I got in a heated argument with someone I had always considered completely logical, pragmatic and non-partisan with the opinion that Kyle Rittenhouse was an idiot vigilante that should never have left his home and gone to another city across state lines and thus is responsible for killing those two men.
I got in a heated argument with someone I had always considered completely logical, pragmatic and non-partisan with the opinion that Kyle Rittenhouse was an idiot vigilante that should never have left his home and gone to another city across state lines and thus is responsible for killing those two men.
I asked, "so if there is a violent mob threatening your community, looting small businesses, destroying property, burning down buildings, beating and killing people... you would just stay in your home and then what?"
He said "that mob was not threatening the shooter's community".
I responded that Kenosha is only a 18 minute drive from Antioch where Rittenhouse lives. And his dad lives in Kenosha. Kyle spent a lot of time in Kenosha and it is a community he identified with.
This person did not know this... and had been inflamed by his media feeds to see Rittenhouse as some dangerous wannabee super hero.
The corporate media is toxic and dangerous and needs to be ripped out from the roots and replanted.
I'm ashamed to admit that I was once a journalist at a major newspaper and I fully agree that the corporate media are toxic and dangerous. I'll add emphasis to that "dangerous" at this sorry stage.
With the Rittenhouse story the media appear to have reached peak falsehood, and that's saying a lot given their record over the past five years or so. The problem is they're desperate for revenue and have discovered what Facebook has elevated to a science, the practice of deliberately skewing content to generate a maximum of public anger while willfully refusing to explore or expose the facts or truth of a situation.
Negative emotions are far more powerful than positive reinforcements, and that's the key to hooking audiences and boosting profit margins. This is their sole objective. Now in the absence of Donald Trump, media need a fresh focus of outrage, and the Rittenhouse trial is prime subject matter. My guess is that media figures are hoping for acquittal so their various personalities and pundits can preen and point to the largely fictional horrors of white supremacy while covering still more "mostly peaceful" protests with block after block of buildings burning in the background.
What happened to journalistic ethics and integrity? If we look at all professions... there is always a drive to make more money... but not by any means outside of the guideposts of professional conduct. Maybe we need some body of journalistic certification that sanctions those that do this... just like for medical professionals, engineers and attorneys.
The industry of news media is destroying itself. There seems to be no counter to this degradation of method for creating and then exploiting conflicts to farm clicks and likes.
Same here. I got into a discussion with a friend after the judge dropped the weapon charges. This person started saying the kid drove for hours to get to the city. He carried the gun with him. Blah, blah, blah. Carefully cultivated and curated news is dangerous to our culture. But, this friend does know Fox is evil and they create conspiracy theories that rubes like me fall for, all the time. sigh.
Rittenhouse's folks are divorced; his dad and grandmother live in Kenosha, his job is in Kenosha. The whole media coverage is a despicable, contemptible sham.
If he is acquitted, I hope he hires the Covington student's legal team ...
They are silently thinking “with a gun” when they say that. Talking with a friend, I said I crossed state lines from the Canadian border all the way down to the Gulf on my last road trip and wasn't stopped once by anyone refusing to let me cross their line. He said, and he was serious, “well, I know in a lot of States where that would be illegal. Not every state, but aa lot of states”. Honest to God, he was serious. He was thinking “with a gun” even though he knows I don't have a gun, never owned one.
"I asked, "so if there is a violent mob threatening your community, looting small businesses, destroying property, burning down buildings, beating and killing people... you would just stay in your home and then what?"
Your comment encourages a person who is not a member of law enforcement to consider it their own responsibility to uphold the law in their neighborhood, who would be acting outside of legal authority, thereby taking the law into his or her own hands. Vigilantism describes a general state of chaos or lawlessness, where it's possible to have competing groups enforce what they perceive as law! Amazing!
"Vigilantism describes a general state of chaos or lawlessness, where it's possible to have competing groups enforce what they perceive as law! Amazing!"
Let's be clear here: Just me is stealing a base. Attempting to put out fires, protect property and protect ones own life is not "taking the law into [your] own hands" and it is not vigilantism.
Vigilantes are self appointed doers of justice- people who take it upon themselves to PUNISH crime. There is no evidence that Rittenhouse or anyone went to these places to punish crime. They went there to defend a community from being burnt to the ground. Just Me's attempt to paint Rittenhouse as some sort of Punnisher wannabe is the exact type of distortion that has created such a hot potato from this mess.
Your question is the right one. “Ya, what then?” The problem is the police have been stepping down in these situations for a year and a half now. The question is indeed “what then?”
This case may have a far reaching impact on the limits we are allowed to go to protect our property when the protective force within government won’t do so. I fear living in a nation where lawlessness is allowed to run rampant and its citizens are supposed to say “Thank you sir may I have another”.
The answer to your question is that the police MUST do their job to quell the violence (I.e “mostly peaceful protests in your lexicon). Absent that we will devolve into anarchy.
Get used to it. The more that violent riots that occur with corresponding law enforcement officers and city attorneys forbidden from arresting and prosecuting those rioters, the more citizens will act. Your side can't stop it by attempting to legally crucify such vigilantes.
When the cops are nowhere to be found, for whatever reason, eventually citizens will do what’s necessary to protect life and property. Is that hard to understand?
The quote is not mine. This man is much more well spoken than me. But appropriate to the conversation.
"William Jacobson (06:04): partial transcript on Chicago’s Morning Answer radio show with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson(no relation to the professor. Jocobson is a professor of law at Cornell Law School.)
I think it’s absolutely true. If you can’t defend yourself when someone’s beating you in the head with the skateboard, if you can’t defend yourself when they’re running at you while you’re on the ground and they lower their Glock pistol towards your head from three feet away, if you can’t defend yourself when someone who’s already that night threatened to kill you, if he caught you alone, and is now reaching for your gun, if you can’t defend yourself in those circumstances and the full weight of the state and the full weight of the media is going to come down on you, then we are in a really bad place.
And I think that’s why the left and the media, which are one in the same, has focused so heavily on this. They do not want people to be able to defend themselves. They want to defund the police. They want to let mobs run the streets and they don’t want citizens to be able to defend themselves. That’s what this case has become."
"Your comment encourages a person who is not a member of law enforcement to consider it their own responsibility to uphold the law in their neighborhood"
You are assuming you have a condition where law enforcement was doing their job. This is a situation where local law enforcement was told to allow people to burn and destroy. What is left, is "community policing". This is the sad result.
Rittenhouse was NOT enforcing the law, however, though he was trying to pose as a presence to limit how much damage would be done.
Are you genuinely saying you would stand by and watch a person be killed because it is not 'your responsibility'? You strongly imply that in your statement. Think about what that says about you as a person.
Well, it worked for the rooftop Koreans in south central LA during the 1992 Rodney King riots, didn't it? *Their* stores and businesses *didn't* burn to the ground.
Their taking up arms didn't create the general state of chaos and lawlessness that existed in their neighborhoods, the pre-existing general state of chaos and lawlessness is what created the need to take up arms to protect their property.
You tell falsehoods to further your narrative; Korean businesses were damaged. If you have a state of lawlessness, with chaos already existing, it's impossible to determine that the Koreans didn't contribute to, said state. You're trying to rationalize vigilantism with whataboutism to suit your narrative.
Have you heard of the chain of command? Police departments are Quasi-Military organizations; thinking that the Democrats ordered the police department to stand down is beyond silly!
You made a claim. Now the burden of proof lies on your shoulders; provide a link that backs up your claim. I fully anticipate your supplying excuses of some kind reasoning besides being lazy not to prove your statement.
"Just me" already knows that. He's here to throw anyone that is still attached to the "official narratives" a lifeline. There is always one or two of these guys working every alternative media Substack thread.
It depends on the city charter as to how much power the mayor exercises over the police department, show me how smart you are, and prove your statement.
I don't think anyone is confused that rioting, looting, and arson are illegal. Further Rittenhouse was not "enforcing the law." So, your response addresses issues not in controversy.
Corporate mainstream media is not only toxic & dangerous, it literally is responsible for violence
I've had several patients of mine, whisper to me "Doctor. I have a secret. I think unvaccinated people are evil & they should be allowed to die. They should not be allowed into hospitals." These folks are very affluent, virtue-signaling, sign-waving types who consume A LOT of Corporate mainstream media. Which tells them to hate people.
See, attempts to intimidate the Rittenhouse judge and jury. Depriving someone of due process today; depriving someone of medical care tomorrow. Considering we give child killers, rapists, and mass murderers access to both, I've had to cut such people out of my life. They are in a kind of mass delusion, under corporate media hypnosis and keep tying to draw me in.
No, my identity cannot be reduced to "oppressed" or "oppressor"; no, I'm not scared of dying from covid; no, I don't think giving hormone blockades to prepubescent children is fully reversible; yes, I think if a male inmate in the California penal system would rape a woman, and murder a woman, he might also lie about "being a woman" to gain access to the female correctional facility. I refuse to deny reality on any of the above and as the late great Magdalena Berns once said, "I'd rather be rude than a fucking liar."
Indeed! I've been saying the same thing for years. Those virtue signalers, with their tired and worn out signs, are the most intolerant and most hateful among us. For decades the Democratic Party has stoked anger and resentment in women and minorities and they've now proven that there really is no end game. No amount of progress will ever be enough. "We shall overcome!" has been replaced with "We must never overcome! No matter how much progress we make in this country they will continue to manufacture racist boogie men in the form of phantom white supremacy, systemic racism, unconscious bias, and micro aggressions. This is what they do when their demand for racism and oppression far exceeds its dwindling supply. Instead of celebrating Obama's two terms in office as a transcendent moment in our nation's history the left began concocting one hoax after another. They were so threatened by the reality that Obama's elections signaled the end of "systemic" racism that they felt compelled to say just the opposite. Terrified that their base may no longer believe that racism and oppression are their biggest problems and terrified that their base may no longer need their Democratic plantation masters to protect them, this one trick pony doubled down on their race baiting. They say that a wounded animal is at its most dangerous. I liken the current Democratic Party to a trapped and terrified rat that is willing to say and do anything to survive. They are growing more desperate and more dangerous by the minute; and now is not the time to back away or let up. We must match and surpass their relentlessness. We're not headed toward a civil war; we're in a civil war. And the only question that remains is who is going to win that war. The first shots of this war were fired during Obama's second term with the creation and celebration of the left's BLM, Antifa, and fake news foot soldiers. Their army has now grown to include Corporate America, radical teacher's unions, and fascist school boards. I'm not prone to hyperbole but this war must be fought on many many fronts if America is to survive and no, I am not advocating violence, just vigilance and the unwavering defense of our constitution.
Imagine their surprise when they can't get anything remotely resembling a timely appointment to check an active cancer because medical facilities are clogged with anti-vaxxers.
Nice metaphor. I always say that the alphabet legacy media "need to be burned to the ground, the earth salted where they stood, and rebuilt with all new players."
I got in a heated argument with someone I had always considered completely logical, pragmatic and non-partisan with the opinion that Kyle Rittenhouse was an idiot vigilante that should never have left his home and gone to another city across state lines and thus is responsible for killing those two men.
I asked, "so if there is a violent mob threatening your community, looting small businesses, destroying property, burning down buildings, beating and killing people... you would just stay in your home and then what?"
He said "that mob was not threatening the shooter's community".
I responded that Kenosha is only a 18 minute drive from Antioch where Rittenhouse lives. And his dad lives in Kenosha. Kyle spent a lot of time in Kenosha and it is a community he identified with.
This person did not know this... and had been inflamed by his media feeds to see Rittenhouse as some dangerous wannabee super hero.
The corporate media is toxic and dangerous and needs to be ripped out from the roots and replanted.
I'm ashamed to admit that I was once a journalist at a major newspaper and I fully agree that the corporate media are toxic and dangerous. I'll add emphasis to that "dangerous" at this sorry stage.
With the Rittenhouse story the media appear to have reached peak falsehood, and that's saying a lot given their record over the past five years or so. The problem is they're desperate for revenue and have discovered what Facebook has elevated to a science, the practice of deliberately skewing content to generate a maximum of public anger while willfully refusing to explore or expose the facts or truth of a situation.
Negative emotions are far more powerful than positive reinforcements, and that's the key to hooking audiences and boosting profit margins. This is their sole objective. Now in the absence of Donald Trump, media need a fresh focus of outrage, and the Rittenhouse trial is prime subject matter. My guess is that media figures are hoping for acquittal so their various personalities and pundits can preen and point to the largely fictional horrors of white supremacy while covering still more "mostly peaceful" protests with block after block of buildings burning in the background.
Thank you for this comment.
What happened to journalistic ethics and integrity? If we look at all professions... there is always a drive to make more money... but not by any means outside of the guideposts of professional conduct. Maybe we need some body of journalistic certification that sanctions those that do this... just like for medical professionals, engineers and attorneys.
The industry of news media is destroying itself. There seems to be no counter to this degradation of method for creating and then exploiting conflicts to farm clicks and likes.
Same here. I got into a discussion with a friend after the judge dropped the weapon charges. This person started saying the kid drove for hours to get to the city. He carried the gun with him. Blah, blah, blah. Carefully cultivated and curated news is dangerous to our culture. But, this friend does know Fox is evil and they create conspiracy theories that rubes like me fall for, all the time. sigh.
Rittenhouse's folks are divorced; his dad and grandmother live in Kenosha, his job is in Kenosha. The whole media coverage is a despicable, contemptible sham.
If he is acquitted, I hope he hires the Covington student's legal team ...
Sue them into penury.
The "state lines" sounded so dire-- but don't people from states outside of NYC travel that far to work most days?
They are silently thinking “with a gun” when they say that. Talking with a friend, I said I crossed state lines from the Canadian border all the way down to the Gulf on my last road trip and wasn't stopped once by anyone refusing to let me cross their line. He said, and he was serious, “well, I know in a lot of States where that would be illegal. Not every state, but aa lot of states”. Honest to God, he was serious. He was thinking “with a gun” even though he knows I don't have a gun, never owned one.
I find most people utterly clueless about law and their rights as Americans. Sad.
With friends like that…….
Agreed. A lot of Americans "cross state lines" just to buy a quart of milk.
Hell, people in NH travel 30+ miles to work in or around Boston every day.
Yes - good point. That's exactly why we call it the "tri-state" area.
"I asked, "so if there is a violent mob threatening your community, looting small businesses, destroying property, burning down buildings, beating and killing people... you would just stay in your home and then what?"
Your comment encourages a person who is not a member of law enforcement to consider it their own responsibility to uphold the law in their neighborhood, who would be acting outside of legal authority, thereby taking the law into his or her own hands. Vigilantism describes a general state of chaos or lawlessness, where it's possible to have competing groups enforce what they perceive as law! Amazing!
"Vigilantism describes a general state of chaos or lawlessness, where it's possible to have competing groups enforce what they perceive as law! Amazing!"
Let's be clear here: Just me is stealing a base. Attempting to put out fires, protect property and protect ones own life is not "taking the law into [your] own hands" and it is not vigilantism.
Vigilantes are self appointed doers of justice- people who take it upon themselves to PUNISH crime. There is no evidence that Rittenhouse or anyone went to these places to punish crime. They went there to defend a community from being burnt to the ground. Just Me's attempt to paint Rittenhouse as some sort of Punnisher wannabe is the exact type of distortion that has created such a hot potato from this mess.
Your question is the right one. “Ya, what then?” The problem is the police have been stepping down in these situations for a year and a half now. The question is indeed “what then?”
This case may have a far reaching impact on the limits we are allowed to go to protect our property when the protective force within government won’t do so. I fear living in a nation where lawlessness is allowed to run rampant and its citizens are supposed to say “Thank you sir may I have another”.
The answer to your question is that the police MUST do their job to quell the violence (I.e “mostly peaceful protests in your lexicon). Absent that we will devolve into anarchy.
Move to a red state.
Get used to it. The more that violent riots that occur with corresponding law enforcement officers and city attorneys forbidden from arresting and prosecuting those rioters, the more citizens will act. Your side can't stop it by attempting to legally crucify such vigilantes.
Yup. Normalizing an unwanted behavior will just welcome more of it.
Sorry but when the state fails you are on your own.
When the cops are nowhere to be found, for whatever reason, eventually citizens will do what’s necessary to protect life and property. Is that hard to understand?
The quote is not mine. This man is much more well spoken than me. But appropriate to the conversation.
"William Jacobson (06:04): partial transcript on Chicago’s Morning Answer radio show with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson(no relation to the professor. Jocobson is a professor of law at Cornell Law School.)
I think it’s absolutely true. If you can’t defend yourself when someone’s beating you in the head with the skateboard, if you can’t defend yourself when they’re running at you while you’re on the ground and they lower their Glock pistol towards your head from three feet away, if you can’t defend yourself when someone who’s already that night threatened to kill you, if he caught you alone, and is now reaching for your gun, if you can’t defend yourself in those circumstances and the full weight of the state and the full weight of the media is going to come down on you, then we are in a really bad place.
And I think that’s why the left and the media, which are one in the same, has focused so heavily on this. They do not want people to be able to defend themselves. They want to defund the police. They want to let mobs run the streets and they don’t want citizens to be able to defend themselves. That’s what this case has become."
"Your comment encourages a person who is not a member of law enforcement to consider it their own responsibility to uphold the law in their neighborhood"
You are assuming you have a condition where law enforcement was doing their job. This is a situation where local law enforcement was told to allow people to burn and destroy. What is left, is "community policing". This is the sad result.
Rittenhouse was NOT enforcing the law, however, though he was trying to pose as a presence to limit how much damage would be done.
Are you genuinely saying you would stand by and watch a person be killed because it is not 'your responsibility'? You strongly imply that in your statement. Think about what that says about you as a person.
Well, it worked for the rooftop Koreans in south central LA during the 1992 Rodney King riots, didn't it? *Their* stores and businesses *didn't* burn to the ground.
Their taking up arms didn't create the general state of chaos and lawlessness that existed in their neighborhoods, the pre-existing general state of chaos and lawlessness is what created the need to take up arms to protect their property.
You tell falsehoods to further your narrative; Korean businesses were damaged. If you have a state of lawlessness, with chaos already existing, it's impossible to determine that the Koreans didn't contribute to, said state. You're trying to rationalize vigilantism with whataboutism to suit your narrative.
Law enforcement was purposely ordered to stand down by the Democrats in office believing that they would benefit politically from the riots.
Have you heard of the chain of command? Police departments are Quasi-Military organizations; thinking that the Democrats ordered the police department to stand down is beyond silly!
Just , silly...but true, now what?
Yes, the Democratic Mayor ordered the police to NOT engage and allowed their Democrat operatives free rein to destroy the downtown.
You made a claim. Now the burden of proof lies on your shoulders; provide a link that backs up your claim. I fully anticipate your supplying excuses of some kind reasoning besides being lazy not to prove your statement.
"Just me" already knows that. He's here to throw anyone that is still attached to the "official narratives" a lifeline. There is always one or two of these guys working every alternative media Substack thread.
Another ignorant opinionated individual is trying to appear intelligent by making an inane statement that says nothing.
"Just Me" is a not an apt name for you. You are nothing if not a lemming following your group right over a cliff.
I'm waiting for Matt Mullen to show up. Maybe he clocks in when Just Me clocks out.
well now, Matt just might be too busy with the 24 year old, give him time.
Old Matt's taking the day off. He's conducting a struggle session for the Chinese Communist Party.
Yes, silly me. I thought the politicians were in charge of the police.
This is the problem with America today - It's like we don't even live in the same country.
It depends on the city charter as to how much power the mayor exercises over the police department, show me how smart you are, and prove your statement.
People like "Just Me" live in a fantasy world where the police are just a phone call away and show up in two minutes.
I don't think anyone is confused that rioting, looting, and arson are illegal. Further Rittenhouse was not "enforcing the law." So, your response addresses issues not in controversy.
Agreed
Corporate mainstream media is not only toxic & dangerous, it literally is responsible for violence
I've had several patients of mine, whisper to me "Doctor. I have a secret. I think unvaccinated people are evil & they should be allowed to die. They should not be allowed into hospitals." These folks are very affluent, virtue-signaling, sign-waving types who consume A LOT of Corporate mainstream media. Which tells them to hate people.
See, attempts to intimidate the Rittenhouse judge and jury. Depriving someone of due process today; depriving someone of medical care tomorrow. Considering we give child killers, rapists, and mass murderers access to both, I've had to cut such people out of my life. They are in a kind of mass delusion, under corporate media hypnosis and keep tying to draw me in.
No, my identity cannot be reduced to "oppressed" or "oppressor"; no, I'm not scared of dying from covid; no, I don't think giving hormone blockades to prepubescent children is fully reversible; yes, I think if a male inmate in the California penal system would rape a woman, and murder a woman, he might also lie about "being a woman" to gain access to the female correctional facility. I refuse to deny reality on any of the above and as the late great Magdalena Berns once said, "I'd rather be rude than a fucking liar."
Hate has no home here. Bullshit.
Indeed! I've been saying the same thing for years. Those virtue signalers, with their tired and worn out signs, are the most intolerant and most hateful among us. For decades the Democratic Party has stoked anger and resentment in women and minorities and they've now proven that there really is no end game. No amount of progress will ever be enough. "We shall overcome!" has been replaced with "We must never overcome! No matter how much progress we make in this country they will continue to manufacture racist boogie men in the form of phantom white supremacy, systemic racism, unconscious bias, and micro aggressions. This is what they do when their demand for racism and oppression far exceeds its dwindling supply. Instead of celebrating Obama's two terms in office as a transcendent moment in our nation's history the left began concocting one hoax after another. They were so threatened by the reality that Obama's elections signaled the end of "systemic" racism that they felt compelled to say just the opposite. Terrified that their base may no longer believe that racism and oppression are their biggest problems and terrified that their base may no longer need their Democratic plantation masters to protect them, this one trick pony doubled down on their race baiting. They say that a wounded animal is at its most dangerous. I liken the current Democratic Party to a trapped and terrified rat that is willing to say and do anything to survive. They are growing more desperate and more dangerous by the minute; and now is not the time to back away or let up. We must match and surpass their relentlessness. We're not headed toward a civil war; we're in a civil war. And the only question that remains is who is going to win that war. The first shots of this war were fired during Obama's second term with the creation and celebration of the left's BLM, Antifa, and fake news foot soldiers. Their army has now grown to include Corporate America, radical teacher's unions, and fascist school boards. I'm not prone to hyperbole but this war must be fought on many many fronts if America is to survive and no, I am not advocating violence, just vigilance and the unwavering defense of our constitution.
Great post. Courage and fortitude
Yes, I know what you mean. I have a virtue-signaling "woke" nephew who is the most hate-filled person that I know.
Imagine their surprise when all those unvaccinated people don't actually die....
Imagine their surprise when they can't get anything remotely resembling a timely appointment to check an active cancer because medical facilities are clogged with anti-vaxxers.
Unfortunately it won't be a surprise because media won't mention it.
The White Rose.
Nice metaphor. I always say that the alphabet legacy media "need to be burned to the ground, the earth salted where they stood, and rebuilt with all new players."
As Rome handled Carthage.
In a "mostly peaceful" burning to the ground, of course.
Ugh, if I hear the term "mostly peaceful protest" one more time mixed with images of buildings burning and looting and violence.......
DNC press delenda est!