law enforcement failure to act. You see, when you seek to control the battlespace, the last thing you want is a wild-card moving around, un-controlled, with an AR. This is a threat to you, your fellow law enforcement officers, innocent third parties, the shooter himself, and other players. Granted, law enforcement cannot control everything, but it is a gross violation of protocol to fail to take action when you have plenty of time to do so. They had plenty of time to take the shooter out of the equation. Peacefully, even. But they also could have thrown-down on him, placed his face in the asphalt and disarmed him, or they could have shot him if he were to resist.
Now I, and you, can utilize your subjective life experience to find as a matter of fact why those law enforcement officers did not do what their training taught them to do, and what we all know they would have done had the shooter been black. But those were not questions before the jury. The so-called "law" ignored those questions and, in doing so, they taught us all a lesson:
1. Do NOT attack a person with an AR.
2. Always have an AR if you do not want to be attacked.
3. Always have an AR.
Those are the lessons. And, hopefully, they will be learned. At least until such time as the so-called "law" decides that is NOT the lesson the law wants to teach. If it wants to teach a different lesson, then it will have to address what the little POS was thinking *before* and *as* he placed himself in the position he placed himself in. And the law can address why the cops did shit about him, before hand, when it was perfectly safe to do so.
So, those pretending to some superior, objective ignorance about what was going on in the mind of the cops are FOS. We all know why they let that little POS run around with his AR. Our subjective life experience tells us why. And that is emphatically the province of, and solely in the preview of us. If you disagree, then you do not have the subjective life experience that most people have.
We can hash out the details later, when the lessons we have been taught are finally learned, there is an all-out battle on the streets, law enforcement and BLM and Proud Boy bodies are stacked deeps, people are crying, and we're all wondering why it happened.
Then the civil war will be on, and "law enforcement" and "the judges" can all wring their hands and ask "what happened to us?"
:rofl:
:rofl:
Trolls come out of the woodwork for this stuff, don’t they?
Indeed it isn't, but there is an obvious correlation nonetheless. If you wanted to do the research, I am confident that you would find that the mean high school and college GPAs as well as standardized test scores and scores on intelligence tests are all much higher among, say, electrical engineers than among police officers or firefighters. Do you doubt that at all? Do you in any way imagine that your average cop has the intellect to handle a med school curriculum?
Not only would such “research” not be probative — you’re telling me you haven’t even done it? You haven’t even googled to support this spurious point?
We’re way off topic now, so that’s a good excuse for me to be done here.
It's called push-back, not hypocrisy. Those cops were not Barny Fife. You and I both know what went on there and what would have happened if the shooter would have been black. If you deny that, then you're either in denial or you're a liar.
It might be true, especially when you are comparing a group who may not need college level training, and another group who needs at least a BA, and maybe an MA.
If you collect the relevant statistics and display them in rank order, low scores to high scores across the board, there probably will be more high scores among engineers and doctors than among police officers and firemen. But... so what?
Training for even professional jobs is at least partly on-the-job. Just because your engineer has higher scores, doesn't mean that he or she would have the ability to function as a police officer, and just because the police officer doesn't have a BA, doesn't mean that he wouldn't have the wherewithal to earn one, even in engineering.
I dont know who you're posting that video for, its not going to register to anyone who disagrees with it as has been clearly demonstrated on every other clear headed, rational offering from you and others on this topic.
The level of blind, dogmatic fantasy on display here is the worst Ive seen on on this forum. Lost cause Sushi, anyone who is thinking rationally on this topic already agrees with the video.
Look, I feel ya. I do not for a minute deny the status mundi of which I, as has nearly every other teenaged white American dude probably including yourself, have been a beneficiary. You know, the minor infractions: drunk and disorderly, minor vandalism (drinking a case with your buddies and then tearin' shit up), DUI (though probably not that anymore), etc, which would have probably gotten a young black guy a short bid, but got me a "continued without a finding" so that I would develop a positive criminal record. Been there, done that, and ain't never been sad about it (in fact, I thank my lucky stars). We all know about the double standards which have existed in our society...the privileges which dictate that for young "black" dudes "we must penalize such pathological behavior", while for young *white" dudes "boys will be boys".
I agree that it is obvious that if R had been "black" (and we will never eliminate the double standards until we cease using such stupid terms for people as "black" and "white", which themselves perpetuate the problem) that there is a higher probability he would have been shot by the police. Probability is not certainty, though, which is my first issue with this, since the angry expression of certainty only prompts "pushback" from defenders of the status quo, and then what ensues is a pissing contest.
The more significant problem with the statement "R would have been shot" is that it suggests that "R should have been shot", or "I wish that R had been killed", which is a pretty fucked up way to feel, as if the two wrongs could possibly "make a right". For the record: no, it's never a good thing for a person to be killed, period. In retrospect, any killing of R was clearly not necessary. Why the fuck would anybody wish R to have been killed, then? He is as much a victim of his faulty thinking as is anybody. It is obvious that R should have paid a stiff juridicial price for his actions, that justice has not been served, but to [I]feel[/I], rather than to [I]think[/I], that it would be a better world if R had been killed by the police seems vaguely sociopathic. The best outcome would have been achieved if the cops had simply confiscated R's weapon at first sight, and (since he was yet a minor under Wisconsin law) either called his mother to have her retrieve him, or if that could not be accomplished, detain him in a holding cell. There seems to reason to wish the kid had been killed, though.
Another problem with the speculation about what the outcome might have been if R had been "black" is that it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread, which appears to be whether justice was served by the trial. It is simply an extraneous expression of what seems to me an unwarranted level of anger over problems not my own, and a clear expression of "bloodlust", which is never helpful. Anyone who allows themselves to indulge in bloodlust seems equally as sociopathic as does R.
:up:
Absolutely, people fuckin' lose their minds over these politically oriented topics, and then start accusing fellow members whose social values and political opinions differ from their own, of trolling, serving Satan, and all kind of other stupid shit, and the level of discourse goes down the drain. Guys who in more philosophically oriented threads exhibit wide reading and deep understanding often completely lose their objectivity over these topics. Herein, they exhibit an absolute inability to discuss topics in light of differing ethics, and then insinuate that those whose personal ethics differ from their own are either stupid or deluded. Ridiculous. What was it that my grandaddy said about politics and religion?
Agreed.
I totally agree with you, and perhaps we want to explore if our society played a role in this? I am horrified by public broadcasting shows for children where the children are acting like adults. I think that sends a very bad message to children! That is besides all the violence of TV that appeals to young males and is paid for by commercials designed to get us to buy things.
On the other hand, playing that is an imitation of adults is very important to good social development, but we have been destroying childhood in many ways. As the 1958 National Defense Education Act continues to control education, we are pressed to stimulate our children to be as geniuses and the pressure is for them to perform as college students as soon as they are school age. There is no playtime that is not structured by an adult to achieve a specific goal that is dictated by the Military-Industrial Complex and our need to be competitive! God forbid that a child is not a top competitor and can not get into the best colleges, because that could mean being one of those dirty homeless people. I keep holding my breath hoping someday we figure out what the change in education has to do with social, economic, and political changes. So we get Rittenhouse who is far from being an adult, playing a superhero as you said. A very poor connection with reality!
But then we have the father and son who were found guilty of murdering Arbery and many breathe a sigh of relief knowing if these two were not found guilty, there would be rioting! People of color have gained more power than they ever had, and so have women gained power, and this is also a result of the change in education. The change is not all bad, but our lack of awareness is not good.
I think its more specific than politics, its race. As you observed, even normally astute, academic types lose their shit as soon as someone says “black”. Fact after fact after fact unanswered, they just shift to a different attack vector and completely dismiss how they were just uncontroversially shown to be wrong. Its emotionally driven fantasy.
It would be nice to have a real discussion about any of it but as has been shown quite clearly in this thread you just can’t. You might say something that contradicts the dogmatic narrative and then there is no chance at an honest discussion.
Self help is the predictable consequence of failed law enforcement. The decision of law enforcement to respond to street violence (whether justified protests or not) in a passive way, has to gain acceptance in all communities or some will feel justified to take the law into their own hands.
Busting heads and taking names won't stop looting and violent protests, nor will it stop the counter protestors. Big problems need big leadership, which we didn't see from Trumo and not seeing from Biden.
To draw a distinction between the mindset of individual cops and law enforcement is to perpetuate systemic racism. All those cops could have been black and it would not have made a difference if they gave the white boy with an AR a pass. That implicates the system (law enforcement) and systemic racism. That is the genesis of the anger that causes the "riots" in the first place.
Quoting Michael Zwingli
That goes to my point about push-back vs hypocrisy: the burden is not upon those who want the system to quit shooting blacks when they don't need shot: but burden is upon the system to quit shooting blacks or start shooting whites under similar circumstances. It's the system's choice, not the people. "Quit doing what 'we' are complaining about, or start being equal about it: Your choice." So far, we aren't seeing any movement on the "Don't shoot blacks" side of the equation, hence the protests and when protests do not work, we have riots. And when riots don't work, it's war. And it won't be the people's fault. Again, law enforcement (including the judge and the shooter) teach: Arm yourself! Oakey dokey. Where two wrongs don't make a right, we will throw in a third and it will be on the system, not the people.
Quoting Michael Zwingli
Justice was not served by the trial. And for those of you who think I'm not getting it because I wasn't there or didn't follow the trial closely, you need only go back up and re-read what I said about scope of review.
Yowsa! Those IQ tests should not be used to judge human beings! I have known geniuses who are totally unfit human beings. IQ testing in our schools, radically changed how we judge human beings and this has serious moral consequences. IQ testing is the mentality of the Military-Industrial complex and is about helping school staff select out those best suited for higher education for military and industrial purposes. This is our take on a German model of education and is what gave Germany reactionary politics and lead to Hitler and Nazis, and Texas thinking it is a good idea to have citizens report their family members and neighbors to authority. (law to prevent abortions).
What goes with this education is merit hiring. An arguably very bad way of judging people, that almost guarantees only those who have been processed through college will have an opportunity to have high-paying jobs or sit in the seats of power. An ugly reality that makes intelligent parents hysterical if their child is not in the top 10%. A few large employers have gone back to judging people by interviewing them to determine their drive and their potential and at least one company found ex-cons who were superachievers and the company saw in them a great benefit. This is different from not giving someone a chance if the person does not have the right education, from the right college, or has something else a file that is detracting. Those files used to be protected private information.
That effort to know people and the willingness to be part of their development goes with the democratic model of industry and our democracy would be much stronger and less violent if we had better awareness of the importance of childhood and education and believing in human beings.
We created Rittenhouse and Travis McMichael, 35; his father, Gregory McMichael, 65; and their neighbor William Bryan, 52. The blood is on our hands.
It might seem that there's more to a person than his intelligence but who in the hell decided to call our species homo sapiens (wise man)? Let's overlook this misnomer and what it implies for the moment and discuss the significance of intelligence (IQ).
Are we to hold a mentally challenged individual (low IQ) responsible for an act that results in death, injury or loss of property? Let's, arguendo, say retarded people are held to account for their actions. That they surely didn't intend the illegal act must amount to something: like should be treated like and so, unlike should be treated...? With malice aforethought vs. unintentional/accidental/plain bad luck.
As one poster in another thread said, many of the criminals who've been found to have low IQs are in prison precisely because they have low IQs. There are some wrinkles to iron out, nevertheless doesn't that mean we're mistreating (sending to the slammer is a form of psychological torture and the death penalty has its own issues) the disabled (low IQ folks)? There really is no difference between a gaol and a mental asylum, psychologically/psychiatrically speaking but as to the manner in which they're treated, they're poles apart. :grin:
And, worse, mental health problems. Most serial killers were abused as children. Most homeless people have mental health problems. This is what's sickening about people with privileged upbringings claiming a la the Monopoly effect that they're just hard-working and those left behind just don't want it enough.
Since 1958 we have focused on preparing our young to be products for industry. We have been teaching them what to think, not how to think. Now everyone is in the streets screaming what they want others to think, and part of not feeling heard is smashing windows and ransacking the city like a horde of barbarians sacking Rome.
I have been a political activist and after attending public hearings at the local and state levels, it is clear to me we are not well organized for democracy and resolving our problems through discussion. The internet is a great opportunity to improve our reality, but that means informed citizens taking on the responsibility of expanding our social consciousness and increasing awareness of democratic principles.
We have a ways to go to reach our democratic human potential and not many people who want to focus on that. As long as the Military-Industrial Complex controls education we are not going to get there.
:up:
Yeah, screaming "Stop murdering us in the streets" like the bunch of fascists they are :vomit:
Well, we certainly have agreements on that point! I have been looking into this problem, and it appears there is a strong argument that God puts thoughts in our heads. That is a different topic, but one that might be worth exploring.
Ouch, ouch :gasp: please that is a totally different subject, but boy would it interesting to explore that. The US has a terrible record of incarcerating mentally disturbed people. Perhaps that goes with our unrealistic notion of a god and humans? What you said about intent, separates the Rittenhouse trial from the trial of the 3 men behaving as the KKK hunting down the coon.
Oh yes, don't get me going on this one because I am highly emotional about our hugh justice failures. Have you noticed all the men being released from prisons lately?
Because my son, and also years later, a dear retarded friend were accused of crimes, I know our justice system is very corrupt! The goal is to nail someone for the crime and the system favors this goal, not justice. Thankfully I found an honest cop in a less than honest community, who got the case against my son reopened and the guilty teenager was correctly identified clearing my son of any wrong. Even the attorney I paid $300 to defend my son, was a corrupt SOB. He denied my son the lie detector test that he requested and then he decided to base my son's defense on convincing the court my son's friend did the crime. When I reeled in horror protesting my son's friend had nothing to do with the crime, the attorney said "what do you care as long as I get your son off". That SOB walked with my $300 and I never spoke to him again so he did nothing to earn his fee.
My retarded friend was not as lucky because his attorney stopped at getting my friend to plead guilty to a lesser crime rather than risk prison for a worse crime. There is no choice when the attorney is just out to make an easy buck and doesn't care about justice, and the charged person does not have the money for a better defense attorney.
I suspect your goal was to be sarcastic and to ridicule what I said, please correct me if I am wrong.
I have been the person on the street and in public hearings standing on a table screaming for justice and escorted out by the police with the threat of being arrested for criminal trespassing. I know about acting out to get media attention and to have a voice strong enough to be heard when advocating for the homeless. This political activism was especially important when the state took my grandchildren illegally and made them wards of the state. We had a new governor who wanted to change things, so it was a good time for grandparents to unite and bring about a change in family law and the operation of the children's protective service. We fought for our grandchildren and won politically and I got my grandchildren back.
My granddaughter has been very active in the last several years and has gone to jail where was brutally abused by jail staff. My sister has also been extremely active on the streets, in hospitals, and in the state legislature's public hearings.
What was the point you wanted to make?
:100:
Quoting Athena
That I think your friends and neighbours being murdered in the streets might give you something more to aim for than
Quoting Athena
But it's disappointing to hear that this was your motive for protesting on behalf of the homeless. I imagine others taking part did it because it was the right thing to do, not out of an egomaniacal impulse to impose their will on others for the sake of it.
:up:
Might as well include the NFL, NBA, and MLB regarding athletics at schools.
If you don't do it, somebody else will. As a self-proclaimed religious person I naturally cast doubt on the value, rather prominence of what we believe to be (success in this) life as compared to some arbitrary (in my limited understanding) absolute nature. Even still, life, whatever it is, has at least fleeting moments worthy enough to call it "worth living", does it not? These moments are either yours for the taking through training end education, or missed opportunities others will indulge in. And possess full control over any experience, good or bad, free or restricted, democratic, or autocratic, you or any of your own will ever experience here, if given the chance. I suppose, if you trust others to follow the golden rule, there isn't much to worry and you can prepare as you see fit. Though, when has that ever been the case, for very long?
:up:
I feel bad but that's not going to be enough, is it? Reminds me of Kant's ethics. He wanted to reduce morality to logic and I believe he explicitly mentioned that being a bad person was tantamount to believing in a contradiction. That's why criminals, bad folk in general, when they do whatever it is that they do, smart people react with, "are you insanse?" or "you must be raving mad!" There's lunacy in evil (werewolves?) - senseless acts of violence.
See :point: Zinloos Geweld.
Good to know.
Quoting Athena
You've got it backwards as far as I can tell.
Quoting I like sushi
Yeah, it was clear enough. Messed up kid in messed up society. (Didn't some cops also tell him to go home?)
Then again, doing hard time doesn't seem quite right either. Maybe that's one reason self-defense won, don't know.
A hero (of all things) he ain't. Someone needs to grow up.
In any non-Mickey Mouse country of this world, people who come face to face with random dudes waving these guns like that in public, during peace time, will immediately feel their life is in danger and attacking him would be considered self-defense. Although, I suspect that, instead of attacking them, most would either seek refuge and/or call the cops. Then, there's America. Even if it's such a tragic incident one cannot but laugh at how comic this whole thing really is.
I'm beginning to see the value of CCTV cameras, cellphone cameras, all sorts of cameras for that matter. Shoot the shooting should be the mantra in a gun-crazy country like the USA. What's the point of bragging about how technologically advanced the US of A is when you can't even take a video of a crime being committed with your cellphone, especially when everybody knew the situation was tense enough to provoke a few trigger-happy randoms with a short fuse.
How do you understand things?
Not backwards! :grin: :joke:
What does that mean? I am really disappointed this morning. I am not seeing any post that I consider worthy of contemplation and a considerate reply. Maybe another thread will be more interesting?
I'm sorry, Athena my Goddess, if you feel that way. Your vengeful reputation precedes you and I don't wanna be in your bad books. Let's just say that I'm wrong and you're right! :smile:
What is the subject of the disagreement? And I swear, I am not behind the storms that are causing major flooding in Seattle right now. I don't have a desire to judge and punish anyone, except perhaps the young kid who replied to what I said and needs to learn good manners. :lol:
My IQ score is on the wrong side of 69 (Wechsler). Does that explain everything going on between us?
We agree. In order for justice to have been served, the outcome...the verdict wanted for a public reprobation of the values, beliefs, and judgements which led R and, indeed, his mother, to have the kid there with a firearm in the first place. That never happened, so the public in Wisconsin has failed to reprove the beliefs, values, and judgements exhibited by R in this case.
Even so, do not think that R has gotten off scot-free. Because of having these charges on his criminal record, this kid is "fucked for life"...has done that to himself, as every type of good and meaningful job, and even most shitty jobs, will be closed to him. R will never even be able to get any type of job save maybe in construction site labor, or as some kind of organizer in the "Proud Boys" organization. Apart from winning the "Powerball" lottery, R can forget ever being wealthy. A couple of years ago, I became acquainted with a guy who is a former engineer, and who a few years back had an unfortunate and fateful late-night incident with a drunk. The drunk, a much bigger guy than my acquaintence (a pretty small guy), wanted to fistfight with him after the bars let out, and so attacked him, and started throwing punches. Long story short, the result wss that he ended up stabbing the drunk a couple of times with his folding knife. The drunk, bleeding from the gut, called the police, and there ya go...charge of attempted murder. My acquaintence was found not guilty, but today despite having an engineering degree from Vanderbilt, masters level, and a once thriving career, he cannot even get a job in a fast food restaurant. Due to issues of liability, absolutely nobody will even touch him. He has lived off his once substantial savings for the past three years or so, but they are running out, and he has no idea what the hell he is going to do. Point is, if R ever discovers some type of ambition buried deep within himself, I predict that he will soon thereafter wish he had been simply put to death for this incident. While I am glad the police didn't have to kill R to stop his carnage, R may eventually feel differently. From R's perspective, the price of his decisions will be stiff, and filled with regret.
No, but I will walk away hoping this morning is just an off day and not what can be expected in the future.
Yeah, I read the reason the gun charge was dropped. Barrel length issue. WI law. When I was a kid out west, I could carry a long gun to hunt, but not self-defense. I suppose I could have used it for self defense while hunting. Maybe R was just hunting. But out west it's illegal to hunt people. We used to have vigilantes who hung people, but we decided to delegate to the sheriff when he did his job. Different states, different laws. Different lessons being taught. But we're learning how the game is played.
The nuances in laws state to state is likely something many don't really give too much consideration (especially non-native citizens of the US as they're used to ONE law across the lands rather than multiple iterations/interpretation of one law).
It seems the jury considers a causal break between his decision and the actual killings but that wouldn't fly in the Netherlands. In fact, the long time he has been there, the long travel time and chances to therefore turn back would result in a premeditated murder conviction.
A seventeen year old walking around with a gun in The Netherlands isn't legal is it? I think part of the ire involved is that many think he shouldn't be allowed to walk around with a gun - myself included - yet the law there doesn't disallow it. On top of this, as we all know, the law isn't a simple universal formula.
Such public cases are also a difficult thing to handle. There doesn't appear to be a good legal reason to have accused him with murder in the first place. This is the power of public opinion as there was clearly evidence that he acted in self-defense from the footage instantly available so without a clear cause to accuse someone of murder the chargers were brought forward prematurely - which neither protects the accused's rights nor helps the prosecution as they've had little time to reward anything. He may have been charged and arrested simply for his own personal safety too given the atmosphere at the time and what was happening.
The event was given political priority as it looked to suit different narratives that were and are highly politically charged at a highly politically charged time. These things are difficult.
The big question is will we see a change in the law for youngsters carrying weapons? I am pretty sure Rittenhouse would have taken a different course of action if he'd known exactly what would happen to him. If so are we likely to see him backing laws to prevent people like himself from having their life and other lives turned upside down due to naivety, stupidity, and/or immaturity?
Will there be a law that states carrying firearms during a protest is illegal? This would make some fear the police perhaps so how about during protests having both the citizens and police disarm themselves as standard procedure? Then if any bad element of the protesters cause damage to property then call in clearly marked police who are armed to deal with them and keep 'regular' police unarmed.
That is just off the top of my head and I'm not saying it is ideal by any means but I think something like that is at least a step in the right direction.
Opinion based in fact. When you move to an area of conflict carrying an semi-automatic firearm you are not going to sing Kumbayla now are you? Besides, didn't he admit to wanting to protect the property there? I think that is what Benkei meant with 'looking for conflict'. Tthere may still be a justification, namele preventing a direct and imminent attack on the goods of others. His intent though, was to play a role in the conflict and he brought the means to do so. That the defendent put himself in the position in which he might need to shoot, is I think clear as day. That is all Benkei needs.
Quoting I like sushi
It depends on the legal system. Perhaps under US law the case is clear cut, I do not know, yet I am also not confident to say it is. As Benkei pointed out, him bringing a semiautomatic rifle to a conflictuous situation might, in some jurisdictions, offset a self defense justification. I will not speculate on the case itself, however self defense laws differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In the US they might well differ from state to state. Under Dutch law such a situation will certainly be prosecuted. What the verdict would be I will not comment on because it depends on the exact facts of the case and I generally refrain from commentng on such issues directly.
Quoting I like sushi
Two people slain, one severely injured, that is a big deal legally independent of politics.
The legal merits of the case are different from the political ones. They are of course mixed, in practice, but can be treated independently, I think that is what Benkei was doing.
The technical difference here being he was provoked then retreated to his car to get a gun with intent of getting his rifle and shooting the other person. He was not initially armed with a gun and attacked.
Carrying a gun (in and of itself) in Rittenhouse's instance is not viewed as intent to cause harm or to act in conflict. Sounds kind of crazy in the situation he was involved in but that is the law.
I am not condoning the law just stating what it is. That is why I suggested an outline for an alternative law regarding protests that would shift away from armed conflicts.
No, but intent is constructed when you go to a conflict situation, armed with an assault rife (mind you not something to hunt deer with) and you state you want to protect property from rioters. You are not 'simply being armed' like I am simply carrying a notebook around, You are armed in order to be armed at that time and place. We can never look into the mind of someone else, so always in law the mindset of the defendent has to be constructed, based on the outward characteristics of his actions.
Quoting I like sushi
He is not carrying a gun 'in and off itself'. If I am carrying a power drill to my neighbour's house who needs a painting to be hung or a tap to be fixed, I am carrying the power drill in order to drill a hole.
I of course do believe you if you tell me that the law of the state of Wisconsin on self defense does not take into account teh recklessness of bringing deadly weapons to a scene of conflict. Benkei pointed out that in such cases applying Dutch law would lead to a different outcome. The fact that fire arms are forbidden in the Netherlands does not matter that much. The case would also be prosecuted if I brought a meat cleaver to a fist fight, even if my intentions of separating the fighting parties would be in itself not blameworthy.
Quoting I like sushi
I know, we are also not in substantial disagreement. There are a few points of law which are interesting. Firstly the construction of intent. I think the construction of intent is not the problem here. Secondly I do think Dutch and US law differ in the case of justifications for self defense. We have the notion of 'culpa in causa', which occurs if one has had a hand in creating the situation in which you have to resort to self defense. Then there is the issue of proportionality, the level of violence matching the level of threat.
You argue that a self defense plea is so obviously warranted that prosecution is unjustified. You may be right, but what Benkei did was to point out that in many legal systems that is not a likely position. I would want to know what the arguments for the prosecution were actually.
Thank god it is not up to Dutch law, then. The US has the 2nd amendment, and in Wisconsin a man can bear arms for security. In other words, a man can carry a gun with the intent to protect himself. “Simply being armed” is not only a deterrent but an effective means to defend one’s life from violence. Given that both the deceased attacked him and tried to grab his weapon, it appears that’s what Rittenhouse did, and we need not construct any intent beyond that.
"... the freedom to kill whoever he wants..."
How many black people did he kill again?
You think he wanted to kill black people too? You're probably right.
You’re words, not mine. Race-thinking and disinfo don’t mix, I’m afraid.
Quoting NOS4A2
Oh you're saying he wanted to kill white people? Well, he went to a black rights protest with a -- ahem -- automatic rifle, but yes he did have more occasion to kill white people. Maybe he wasn't that fussed about who he killed. A crowd is a crowd.
Just be happy you can now go to the zoo, jump in the polar bear cage and gun them down if they attack you. Ahmaud Arbery confronted and tried to disarm his attacker too. In WI, his killers would walk free.
Last time I checked a perfectly fine legal system in well ordered society.
Quoting NOS4A2
And such a relief it is one has that right and certainly that others have this right too, makes me feel so much safer
Quoting NOS4A2
Ohh... Perhaps the people from Columbine feel different... And of course you have facts and figures to back this claim up? According to our world in data the homicide rates in the US were on 6.1 per 100.000 people whereas those in the Netherlands are at 0.9. As a US resident the chances to falling victim to homicide is 7 x higher. Of these homicides, half were committed in the US by fire arms while in the Netherlands this was one in five.
Of course there are fluctuations especially given that the Netherlands is a small country. Anyway, being armed seldom deters. In times past when the state did not have the means to enforce its monopoly on violence the level of violence was much higher than it is now.
Quoting NOS4A2
Well that's the question innit Saul? Should putting oneself situation in which one has to use lethal violence weigh into the blameworthiness of it? Here apparently Dutch and US legal systems part ways. But perhaps the legal subtleties are beyond you. whether this case is self defense does not interest me. It is a theoretical point of law.
Nobody but the Dutch particularly cares about the Dutch attitude toward the Rittenhouse verdict.
The Dutch system is probably a fine legal system, but completely irrelevant in both jurisdiction and rights. I’m not sure why we’d compare them.
My point was that deterrence and self-defence is the most likely intent to open-carrying a weapon. I don’t know about you, but my own common sense dictates that I would not go near anyone carrying an AR. Even so, it obviously did not deter the attackers. The first attacker yelled “you won’t do shit” before lunging for the weapon. It didn’t work out for him, but it does help your point about deterrence rarely working.
White people are black people, riots are protests…anymore doublespeak to add?
You raised the question of desirability, not me. I just find it interesting to see whether Benkei's take holds or does not hold under US law. Sushi pointed out it does not. That makes comparison interesting. Comparative law is an interesting subject in and of itself. I at least find it of significance whether a legal system accounts for culpa in causa or does not. The question would than be what would explain this difference, is there a theoretical argument for valuing one over the other, or is there not, what are the societal consequences of this difference, etc. Those are the interesting questions to ask form a legal philosophical or socio-legal point of view.
The verdict itself does not belong on a philosophy forum without any theoretical point. I am also not arguing the acquital, I do not feel in the position to judge the case, nor should I. I just feel an interesting point of law is at issue.
Quoting NOS4A2
I am also not arguing that. In fact I belief in the case at hand the defendent said as much, namely that he wanted to protect the property from rioters. The question is, should his carrying of that weapon than and there, knowing what danger it could present, weigh into the level of blameworhiness we ascribe to his actions. Under Dutch law it would be a factor, under US law it would not (apparently).
Quoting NOS4A2
Auto self refutation, I love it when that happens.
Quoting frank
Similarly, nobody but you cares about your take on the Rittenhouse verdict. In fact you probably never spoken a word or wrote a sentence anybody should care about.
We have a saying in the U.S.: "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight." That would include fists, skateboards, or even handguns-against-rifles.
The counter to this would be: Don't bring a rifle to a riot, unless you are law enforcement, or you have to be there to protect your property (like the Korean Americans did in the L.A. riots; they stayed on their own property, too).
Because, if people start bringing rifles to riots, and if law enforcement stands idly by and does nothing about it, or even encourages it by taking sides, then rioters will start bringing rifles to riots. The arms race is on.
And the fault will lie squarely on the backs of law enforcement for failing to enforce the law. And by "law enforcement" I include judges who act like they are law enforcement.
If some people want to say that law enforcement has already failed to enforce the law with respect to the rioters, and thus we must arm-up and suppress the riots ourselves, and if those riots are themselves the result of the actions of law enforcement acting unlawfully, and the system letting them walk, then the civil war is on. Law enforcement will have taken a side against the people.
Arms race? Have any of you people ever heard of I.E.D.s? Insurgency? Snipers? Poison? Etc.? Can you imagine what it would be like to try to go to the grocery to buy milk in such an environment?
And here's the deal: Foreign bad actors (Russia?) and others will have all the incentive in the world to throw gas on the fire, provide aid and comfort *to both sides*. Some, like myself, suspect this has already happened and is happening. America is divided against itself and such a house cannot stand.
We better get our shit together. And I mean now. So I say again, leadership and law enforcement, particularly the POTUS, the FBI, and the DOJ: We are watching. Unite us. Be a Lincoln, not a Trump.
P.S. For all the children out there: If you don't want to escalate, and if you support law enforcement, then get the training and become a cop, or stay out of the battle space.
I think you're in your own straw world on this one.
Maybe. Still, nobody but the Dutch and a few stragglers care much about a Dutch attitude toward the Rittenhouse verdict.
Fair enough about your legal interests.
But your question about whether his carrying a weapon into a riot should contribute to his blameworthiness is interesting. I say it does not. He has the right to open-carry that weapon in that state (I’m not sure about carrying concealed weapons). He wasn’t out there committing crimes. His attackers are aware he is carrying it. And he used it to defend himself from attack. Why would a legal system ascribe more blame to this scenario?
To avoid an arms race. You know, where you, NOS, or your loved-ones, can still go the grocery store and not worry about getting blown up. Do you think you have what it takes to live in a combat zone? With your family?
I'm not black, so I can't pretend to understand why they don't escalate and start shooting whites. But I *suspect* it might have something to do with being a minority. They know that when whites start blowing up whites, one side of that equation is going to blame blacks, and then blacks will end up on the short end of the stick for something they did not do. So they don't want whites to start blowing up whites. I don't want it either.
But whites, like those in WI, did not bring rifles to what turned out to be a rifle fight. They have learned, now, that having a rifle is a good thing.
That is why a legal system should ascribe more blame to the scenario, where a pudgy little kid who doesn't even shave starts wandering around a riot zone with an AR and the cops don't do shit about it. It's a recipe for escalation. Just because you have a right does not mean you have no responsibility. That's why we should have adults in the room.
But hey, you make your bed. You can sleep in. Don't say you weren't warned. "May your children live in interesting times." Anon.
A recipe for escalation… it’s a nonsensical notion unless people start attacking the person carrying the gun.
A man and his daughter excercized their same right just outside the Rittenhouse trial where people were protesting, and no escalation entered the equation. Had people attacked them it would be a different story, of course.
That photo is proof of my point. DOH!. What you are saying is what we used to call "MAD" or Mutually Assured Destruction. It's the very arms race I tried to describe to you. The fact that you would advocate it in your individualist, libertarian fantasy world shows you just how far you are from individualism and libertarianism. :roll:
I don’t care how many arms people carry. If they don’t attack each other no one gets shot. The child rapist who first attacked Rittenhouse assumed, wrongly, that Rittenhouse wouldn’t defend himself. He said “you won’t do shit” as he attacked him. He wasn’t deterred by the weapon. Boy, was he wrong.
And the picture goes against your race-thinking pundit. Everyone was cool with it.
Well, one theoretical argument I could think of is that it is very reckless to bring such a weapon to an already very tense situation, adding fuel to the fire so to speak. It is not a pocket knife but a weapon which is meant to cause severe injuries. If you bring that, it is foreseeable that it might be used. Using such a weapon quite foreseeably leads to deaths. A legal order might well react to this reckless behaviour, just as it might react to me having rat poison open on the table when there is a children's party at my house. Rat poinson is legal, but if the child eats it and dies I might well face charges of manslaughter. In any case culpable death, different states use different terminologies here. This is a theoretical argument right. I know such duties of care are far less prevalent in US jurisdictions than they are in European ones.
A second theoretical argument centers around the monopoly of violence by the state. Unless in matters of self defense the use of violence in most jurisdictions lays at the level of the state. It is actually an issue of internal sovereignty. The state should be able to guarantee the peace, that is why most jurisdictions, including as far as I know the US, outlaw vigilantism. That would give a justification for prosecution because it amounts to a threat to public order to increase the possible potential for violence.
Apparently the weight of these argument does not carry much weight in the Wisconsin court room. It is speculative, but I think interesting speculation to answer the question why it does not. I think in the US the notion of standing your ground is more ingrained in the mentality of the people and the sense of what 'law abiding' means. The US is shaped by frontier communities, on which the 'law of the land' did not always have firm grip. I think it might have a more decentralised ideal, valuing the settling of scores outside of legal means, people needing to 'stand up for themselves'.
The state as a centralising force, claiming the power of the sword for itself, might also be much more mistrusted in the US then in Europe. There the second amendment comes in. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Now it is questionable what 'well regulated militia', means but I can follow the originalist interpretation that it means that citizens should be able to form an armed, countervailing force against the state. It is therefore an explicit check on the monopoly of violence of the state. That too might mean that the self defense justification is more weighty than in other legal systems. The state does not claim as much sovereignty and therefore does not give the concomittant guarantee of enforcing the law, meaning one should have more room for self defense.
There is however something funny with that right. I can see the well regulated militia, but it does also seem to idnicate a check on the right to bear arms. One has it in the service of a well regulated militia, so within an organisation that can keep order. Lone wolfs carrying semi-automatic weapons seem to be out of the bounds of a well regulated militia.
Now I find these theoretical diversions interesting, without passing judgment. I am just trying to understand. Practically there seem to be arguments for more strongly enforced gun control. I see such an argument of 'stand your ground' and well ordered miltias working in societies of free and equal people. In such a scoiety, all have equal opportunities to join this militia, all have property to defend and so detererence might indeed work. If you tressass my land I may shoot, just as you may shoot is I tresspass yours.
In a society though with marginalised classes, it becomes problematic. The well regulated militia does not represent 'the community' but it represents powerful segments within it. The militia does not become a counterveiling force of the people against the state, but a force extending the power of the state over groups this militia may find suspicious or troublesome. People with nothing to lose might form militias of their own and the question becomes why one is outlawed the other is not. In such a situation the self defense claim becomes more questionable. If I do not have property to defen, I have no basis for a self defense claim, but for me the state is not 'free'. Justified or not it leads to claims that one group will always walk free and the other is criminalized. In such a scenario the 'well organised militia' does not help to constitute a bond between the citizenry, but to disrupt it.
I don't know about powerful. Fascist, yes. But if anything it seems to appeal to the powerless, or those who at least feel powerless.
You like that, don't you? I bet you spank the monkey just thinking about it.
Quoting NOS4A2
You mean like Somalia? Or Afghanistan? Everyone carries and few people get shot. Well, except women.
Quoting NOS4A2
No, it does not. And not everyone was cool with it. Nor was that a unite the white right rally, now was it? And if "your side" doesn't riot, why not? Could it be they have nothing to riot about? Well, except maybe the full-frontal assault on Christmas.
Or how about if that couple showed up at the Michigan State House when all the white assholes were taking over? Or how about January 6th at the Capital? How about Ashli Babbitt? Maybe the cop should have stood down and let the left shoot her. Maybe the left should arm up and start confronting these shit-heads.
Here's the deal, NOS: I think you don't fully appreciate how good you have it. Your lack of grace and gratitude have been on display at least since I got here. It smacks of a soft, protected, isolated, dependent, entitled, privileged life that would not last two nano-seconds in a civil war. It's the classic sound of the chicken-hawk, all brave when it's not him or his on the line. God I hope you never have to see the end result of your thinking. Not because I care about you, but because I care about all the people who know better.
I'm a great champion of the Second Amendment, and not for hunting or personal defense against crime. I think the people should provide a substantial, credible threat to government, to keep it honest. But with that right, you don't do stupid shit like R did. That has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. In fact, it's a threat to the Second Amendment.
Kinda was in the end.
:100: :fire:
Thanks for taking the time to write that.
I think you're right that a state legal order would see the open-carrying of weapons as reckless. It is a threat to its monopoly on violence. I always bring up this quote of James Madison's because I think it describes the motives of the state perfectly well: "you'll perceive the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the Government".
One needs only look at the Black Panthers to show that the state, both federal and regional, will undermine the militia clause in particular, and the right in general, if it feels threatened by it. All it needs to do is float some frightening contingency to justify violating it. Hoover and Reagan said as much about the Black Panthers, and now no one can open-carry in California because of it. Ironically, people nowadays applaud such “gun control”, even though, in that instance, it was used to undermine a marginalized community’s right to stand up against state tyranny.
Curious question: do you know why the Dutch lost their right to bear arms? Have they ever had it?
You don't lose rights. Rights are infringed.
Quoting NOS4A2
But for some curious reason it does not feel threatened by it when white people do it. Well, maybe Ruby Ridge and Waco. But not the Michigan State House, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Bundy's ranch, Unite the Right and Proud Boy rallies, and countless other examples. Hey, just out of curiosity, is this true:
Why is that? Did they say that to the black man and his daughter in the photo you put up?
All those people you mention have been met with state force, as far as I know.
Why would they say that to the father and daughter? there was no violence or rioting or property damage occurring at the time they were exercising their rights.
Just in order to satisfy my lubricious interest, is there any truth to this...any evidence for such a characterization?
As far as I know (with the exceptions mentioned) they have not. On the other hand, they weren't selling cigarettes, sleeping, jogging, playing, or engaged in some other seditious activity, so there's that.
Quoting NOS4A2
Oh, so they deputize kids where there is? Got it.
Yes there is. Read them at your own peril.
I don't know, but you might ask Matt Gaetz.
Is that the referent's name? I'm not so well versed on the details here.
Quoting NOS4A2
Peril?? Not sure what you mean. If you will provide a link to 'em, I'll go ahead and read 'em, though. Where did you read this?
Interesting question. As far as I know there was never an explicit right the bear arms. Under Napoleonic law, in force since the beginning of the 19th century regular citizen's were forbidden to bear arms. It was not forbidden though to own a fire arm. During a short period in the late 19th century guns were free but have been restricted again since 1890 Especially during the period after the abolution of the Napoleonic codes there were parliamentary debates whether citizens should not have the right to own and bear arms for self defense.
In 1919 apparently it became forbidden to deliver fire arms to people without a permit. Therefore it was not criminalized to own a fire arm, but they could not be bought or sold to people without a permit. Possible the restrictions on fire arms were to quell the threat of revolution after the first worl war. So yes, it had to do with the state increasing its grasp on the citizens, out of fear of socialism ironically.
Just a slight correction: I am not saying that free carrying of arms is reckless (though one might argue that), but recklessness is a specific form of intent under US law (as far as I know). It might be reckless to bring a gun to a riot just as it may be reckless to leave a jar of rat poison easily present to hand at a children's party.
In such scenarios, I might want something heavier.
Especially for defending my home, but also a deterrent in general.
Don't think 20mm will do. Grenades, too, definitely.
Yes yes, that's escalation, but I have a god-given right to defend myself. Against all of them.
Do you know how many heavily armed gangs are out there? And dangerous lunatics?
And, for proven deterrent, I'd want setups with mutually assured destruction.
That's safety. Then there will be peace. One way or other.
Yeah, Rosenbaum had bipolar disorder which led to a... colourful history, including a stint in prison for a sex offence against a minor. So I guess he deserved to be shot. Not sure what sins the paramedic was being punished for.
Is this serious or meant to provoke?
I didn't see the accompanying picture...
He's an alleged child rapist. Like Trump is an alleged rapist. The only difference is, they are privileged, rich, politicians who made it on daddy's money, and have not and will not be convicted in a court of law.
Call it satire. Or something.
, does this direct link work? Or this? It display normally here.
The link works. Same picture. The first one. I check the second. Both same picture. Great one, by the way!
Ah, c'mon K! That's not worthy...I know you're smarter and better than that! If you were not, I wouldn't expect you to be participating on this site. I hope that was said tongue-in-cheek.
Because of the way the dialogue has denigrated in this thread, what with Riley repeatedly calling R a "little piece of shit", and NOS4A2 repeatedly calling that guy a "child rapist", I couldn't be sure that he was 'serious'...that he was speaking in actuality. All in all, it seems that any true value which might have derived from this thread has been utterly stripped away by misplaced emotion, leaving only the value of spectacle in it's stead.
So instead there must be a circumstance breaking that causality, eg. a supervening event. The jury must have found that in the way Rittenhouse was approached.
Perhaps. Though if the wanton disregard rests in bringing that gun to a situation of conflict, than an approach such as occurred would not be out of the bounds of foreseeabiity. In fact, it is precisely because such an event might occur, that he might have been said to act wantonly. I guess actually the jury did not find bringing the gun a wanton action, as per Sushi's remarks.
To say anything more specifically legalese I should study the whole verdict.
Minors are prohibited from possessing firearms except for hunting in Wisconsin. But I get, I get. He was hunting black people!
19 white jurors and 1 Hispanic. Based on demopgraphics alone at least 1 juror should've been black.
Anyone who doesn't think this wasn't about race again is just looking for excuses to not see the forest for the trees.
Yet he only killed white people.
Quoting Benkei
The judge threw the charge out before it got to the jury because the law didn't apply to the facts. The State makes the laws. It could have written it however it wanted, but it chose to write it how it did.
Quoting Benkei
Do you have any facts supportive of a juror being excused on the basis of race or are suggesting that there be a quota system where they disqualify a jury if they can't get exact statistical correlation to the population in general?
Quoting Benkei
The protestors were rallying as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, so that part dealt with race. His acquittal had nothing to do with his being white that I can see, unless you've seen some evidence I haven't. I don't see how the facts as presented, and they really weren't contested, could have led to a conviction.
I'm sure Rittenhouse was very sad about that fact.
What evidence do you have of that?
I have no idea what the guy really thinks about black people, but I don't think he's a psychotic murderer. From what I saw and heard, he had an inflated sense of importance and thought he might go down to ground zero and protect the streets with his bad ass weapon, only to end up seeing real action and shooting some people and dealing with the legal and emotional consequences.
If he wanted to go out and shoot black people, he would have just gone out and shot black people. He's not a sociopath and he's not some evil genius who figured out a way to kill and be acquitted. He's a stupid kid and now he's a symbol for whatever side wants to use him, either as a racist vigilante and resurrected civil war solider or as a freedom fighter taking back "our" streets.
The only question of the trial was whether he was guilty and he wasn't. If a guilty verdict would have better served societal interests and helped bridge the gap between the races or if it would have taught a racist not to be racist, that would still have not changed the fact that a not guilty person should be found not guilty.
If he's not guilty (of anything) maybe you should revisit your laws as the precedent of allowing heavily armed self-styled militia onto the streets to kill people in conflicts they themselves provoke through the threat of their presence seems a bad one.
Provocation through presence alone is a problematic concept, and it's probably the defense Rittenhouse would have used to justified his killings if it were available to him. That is, he'd have said he was provoked to shoot by the disruptions in the streets and the advocacy of positions he disagreed with.
Entering into a volatile situation and advocating a position counter to the overwhelming majority is a dangerous idea, but it can't be criminalized unless you're willing to do it uniformly, as would require, for example, the arresting of BLM protestors at a volatile Klan rally.
The bottom line here is that Rittenhouse stands in opposition to what you believe in, but that doesn't make him a criminal. It makes him a piece of shit.
Holy shit! A voice of reason! (And just when I thought that species was extinct!)
Quoting Benkei
Now I, being a misanthrope, take only a cursory interest in this matter, so I am, as I've noted, not aware of, or even concerned with the details of this case. My interest in it is only as a diversion. I am, however, concerned with the type of thought being evinced in this forum. (I joined up here to improve my thimking, not to have it worsened.) To declare someone a racist without providing evidence for the claim is to make a libellous statement. As a moderator, I would think you should understand that, and so provide evidence along with any defamatory statements that you make on here. Why are we to consider R to be a racist? Beyond that, what human being is not a "racist* in some way or fashion? I myself am not particularly prejudiced against what are commonly called "black people", but I hold and cherish some very strong prejudices of other types, nonetheless. What is there to suggest that R is any more "racist" than anybody else?
I'm not fully with you here. I do not think that R went into this with the hope of murdering or even killing anyone, but it seems fairly clear that he entered the situation desirous of conflict. To enter such a situation, having such an obvious intent, armed as he was at least shows hoirble judgement, and may be construed to show intent to harm [I]constructively[/I].
I'm abstracting that out. I don't think heavily armed BLM members should be allowed police Trump (or Klan) rallies either. Their presence would also likely be considered a threat and provoke violence. End result the same. You can't do that where I come from. Be like us.
Who don't you like, Jews? Arabs? Homosexuals? The Dutch?
For all of you people who don't know shit about America's current political division, how we got here and how virtually everything is related to it, you need to crawl out from under the rock and do yourself a little research. The only foolish thing is to try and view this incident as some isolated incident involving a child who made some bad mistakes. The evidence of what he was up to and thinking was plastered all over everywhere *except* the trial.
Just one of many:
Yeah, he's just flashing an "okay" sign. :roll: I stand by my previous assessment for which you took me to task. The truth has a liberal bias and I'll not run from that in an effort to appear "objective." Did you know Adolph Hitler didn't smoke, drink or cheat on his wife. He was actually just an innocent kid caught up on the moment. :roll:
There aren't any lefties in the US.
What about "lefties". Got any of them?
Which brings up another issue (maybe for another thread). It seems that 17 year old girls are "victims" of exploitation when they get all wrapped up in their own sexual exploitation. We go like rabid dogs after the adults who exploit them. Where were the adults in the Rittenhouse case?
If I were to be consistent, should I view him as a victim, or should I start viewing the girls as little tramps who now have regrets about decisions they made? Or is this apples and oranges?
Who's the Epstein in the Rittenhouse case?
Left-handed people? Yes.
Ah yeah, got it.
If the dominant resident of Rittenhouse's skull is a bunch of contradictory trash he doesn't even understand himself then maybe we need to go a level up to get to a problem that can actually be addressed. Doesn't make him a victim, a hero, or a villian. Maybe he's just not worth talking about.
We sweep the likes of him under the rug at our peril. We should either deal with him or those who abused this poor boy.
A long time back, I bought a Gillette razor, it came with the a blade attached and two extra. I was particularly happy with the purchase, it was well within the reach of my meager income.
A month went by, I'd used all the blades. "Time to get new blades," I thought to myself and went back to the same store. I picked up a pack of blades, took them to the counter. What happened next was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. The pack of blades was nearly twice the price of the razor! :gasp:
Guns, keep 'em cheap, no problemo, but bullets should have a price tag that'll make people think twice before they dig into their pockets for some. :joke:
The Jews? The people I most admire.Their culture and identity has proved to be unequalled in it's durability, against all odds.
I will not create nor entertain an off-topic tangent from this, but since you ask, I am an unrepentant misogynist. For me, the concept that a woman should be considered the equal of a man, if he is any kind of man, is simply fucking ludicrous. Apart from that, there is a certain European ethnicity, that of my asshole father (and no, my name is not "Michael", and my name is not "Zwingli" any more than yours is "Baden" or you are "Willy Wonka"), which I hold deep and intensely felt prejudice against. Never mind which, and never mind why.
I never said he's psychotic, I said he's a racist and he went out of his way to travel to an area nobody asked him to defend, in the hopes of catching one of the protesters, who were predominantly black, to give him a reason to pull the trigger. This is clear as day for anyone who looks into his Facebook history and his "proud boy oops-it-really-just-means-ok" sign, blue lives matter white-privileged racist skit.
He wasn't stupid, he knew exactly why he went there.
I wasn't expecting that tbh, so therefore it wasn't entrapment. Banned.
Not unreasonable no, when BLM protesters wield attack rifles. It is funny how law does shape the mindset of the people. For the posters from the US, arresting armed protesters near rallies of the opposing partes is anathema, a clear violation of rights of protest and arguable the second amendment. Not arresting them is anathema though to the posters from Europe.
We had riots in the streets of major cities against covid-19 policies. I am just imagining the looks on the faces of the mayors when they were notified a contingent of civilians armed with assault rifles are about to arrive on the scene to 'restore the peace'... :lol: "Fuck, NOOOOOO" would be a mild reaction and then immediately a call to whatever division of the police would still be out there in order to block the entrance to the city...
It is interesting for me to see that even though we post in the same language (sort of for us non-native speakers) and there are many topics that are easy to discuss, our like mindedness runs into limits quite unexpectedly. I am not saying any system is better. With law it is the same thing as with driving and with prowess in the bedroom, everyone things they do it satisfactorily. Two cultures, similar in a lot of ways might have such a clash over such a fundamental principle as to how to construct a well ordered society.
I feel remiss in not citing more of it. And when I say "it" I don't mean statutory or Constitutional, but judicial interpretations thereof. They are usually (not always) heavy on the philosophy, and well thought-out. Especially when it comes to the right to protest, seek redress, mingle, travel, etc. I only note this as a PSA for those who want to take a deeper dive into some good reading and philosophy about the actual location where the rubber meets the road. It gets better at the Federal Appellate and SCOTUS level.
How in hell are you going to fight the War on Christmas if you can't afford the ammo?
I lectured on snyder v. Phelps, among others, but I am the first to admit that not being American is a hindrance. My co-lecturer was an American native criminal lawyer and we would have endless discussions... :) miss those times! Just aside...
Wait, what? I thought America was the center of the universe and everyone everywhere hung on every word and video that came from America. Are you telling me there are other people out there, with intelligence, and lives, and countries that matter? :gasp:
Chris Rock suggested this maaaaaany years ago. "Make a bullet cost $10,000 and you'll have a lot less innocent bystanders."
It's an idea. How much is whatever you think you're protecting worth to you? A bullet costs half of that. If you ever need to use it, it's a bargain. If you just want to use it, on your bank balance be it. Of course, it would rather split the paranoid between the haves and the have nots.
Quoting James Riley
Loved dogs too. I love dogs. We'd probably have gotten along until he found out I was part Jew.
Nahh, I would not dare to tell you such herisy! ;) I lectured on principles of law for international students and principles of criminal law, also for international students. I also lecture Dutch law students and it is remarkable that no Dutch law student becomes acquainted with international cases. Well, in one course, one or two US cases are studied, but that is about it. No US student of law would read a European case, I gather. It is funny because of of course, like you say the judicial interpretation displays well articulated arguments that hold sway in society and signals how things ought to be. Yet we hardly ever study the arguments of the others, each of us trying to find our own pearls of wisdom and taking them for granted as the only way things should be.
Your argument that society would be less violent if we disarmed our citizenry sounds hopelessly unamerican.
We're probably fairly closely aligned in what gun control measures need to be instituted, but this really isn't a gun control debate. The laws as written were not violated and so he was properly acquitted. Keep in mind as well that of his assailants, there were two other handguns. One guy shot in the air offering a wise warning shot to the man with the assault rifle and the other pointed the gun at R's head. So, no angels on either side, and I'm not sure any involved in the fray stood for peace, love, and harmony.
But, should guns become illegal in our streets, and should someone have one, I still have a problem with anyone trying to disarm him by smacking him with a skateboard. That just seems like an assumption of risk, sort of like complaining that you were bitten when you jumped into a snake pit.
It's more that a suggestion that we put aside the rule of law is anathema (if that's not what your were initially doing , I apologize, but it seemed like it).
For me, keeping the streets safe from vigilantism is exactly that, upholding the rule of law, it is the rule of law not of man and therefore, it is up to the state to protect the rights of each of us equally :) What you are doing is presupposing one interpretation of the rule of law as 'the rule of law', but no European lawyer would agree with you that that is what the rule of law requires. Here too we see the same anathema, concepts which seem to mean the same are interpreted very differently.
[quote=Dr. Lanning (I Robot)]That, my friend, is the right question.[/quote]
There's definitely a rift in outlook here because I don't understand what you're saying.
You can't arrest someone because you think they're about to become a vigilante. You have to wait until they actually have done it.
Nobody'll waste bullets. Shootings will be more organized: kill two birds with one stone :scream: I think Chris Rock's idea will backfire.
:100:
Did Rittenhouse know him?
Do we want kids seeking out such situations, armed with semi-automatics? :down:
We have an example here.
What's gone awry, and what to do about it?
, try yelling " :fire: " there. :D
No, he did not know him. The man was released from a Milwaukee mental hospital following his second suicide attempt on the very day he attacked the kid carrying a rifle. It is possible that this was another attempt at suicide. "Shoot me, n-----!”
Quoting frank
No, you do not. In fact that is a very unwise course of action in such a siuation. In the Netherlands a mayor would immediately issue an emergency ordnance prohibiting people carrying fire arms from the city center. The point is a bit moot because obviously the carrying of assault rifles in the city center is forbidden already. However, this is what happens when protests threaten to spiral out of control: groups of protesters that are likely to clash are separated. That is very much in accordance with the rule of law because mayors have such competencies granted by law.
Don't have to make it too complicated. Employ common sense and ban the open carry of assault weapons in public places.
Toting a shotgun across your back would be equally intimidating. Maybe only allow pearl handled revolvers. Old school shootouts are in order.
Different strokes for different folks. If you have your weapon holstered or slung across your back, I don't even notice it. If you are brandishing it, that get's my attention.
That would make sense. You can see how the failure of local governments to protect life and property shouldn't affect our judgement if Rittenhouse, right?
Quoting Tobias
This one didn't threaten. It spiraled. Stores were closed across the US afterward because looting for the fun of it had become a thing.
Quoting Hanover
Hey, old-old-school fisticuffs are safer for others. :strong: ;)
I have a shelf of battle-ready swords sitting right over there. :point:
Were I to wield one out on the town, I might just get picked up by the cops.
Maybe not in Wisconsin?
Certainly! All the more reason not to allow also the presence of counter protesters.
Quoting frank
Those are two different matters. One is about he failure of the authorities and one is about the possible mens rea of the defendent. One could argue in the following way, as was outlined earlier in the thread. The defendent being there with that weapon is not illegal. However, he willingly put himself, armed in a very dangerous situation. When one carries a fire arm to a dangerous situation, it is foreseeable that such a fire arm will need to be used. When it is used, it will result in injury or death. So the defendent acted wantonly when he went there armed with a deadly weapon.
Similarly as I would act wantonly leaving my rat poison on the table unattended while a children's party is taking place. Me having the rat poison is not illegal and if nothing happens in that situation no wrong doing has happened, however when a child eats from it an dies, I am face with a charge of manslaughter (the exact term depends on the state where this takes place). Of course I do not know if US law sanctions such a line of reasoning, but it would not be an unreasonable line for the prosecution to take in many legal systems. Again I am not arguing for or against the Rittenhouse verdict, but again pointing out a theoretical point of law.
What color are you? That might make a difference.
Negligent homicide in crime, gross negligence in a civil case.
So in the Netherlands, they would convict someone of manslaughter for an action that was in direct defense of the defendant's life?
Georgia, United States, too. More than manslaughter: malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault (with a firearm), false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit a felony.
Someone with a rifle is clearly carrying a rifle whereas someone with a hand gun can conceal it easily enough. There is the imbedded problem of transporting firearms from one place to another without displaying them in any manner. Such nuances make establishing laws like these difficult. For hunting/sports what constitutes ‘public place’.
I think it makes more sense to allow people to bring firearms to protests but NOT to actively carry them during protests unless the police officers around are also armed. That is why I would first suggest police in general to not carry firearms unless they are clearly and visibly distinctive from other officers whom don’t carry firearms.
If such a law can be implemented solely for protests and marches without any need to bring in armed police officers then it could start a steady progression towards something that doesn’t take away rights some wish to protect yet it will reduce the perceived need to carry firearms in other circumstances.
As an aside an interesting trick that reduces the chances of crime is to place cardboard cutouts of police officers in areas of concern. These basically function as a psychological deterrent not because people view the inanimate object as a police simply because it triggers a reminder about what is and isn’t lawful - we’re all just genius apes really so don’t take offence to being so easily manipulated by mere visual prompt.
It totally depends on the facts of the case of course and the situation is hard to compare because bringing an assault weapon on the scene would be prohibited in the Netherlands anyway. If, resulting from that action, you find yourself in mortal peril, yes then your self defense justification would probably not fly. I think it is also probable in the US though, not in this case perhaps but in others it is. Say a man was raping your wife. You come to her rescue with a lead pipe and the assailant, fearing for his life because of your imminent attack shoots you. Than the asailant is in credible fear of his life, though his justification of self defense will not fly because he acted wrongful in the first place. So indeed not every defense out ot fear of your life being taken is a valid justification.
A key difference is that, in your analogy, an actual crime is being committed by the rapist, whereas the attempts to disarm R were to mitigate the threat of a crime, one which, in the end, R would be found not guilty of anyway due to staggering and wilful cognitive dissonance.
Well, in the scenario I outline (of which I do not know whether it was the prosecutors take) all hangs on whether the defendant had a right to be there at that point with that weapon. A rapist does not, so far is clear. I think it is found in the R. case that he had. If that was the case than an attempt at disarming r. is unlawful and constitutes an attack on his person from which he has the right to defend himself.
Therefore all hangs on the qualification of his behaviour prior to the shooting, i.e., being there with that weapon. The first job of the prosecutors would be, in the strat. I put forward to argue he provoked the attack by hsi wanton behaviour, or if recklessness is the category, that he acted reckless by being there with that weapon at that time. That would be known under Dutch law as 'culpa in causa', being guilty of having a hand in the tragic situaton occurring. I do agree with some of the others that the prosecutor's job is a hard one. We can not look in the defendent's mind and his political views do not matter in a court of law. We only know something about the outward manifestation of his state of mind. It being legal in Wisconsin to carry fire arms, even those kinds, to scene's of conflict does not make it easier.
Another strat. indeed would be to argue that the protesters acted in legitimate self defense. If they did than the defendent's claim would not fly. However, it is not easy I guess to make that claim because one would have to prove that they faced an iminent unlawful attack. So the defendent's behaviour must make it credible that he was about to shoot the protesters.
Another line would be to argue the proportionality of the violence. Was he much heavier armed than the protesters and could he have avoided the situation with lesser means. these are known as the proportionality and subsidiarity principles under Dutch criminal doctrine. Self defense has to be proportionate to be justified. I.e., being threated with a potato peeler doed not justify emptying your revolver and there must not be other means available, including flight. Since it was not difficult for him not to be there in the first place, his self defense claim would already run into potential difficulties there. However I gather the law of the state of Wisconsin is different.
Precisely the cognitive dissonance at play. R's third victim was a paramedic trying to attend to R's second victim. The paramedic was armed, believed (rightly) R to be an active shooter, and had good reason to draw his gun faced with a still-armed shooter. R's involvement was voluntary, both the general danger he put himself in by confronting a race protest with an automatic rifle and the specific danger he put himself in by shooting those who attempted to disarm him when peaceful alternatives were available.
However the judge instructed the jury to consider only R's testimony about the danger he was in, and not that he put himself in that danger, or the very real and terminal danger he put others in first.
Expressed views do influence the interpretation of the outward manifestation of someone's state of mind.
So the paramedic was just like Rittenhouse. He wasn't supposed to be armed and he shouldn't have gone in to give aid until the scene was secured. That's basic paramedic procedure.
The paramedic?
If R had only pointed his weapon at an active shooter and was there to give medical aid, yeah exactly the same.
That was the paramedic.
I meant they were the same in that they both contributed to the potential for disaster in the same way: rushing toward a volatile situation with a firearm.
It's good to hear that somebody didn't die. That's very encouraging.
Shittenhouse's only regret.
Three fourths of the time.
Not in every instance. Rittenhouse was running away danger and going to the police (in this specific instance a mob actively trying to stop him - someone shouting "you're gonna die!"). The other took out his gun and rushed in. He was apparently concerned for Rittenhouse and knew he was going to he police - maybe he was. I wouldn't call going to the protest in the first place 'rushing toward a volatile situation'.
Gauge also admits that Rittenhouse didn't shoot until he had his handgun pointed at him. He also states that he pointed his gun at him before Rittenhouse fired. He claims that he thought Rittenhouse tried to shoot him when he had his hands raised but then needed to reload. Maybe he did think that.
This isn't even remotely close to anyone's testimony.
Rittenhouse just barely missed getting a Darwin Award. :grimace:
Now he's Simba on his way to Musafa. GOP Representatives want to hire him as an intern and he's hailed as a hero among the right wing. I guess that is how Darwin works. The left might take note.
A hero or a martyr to the right depending on the verdict. Lose-lose I suppose.
:100: And passing on his mother's genes, either way.
It’s a funny video, and quite apt. There is something addictive about owning and firing guns. I suppose it could resemble an epidemic in a way, but when the satire comes from a people who require strict paternal supervision when it comes to such weaponry, it falls a bit flat in my eyes.
First off, R was running away from the group chasing him, and stopped running to shoot one of them. So they chased him again. The person he shot was unarmed.
R ran into a crowd but word spread that he'd murdered someone, and he was chased by another unarmed man who struck him to the ground. R murdered that unarmed guy too.
The only armed person who confronted R was the paramedic trying to attend to his second victim, who correctly believed R to be an active shooter.
Your version of events isn't remotely in line with the facts.
If they'd left him alone a tragedy might have been averted.
edit: the last remark was a snipe at the jury system, not anyone at the forum.
Or maybe they averted a greater tragedy.
It’s true, high murder rates are not a good thing, but neither is a monopoly on violence, the inability to equalize force, the inability to defend one’s property, an so on. At each step, from the shooting of Jason Blake onward, the professionals failed in Wisconsin. Frankly, I would much rather take my chances.
Anything and everything you say here I cannot trust and I don’t think anyone else should either if they are trying to view this case with balance and reason.
Instances:Quoting Kenosha Kid
Well, no. I was referring to the instance of Gauge because that was what was specifically being talked about.
Yes, he was being chased. Why? He slowly and pointed his gun to deter the first person. They kept on coming at him. In fact they got right up to him before he fired. There was also a gunshot fired from behind the guy running at him before Rittenhouse fired.
Yes, the guy was unarmed. Also, he was threatening to kill Rittenhouse and charging him without any indication that he was going to stop. To repeat he didn’t fire until he was directly upon him. Given his state of mind. Running headlong at someone armed with a rifle during a protest (a protest where a small minority of people were throwing rocks at the police and setting fire to dumpsters and smashing property: added to show the potential volatility of the situation). It doesn’t take much to view - in R’s situation - the actions of someone running directly at him, vocally threatening to kill him, not ceasing to pursue after he had had a gun pointed at him, and getting to within reach of the rifle as an immanent threat to his life.
We can certainly question if the guy threatening to kill him meant it. In rage and adrenaline fuelled situations where a complete stranger is involved and openly threatens to kill you, runs at you, and follows when you run away, it isn’t a massive stretch to think that if such a person got hold of your gun he’d turn it on you. Maybe he wouldn’t have, perhaps the chances that he would’ve shot Rittenhouse or ‘craniumed’ him were small. Who really put themselves into an extremely dangerous and fatal situation? Rittenhouse by simply ‘being there’ like many others or someone, unarmed, running after someone with a gun and openly threatening to kill them?
If Rittenhouse had been shot and killed it would’ve been murder. The reason Rittenhouse wasn’t charged with murder is because it wasn’t murder in the eyes of the law. Nor was it against the law for him to openly carry the weapon he was carrying. Nor was it against the law for him to walk around in the street practically alone in those circumstances (it was damn stupid though).
If we look at this as someone willingly running into an situation were their life was in immediate and severe danger and were to ask which person was doing this in this situation it is a no brainer. Was the force used excessive? There is certainly a case there as firing four shots a point blank range clearly sounds excessive. The only real defence here is that he was fearing for his life and panicked.
Excessive force is a point to argue here as far as I can see. The fact that he shot the guy in self defence would be much stronger if he’d merely fired one shot.
Maybe Rittenhouse and fellows had planned this out? Seems unlikely. Maybe they had talked about it and wanted to shoot some people they viewed as reprehensible? Speculation is mere speculation though. When speculation is cast as ‘evidence’ there is a problem.
Next part of the ‘false narrative’ I gained from actually watching the trial.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You’re omitting what you referred to as a ‘false narrative’. If you actually listen to Gauge’s account - and his phone recording - Gauge asks Rittenhouse where he is going (after he had shot the first person). Rittenhouse said he was going to the police and ran towards the police as a ‘mob’ was beginning to form and people were starting to shout “get him!” and someone said “Cranium him!” (Gauge himself heard the ‘get him threats and said this on the stand as well as saying that after reviewing recordings he had also heard ‘cranium him’ shouted). In the video played in caught you can hear while Rittenhouse is on the ground someone shout “you’re gonna die!”.
You’re also making this sound like it was one or two people pursuing him by saying ‘he was chased by another unarmed man who struck him to the ground’ which doesn’t account for the group of people pursuing him and he wasn’t ‘struck to the ground’ by the unarmed man. This is just wrong.
What happened - and what was actually shown in court - was a group was pursuing him, throwing rocks and had hit him to the point where he fell down. Gauge from 30 feet away (by his estimation) then said he wanted to help Rittenhouse so he took his gun out of his belt and ran to catch up with Rittenhouse with gun in hand. Gauge saw Jump-kick man but didn’t see the actual jump kick only this person ‘going over Rittenhouse’ is how he put it I think?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
He wasn’t trying to get to the second person who was shot. That is simply wrong. Gauge said he was concerned for Rittenhouse’s safety due to head trauma (as he had been hit in the head with rock/s and a skateboard). As I said before once he was close to Rittenhouse with his gun in hand he raised his hands when Rittenhouse pointed his rifle at him. Now here is where Gauge believed Rittenhouse had tried to shoot him even when he’d raised his hands as he then tried to reload his weapon. Gauge says he viewed this as he had pulled the trigger and nothing happened so he then reloaded. Gauge then says this is the reason he closed the space between himself and Rittenhouse. As Gauge moved towards Rittenhouse he ended up in a position where his gun was pointing at Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse fired when Gauge’s gun was pointed at him (and Gauge confirmed this openly in court).
All in all it is quite quite silly to say:
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I did actually go back and review Gauge’s account to see if I’d made some error. Other than not being explicit that I was talking about Gauge (who didn’t know what had happened with the first four shots fired and says so in court) I think it is untrue to say my brief remarks are a ‘fiction’ when you then go on to say things yourself that are misguided in terms of giving a clear account of what happened.
To repeat, the evidence is available online. Anyone can watch the trial and the actual account of the witnesses on the stand. I have a feeling, like many others, you haven’t done this and are relying on secondhand accounts of people who say they have reviewed the trial. I have not watched it all, but I have watched enough to know that what I have said and what I am saying now isn’t a ‘fiction’.
Some things I do not know about are the accounts of rocks being thrown and hitting Rittenhouse. I also unsure about accounts of Rittenhouse being hit by the skateboard prior to being on the ground? Both Gauge and Rittenhouse said things in the heat of the moment they don’t fully recall - not surprising given the situation.
That Rittenhouse said the first person he shot had a gun (to Gauge And/or other/s) was clearly untrue, possibly a lie, but he said he didn’t recall saying this and admitted he never saw a gun nor thought he saw a gun. My memory is hazy here (watched Rittenhouse’s account not long after he gave it) as he may have said he suspected he had a hand gun? I don’t believe he did though but the prosecution or defence had posed this question?
How does this tie into my first account posted here? You can look back and tell me if you wish. My first brief account (the one Proof responded to) was a very brief account that I posted just to make sure people knew what had happened and to see who hadn’t bothered to watch witnesses accounts or listen the evidence.
I hope the gun laws in the US are reviewed and changed. I don’t think they will be before the country splits though. I do think the US will split and I hope it does in some form or another and in a peaceful manner. If that happens it will be a glorious thing as the age old paradigm of revolution=war will hold less weight and perhaps other nations will follow suit and the common folk of the world will actually gain more control over their lives in terms of their relationship with governing bodies.
No doubt you are probably asking why I am interested in this trial. It is because I believe what I said in the previous paragraph will happen within my life time and that I expecting a parade of extreme and counterproductive views to be espoused so it would be useful to actually know what the case involved and what evidence there was.
So... do you have a job?
Often such accounts have agendas as people usually have agendas to push especially when the topic involves controversial items such as firearms in the US and protests.
My agenda is to curb the extreme points of view and simply make clear what happened. I think people carrying guns around is ridiculous but that is the law and the US is nothing like where I live or where I am from. I've stated this already as a point that clouds my judgement when reviewing things that happen in the US that would never happen where I am from in the same way due to the laws being different and people not really seeing carrying a gun as a matter of 'personal safety'.
My dad use dot visit the US regularly and one of the people he meet up with regularly asked him how he could feel safe NOT carrying a gun. The interesting thing is some people do carry guns because it makes them feel safe - strange as that may seem to others (including myself). What is more they find it incredible that others don't feel the way they feel.
Humans are weird.
The law has it's own agenda. There is a metric shit ton of facts and video that did not make it before the jury. If you are interested in facts, then you'd have to be really myopic to limit your review to the scope permitted by that judge. Even if he was four-square with the law, that says nothing about the facts. Your alleged desire to understand the greater social considerations in the U.S. regarding guns will be sorely wanting if you don't understand anything about who shot who with what under what circumstances that gave rise to the protests which fell on deaf ears which then resulted in riots, and then, finally, the shooting you are discussing.
But yeah, when considering the "Rittenhouse verdict", feel free to limit your review to what the judge told the jury they had to limit their review to. Ignore all the centuries of systemic racism that preceded it, not to mention the 7 shots fired into the back of a guy that could have been manhandled to the ground, and all that followed.
BLM.
Relative myopia. Show me this evidence then. Maybe I made a mistake in assuming that the trial offered up a large enough body of evidence relevant enough. I'm happy to listen and learn about other sources that would've changed the outcome of the trial.
Google is your friend.
I found something that basically agreed with what I said about 'unreasonable force':
“I think the prosecution could have just charged that second-degree homicide with the mitigating factor that he thought he was entitled to use self-defense, but that his use of force was unreasonable,” Gross continued. “Ultimately, that was the prosecution’s burden and they could not meet that burden.”
https://nypost.com/2021/11/19/experts-on-what-went-wrong-for-prosecution-in-rittenhouse-trial/
I cannot see anything yet that immediately refers to evidence that would've changed the outcome of the trial in favour of the prosecution but there are items in favour of the defence.
Yeah, you had to look harder to actually get the trial transcripts than you will to find all the facts omitted from the trial. Assuming the prosecutor was even trying, he was hog tied by the judge.
Quoting I like sushi
Yeah, beware of confirmation bias. Keep looking. Take a few days.
If there is so much evidence then just point some out for me. Is that too much to ask? You asked me to google search so what words do I need to put in to find what you are referring to?
I'll trying with 'evidence omitted from Rittenhouse trial' now ...
https://www.wuwm.com/2021-11-22/discussing-the-implications-of-rittenhouse-trial
and this:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/blow-up-at-rittenhouse-trial-over-enlarging-photos-and-video-1.5663622
Which I did actually know about having watched the live recording of the trial. I watched practically all of Rittenhouse's account and Gauge's account. If I missed something else where feel free to tell me exactly what. I'd like to know.
Here, you can have this as an "LOOK! This guy cannot be bothered!" statement. Here it comes ...
I googled and found nothing substantial. You said there is a 'metric shit ton' of evidence. I have asked for links and cannot find anything substantial. I have also asked what exactly I should type into the search engine to get the results you won't tell me about.
I spent time (hours) watching the accounts of the persons mentioned above (both now more than twice, but admittedly not in there entirety - you can cry out about that if it serves you). I am not going to spend time looking for evidence you say exists but are not willing to share. Apparently you are referring to the 'transcripts' so you will understand that if I watched the live recording of their accounts I will have heard what the judge protested about. If there were details NOT recorded what was said, what evidence was omitted and why would it change the outcome of the trial?
I understand that it is easier to paint me as ignorant and unwilling if you wish to but that isn't likely to hold up if you yourself are willing to point to some items, from an apparent 'metric shit ton,' that should cause me to review the acts played out as they did.
I remember the prosecution trying to show 'threat' and make out Rittenhouse was pointing his gun at people to intimidate them. There are claims and tenuous evidence that he did point his gun at some people. That is literally the only thing I can see that you might be referring to from the searches? Let's say he did briefly point his weapon at some people. It that a justifiable reason to run at him and try and wrestle the gun from him and say you want to kill him. Provocation? Something there slightly at best. It would be more substantial if there was some dialogue involved and action (walking towards someone with gun and/or stopping to exchange words). But I haven't seen this shown in the evidence. Was there some evidence that didn't make it into the trial that showed this explicitly or otherwise?
It goes on and on. I can't believe you can't find anything. Maybe that's because you still have your head stuck in the trial. FUCK the trial. Focus on what happened before, during and after the shooting; not just the shooting. I'll do your job for you on two only:
Google "get some". Who said "get some" to who?
Check this out: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/29/fact-check-video-police-thanked-kyle-rittenhouse-gave-him-water/5661804002/
The reason I'm not giving you more is because I'm not going to go down a rabbit hole with someone who's mind is made up; confirmation bias, like talking to anti-vaxxers about science. They have a spin and denial and a nit pic for everything. They are confirmation bias idiots. And so is anyone who limited their scope of review to the the mental state of R in the nanno-second before he pulled the trigger.
Maybe as a non-American you don't understand or what to understand the context. Context is everything. That is why context was not allow in the trial. Let me simplify it for youL
If the mental state of the shooter in the moment of pulling the trigger is all that mattered in a self-defense claim, then Travis McMichael would have been found not guilty. If you don't know who he is, or what happened in the one or two seconds before he pulled the trigger, then you don't know BLM and context.
But you go ahead and keep justifying the trial judge and the cops. Just like an anti-vaxxer. Ignore context and facts that don't fit your narrative.
You're not gonna get off scot-free with that metric shit ton you pulled. lol. :smile:
If I was charged in WI and had that judge I would.
Everyone with their eyes open saw it. Not the jury. Thanks to the judge and a questionable prosecution.
You think that is fair statement I guess. It precisely these kind of reactionary accusations I hoped to avoid rather than things to turn into 'You're just biased/stupid or whatever'.
My bias is that I think carrying guns around for safety is ridiculous and that US laws in this area are pretty messed up.
I will look for sure. Thanks for having a little faith in humanity :) It doesn't hurt to inform other about information when they are asking for it after failing to find anything much.
Quoting James Riley
I genuinely couldn't. I looked at the trial and accounts from Gauge and Rittenhouse because that seemed like a sensible place to start to get evidence from. I wouldn't call that an error.
Any law that allows a 17 yr old to run around the streets with a rifle is crazy imo. The law is the law though and my bias is (to repeat) that I think carrying guns around is not the norm in my life experience (even for police). The US is the US though.
The 'get some Rittenhouse' shows nothing atm but I'll look later.
Anyway, will look into this 'get some' comment and see if I can find anything given you're unwilling to simply offer a link to it and it doesn't appear in my google bubble.
I am just asking for evidence. You've shown me nothing new to date just hinted that I missed something. You said 'FUCK the trial' (incorrect you didn't @James Riley did) but do you not find this telling that the things you linked were in the parts of the trial I watched? Maybe, just maybe, you didn't watch more than 2-3 minutes of it out of context to the whole? I certainly admit, and have admitted, to only watching a few hours where Rittenhouse and Gauge give their accounts. It feels a bit like you are suggesting I shouldn't have watched the trial at all and tried to inform myself. Instead, correct me if I'm wrong, you want me shout out that Rittenhouse is a racist and murderer and went out that night to shoot black people and/or people supporting BLM.
The context that matters is running at someone who has a gun and who you've threatened to kill - who is actively trying to get away from you - and this person then raises his weapon to stop your approach, yet you just slow a little then keep running at them .. well, it is asking for trouble. As for Rittenhouse simply being where he was at the time, yeah, I can say he was 'asking for trouble' too but to a far lesser degree. Simply carrying a weapon - in the context of what had happened previously and what led to the protests - doesn't effect the way the law is carried out. The protests were in reaction to the police using excessive force and worthy protests. They were not protests about people (members of the public) owning firearms. If he took his gun to an anti-gun rally and mingled with the crowds then we have an entirely different context. Yeah, context matters.
IN context to Jacob Blake the law (which exists whether you like it or not) does give police officers WAY too much immunity IMO. I am not going to argue that at all. Nor am I going to argue that there are hundreds of cases showing how even police officers don't really know the law and act in a manner that is baffling.
For reason 'excessive force' is something the police are allowed to use if there is even a slight suggestion of a slight threat to them. It is dumb. The problem is in the way the laws are written and interpreted.
Nothing I have said here has been in defense of anyone. I have merely attempted to report what happened in the trial of Rittenhouse without bleeding it into the reasons for the protests and vandalism.
There was vandalism and there were protests. I know that. Why people were out there is not massively important as it bears no significant context to whether Rittenhouse shot people out of an intent to kill or an intent to protect himself. The general view seems to be exactly what mine was. He should've been charged with a lesser charge because the evidence (as the law works over there) wasn't nearly enough to expect an outcome other than what happened.
We can certainly question the WHY the charges laid out were the charges laid out. Use of excessive force would've protected a police officer in his situation - no doubt at all because the law biases police officers from what I've learnt - but he wasn't a police officer so shooting someone FOUR times even in quick succession would be the most obvious point to focus on when it came to prosecuting.
Why didn't that happen? Could it be because there was public pressure through social media with people like yourself screaming murderer and the prosecution acting far too quickly? Or could it be due to some conspiracy to have him acquitted of all charges to bolster some pro-weapons ambition of the government? Or could it have been in order to show that this guy can shoot people and get away with it as a message to any civil disorder as BAD unless the police say otherwise?
We can speculate ALL these things and discuss it. We cannot claim the evidence in the trial is somehow biased because evidence isn't biased. We can profess that some evidence was missed out or that there is new evidence. If we cannot show such evidence and rely on someone saying there is 'a metric shit ton' alone then I think we need to check ourselves. I even took the 'metric shit ton' seriously (and maybe there is?), but if there are piece of evidence out there that could have effected this case then you need to present it not simply say it is there. I even tried to look for it and didn't find anything much, and the one piece you linked referred to something I heard in the trial (Rittenhouse's account when probed by the prosecution).
I'm not really hoping to reach you anymore tbh but hope that some of this will be read by others here and that they may think twice about blindly accusing someone of something when they've only seen pieces of evidence. I am willing to admit that there are possibly huge pieces of evidence relating to this case that I didn't see/hear in the few hours I've watched.
Overall the whole thing was a mess. It will continue to be a mess until the next time someone gets shot in the US (likely a few seconds/minutes ago) and then continue to be a mess again in a slightly different way. Eventually maybe things will turn around for the better if people keep protesting or making their voices heard in some other way.
NOTE : I made an error in confusing what James said with what you said. mistakes happen. They don't need to be covered up though.
Of course a monopoly on violence is a good thing. The ability to equalize force... as if that's gonna happen. A bunch of trained professionals will always outgun the untrained masses wielding AR rifles, not to mention their access to truly heavy weaponry such as tanks and armored vehicles. Defending one's own property... nahh, ridiculously inefficient. A. Most people do not even have property worth defending B. Allowing everyone guns just ups the ante because also your attackers will be armed as well. and C. isn't defense of public order and property not a public good? We pay something called taxes (maybe you should look up the concept) and pay it to the government in order to arrange for cetralized property defense. Much more efficient then everyone trying to build their own little fortress and with less chances for error. "Ohhh golly, I thought he was tresspassing, I did not know he sold bibles! sorry for the holes in your head".
Really NOS you are not a stupid guy, but your ideology is so incredibly erroneous, down from its metaphysics up to its practical results, You must be a masochist to defend it. Libertarians are just hopeless romantics I guess.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
How so? Because I don't mention Mr. Blake? You're not making sense anymore so I'll just leave it at that for now if you have nothing of substance to offer other than 'look online'.
Perhaps you'd have a better idea if you had taken the time to watch the witness accounts (both Rittenhouse and Gauge). There is no way you have and refute what I said today as it was a blow by blow account from re-viewing the account of Gauge.
I merely interjected a page or two back to add detail to something Frank said (cannot even recall what it was?) and you or some other person jumped in and pointed out a mistake I had made (I think?) because I hadn't looked at the evidence for a while and confused who the paramedic was with someone else other than Gauge.
To make sure I didn't say anything misleading I reviewed Gauge's account and then gave it - it was not 'invented'.
That was the mistake^^ Are you saying this is a 'fiction'? I am happy to provide time marks and links to the live recording if that will help assure you?
List everything I said you view as 'fiction' and I'll post link to video here with appropriate time stamps to each instance. I am willing and able to do the work if you cannot. No problem. This might sound like I am trying to be annoying but all I am doing is trying not to show something false and correct mistakes if I see them.
As a general principle, it is NOT the law that a person could do what Rittenhouse did. What Rittenhouse did, and your myopic focus on the trial about what he did, is an aberration. It is NOT par for the course in the U.S. for people to do what Rittenhouse did. It is NOT normal for a trial to be conducted the way it was. But none of that is the point.
The point is:
1. It is NOT normal for law enforcement to conduct themselves they way they did in relation to Rittenhouse, before and after the shooting. It is NOT normal for law enforcement to allow a boy to walk around with an AR at port arms, especially on public rights-of-way (i.e. not private property or his own property) in the lead-up to a protest/riot. It's NOT normal for law enforcement to direct such people, unchallenged, to aid stations. It is NOT normal for law enforcement to tell such people to go "get some" in the lead up to a protest/riot that the police were there to address. It is NOT normal for law enforcement to buddy up with strangers from out of town conducting themselves as Rittenhouse did, EVEN IF (and especially if) law enforcement is a bunch of unsophisticated Barny Fifes. And it is NOT normal for anyone (you) to say the evidence of all that is not "substantial" or for anyone to pretend they can't find it. (It is normal on the internet generally, however, to ask for proof, receive it, and then pivot. In this case it would be your subjective finding that the proof was not "substantial." I'm not going to play that game).
2. Notwithstanding the fact that #1 is true, and the aberration occurred anyway, there is no fucking way in hell that it would occur with a 17 year old black kid. But then you'd have to have a clue about the whole reason anyone at all was there in the first place. You don't have a clue because your myopic view is locked on the myopic, aberrant trial. A similarly situated black kid would have been shot down immediately, with little or no warning, at first sight, or, at the very least, he would have received the face-plant in the asphalt and a knee on the neck.
Now I don't for one second believe your allegedly innocent curiosity. I don't care if you're not from around here. You have all the innocent desire to inform yourself here as Rittenhouse had to help out that night. You have all the innocent desire to inform yourself here as the prosecution had of winning. You have all the innocent desire to inform yourself here as the judge had in seeing justice.
The OP by was spot-the-fuck-on. :100: :fire:
Anyway, I'm going to cede the floor to you. I don't want to play into what I perceive as faux concern and curiosity.
I’ll just say that there is a fine line between efficiency on the one hand and laziness and ignorance on the other. You would rather delegate the right to bear arms and to defend yourself to other people. You don’t know where your tax money is spent—out of sight, out of mind—but are confident authority will spend it on some “public good”. Your sense of justice has been reduced to strict legalism. In short, Tobias, your ideology is servile and unjust and immoral.
But again, thanks for the funny video.
Well, what woudl be an indicator of ignorance? Hard to pick, but say, literacy rates. And lo and behold, you are right there literacy levels or so much higher in the US than in the Netherlands. Ohh... they aren't? Could have fooled me. Ohh that is right because we use tax money to fund education.
Compare these two reports:
https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/Country%20note%20-%20United%20States.pdf
https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/Country%20note%20-%20Netherlands.pdf
Quoting NOS4A2
One does not have a right to bear arms granted by nature. And yes, I think allocating the defense of my rights to others is indeed practical. Just like I delegate my right to bake bread to others and my right to search for clean drinking water.
Quoting NOS4A2
Well, not always. We have our problems with the tax service. However we also have reasonably transparent instritutions and a judicial system that is in general open. The Netherlands is a rather pleasurable country to live in, our infrastructure is not crumbling, so indeed, I think it is reasonably well spent most of the time. What is true is that most of our European defense is borrowed from the US which is an Achilles heel. In general though yes the distribution of public goods is of a high quality.
Quoting NOS4A2
Huh? Where does that come from? Can someone explain to me what NOS means? In any case, if not I just point out the non-sequitur and let it rest.
Quoting NOS4A2
Who am I serving? I feel the creation of public goods is not servile. It is called working together. And yes, working together is usually more efficient when coordinated through the media of well ordered institutions, with democratic checks and balances. I thought that was what countries were ideally made of. To what standard of justice is that ideology unjust or immoral?
It was only a criticism of the idea that by paying tax dollars you are somehow working with others, coordinating your defence. That’s not the case, to me. It appears more like ignorance, in the sense of “not knowing”. Since one is unable to follow his tax-dollars to their final destination, so he is unable to say he is coordinating education, a police force, or the toilet paper in a public washrooms. Far from coordination, he is ignorant of it, and has no say in all coordinating aspects of its application.
Some would rather delegate the responsibilities and the means for their defence on to others, to “professionals”. So in times when defence is required, he has long absolved himself of any responsibility and can let others handle it for him. Far from efficient, it’s laziness. It isn't without irony that we find a dutch John Oliver ridiculing Americans and their guns while benefiting from the liberation and defence of American firepower.
And since they confer their responsibilities to the state, they correspondingly confer it the power to govern their own lives. The monopoly on violence hints at who is serving whom.
I used legalism in the pejorative sense. I mean that ethics is dismissed in favor of appeals to law and authority. Law shapes the "mindset of the people", rather the other way about. I fear we cannot discuss the ethics of defending oneself from a mob or a right to bear arms without limiting ourselves to state-sanctioned principles, many of which are younger than the disco era.
The point, anyways, was that in the view of my erroneous ideology I have yet to see anything better on offer.
Hilarious. I'm just glad I wasn't drinking anything while watching. Probably would have ruined my keyboard. John Oliver has done stories on the NRA but he mixes humor and being informative.
Well, that is the case you are working with others. everyone pays taxes so everyone chips in to a pool of resources which are then use to facilitate the creation of public good. It is a simple reduction of transaction costs because if you would have to contract and negotiate with everyone individually it would cost you enormous time and resources. In addition somehow you will have to deal with the problem of free riders, a notorious economic conundrum when it comes to the creation of pubic goods.
Of course, you do not know everything that happens to your tax dollars. However, that is a situation we are in since the onset of modern society. You do not know what happens to your tax dollars, but also not what technology corporations install in your mobilie phones, or god forbid, in coronav accines or in basically everything we use for modern living. It always requires a leap of faith scary though it may be.
Quoting NOS4A2
Well, actually in every naton state we delegate the defense against foreign invasion to professionals. And no that not necessarily absolves you from responsibility as you may be indeed drafted into the army in times of acute crisis. That is another civic duty coordinated by the state and for good reason. If every hamlet had to organise their own defense force and negotiate procedures with every other hamlet, your country would not last long. Yes, the Netherlands has benefitted and still benefits from US firepower and - aside - when the US complains about the Eruopean countries not pulling their fair weight they are right! However that oly goes to show how tenacious the problem of collective action is. As Tin Wood pointed out, it simply has nothing to do with gun laws since the US army would be equally strong if there was no second amendment.
Quoting NOS4A2
Well in a democratic state we both serve and are being served. That is the reason why democracy demands people having votes and being eligible for political functions. I am not working in the sevice of the Dutch state. Well in some sense I am, but everyone that is employed in education in the Netherlands is. The point is trivial, I could just as well say the state is serving me because it basically pays me to think.
Quoting NOS4A2
Still, I have no idea why you attrribute this view to me. I think the point of view is eminently ethical in as far as it takes the relationships with other people into account. The libertarian ideology, at least in the variation you espouse, seems to do no such thing. Instead it believes in some God given rights. Also it is not the case that law shapes the mindset of the people but comes out of thin air itself. It is actually also shaped by the mindset of the people as well as by other things, like technological development. Law is, here it is again, a social practice. The problem is in your world view there is no accounting for that, therefore law must come out of nowhere. Like your right to bear arms seems to come out of nowhere. Your view though leads to that absurd assumption though, not mine.
Quoting NOS4A2
Well, NOS, you live in something better, the lord be praised! No society holds on to your ideology as it would revert us back to the stone age. Look around you at all the things tax money got you. Just for one minute comtemplate the traffic light and consider what a boon it is that central planners have limited your freedom and that of everyone else on the intricate system of roads we have...
Did R deserve to be chased down by a mob and assaulted?
It's not a matter of what someone deserved. It's a matter of do you have the right to defend yourself from being killed?
And the answer to that question as offered up so often in this thread is sometimes you have and sometimes you do not.
This doesn't tell me anything useful. What are the circumstances in which it is OK to defend yourself vs not being OK to defend yourself?
It seems to me that if you have the right to life, liberty and happiness, then you have the right to defend yourself from others trying to take these things away from you.
Well now Harry, think, think.... what could those circumstances be.... Ohh I know. Say you are in the process of brutally raping my wife, choking her (I am divorced by the way, but that's beside the point, it is not a real scenario, but a hypothetical you see) and I come to her rescue wielding a lead pipe. You out of fear for your life stab me in the eye with the long hair pin conveniently located on my wive's night stand. The pin penetrates my eyeball, enters the brain which sibsequently causes my legs to quake and I collapse to the floor.... dead!
Now, witness hwat happens in court... You get convicted for manslaughter (non-premeditated murder) or even felony murder. So no, unfortunately Harry you did not have the right of self defense in that situation.
By the way, it is not my duty to tell you anything useful. You frame it as a demand, but normally I get paid to provide legal education. You could have found this information in the thread.
Then your position is that all rapists deserve to be killed by their victim's (X-)husband?
Quoting Tobias Strange that you interpret a factual statement as a demand. Maybe the information in this thread is inaccurate, biased, or doesn't take into consideration all facts that have been given. There is no problem in asking questions. You didn't have to answer.
Not al all, nor is that an implication of my position
Quoting Harry Hindu
That is true. There is useful information though in this thread, also addressing your questions. Well, any information on a philosophy forum, might be inaccurate of biased ;). Anyway sorry if I came off as harsh, but I reacted to not telling anything useful. Of course you may always ask questions, fair enough.
I would find that very hard to belief. Self defense generally requires defense against an imminent and unlawful attack. Me rescuing my wife is in fact defense of others, his counter reaction therefore is not a response against an unlawful attack. The terminology might be diifferent but unless I see it I hold on what I have learned from Fletcher''Rethinking Criminal Law', a great theorist from whom I learned what I know of anglo/American criminal law and of course from my dear colleague, a US lawyer who taught together with me in Amsterdam .
But well, maybe in the US they construct it through provocation, but with their strict felony murder rule I think you would be hard pressed as a lawyer when you are on the rapist's team.
Quoting Tobias
Quoting I like sushi
First, how does the husband know that his wife is being raped and not a masochist cheating on her husband?
It seems obvious that in the act of committing a violent act, you have no right to defense from others trying to stop your violent act.
The fact that this example is being used in a thread which has nothing to do with the Rittenhouse case or circumstances is an example of a red herring.
That was my point. I don’t know exact ins and outs and it seems to vary from state to state.
I was simply stating in regards to the hypothetical.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Laws and interpretations of the law vary from place to place.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Possibly? Don’t know. Just stating what I have picked up from Rittenhouse case about how ‘provocation’ plays into how people are charged/convicted from state to state.
Not at all, you asked a theoretical question (is defending yourself from being killed always justified) and I am giving you a theoretical answer through an excample. It is indeed not always justified.
Moreover, you are changing the hypothetica, in that case it would be putative self defense of the part of the husband, but it is of no concern since that was not the point of the hypothetical.
A more accurate scenario would be if you and the X went to a BLM protest, saw Harry, a weird teenage kid wielding an assault rifle, and chased after him in a threatening manner with the intent of disarming him, and perhaps beating him up a bit for good measure.
A weird teenage kid once pulled out a rifle on me when I was a teen. I got the hell out of there because I knew he was stupid enough to use it, regardless of the consequences.
No, it is not a more accurate scenario because it is a much more muddled situation. I am not passing judgment on the Rittenhouse case, but merely illuminating a point of law about self defense. In between the extremes there is often an area with 50 shades of grey. The point that I was making is that it is not always the case that one may respond with defensive force in a life threatening situation. Not whether in this particular situation the defendent might have responded with defensive force.
Yours is appropriate for what Harry asked, I see. Nevermind! :blush:
Nice comeback!
That is correct and such concepts are hard to wrap your head around if you are not from that legal system. I find provocation a very elulusive concept. We do not have it in Dutch law, that expplains it. The theoretical problem for me is that provocation seems to provide an excuse, not a justification. There is a difference between the two. My conduct is understandable, because I am seeing my wife getting raped and that causes a fit of rage or overwhelming desire to free her. I am being rpovoked, and so mentally I am not culpable (no mens rea). Yet, on the objective side my conduct is than still wrong, not justified but excused. I would rather say that in such a situation my conduct is justified, because I fear for the life of my wife. I was in fact acting in lawful defense of others.
The difference in practice is this: if my conduct is merely excused than countervailing force might itself be justified, because my attack is not, it is merely excusable. If I am justified though, then automatically his counter attack is unjustified, because he responds to a lawful attack on my part, by killing me. However, I ffully acknowledge I am no expert when it comes to the rules on provocation. Moreover, US criminal law seems little concerned about the difference between justification and excuse, much to Fletcher's dismay.
The results are often very similar though and the hypothetical I gave isquite paradigmatic for conflicting self defense claims. As saidd, under US law it may also be settled via the felony murder law, every loss of life resulting from a felony is attributable to the one committing the felony (out of my head).