Writing about the Kyle Rittenhouse case is silly. The law is one element, the circumstance is another and, of course, the facts presented are more complex than what the average reader knows. Second guessing trials is basically disrespecting the entire process. Kangaroos make poor judges.
That doesn’t stop me from adding something, tho. And, NO, it is not a rant about ‘Merican gun culture, nor a plea for a young man of limited capacity being driven to the protest zone by his own mother! It isn’t even a blog about this case illustrating the great divide in US society (along the lines of pro and anti-vaxxers, races, Red and Blue state politics and Trump-types vs the rest of us). Nope. NOT any of that. Well, maybe ALL of that. And more.
This blog is about the parts that they are NOT writing about, NOT publicly looking at, NOT addressing and that is the incredible dereliction of duty as manifested by the Kenosha police department, the perverse parenting values of a so-called mother, the bizarre but inadequate support of his ‘fellow militia-troops’ and the stark differences in how dumb, underage, white gun-carriers are treated compared to unarmed black men. This blog is about the social madness deep and prevalent in that increasingly crazy society called ‘Merica.
The scene: There is a protest. Fires burning. Shadowy figures running around causing domestic fuss in the night. Kyle Rittenhouse (17) shows up with an assault rifle and over 30 rounds of ammunition. His cap is on backwards, of course. He approaches the very large and ridiculously over equipped police assemblage standing by a block or two away. Underage and armed, he chats up the cops. They ask him nothing, they inquire about nothing, they do not identify him. They sit in their large, armoured vehicles drinking coffee and eating donuts while the protest rages on. Seventeen-year-old Kyle wades into the protest zone.
Overhead, an FBI chopper shoots infrared film. There is no other police presence save for the chopper and armoured vehicles and such a safe distance away. Rittenhouse has an altercation, kills two people and wounds a third. After that incident he is seen by the crowd as an ‘active shooter’ and they chase him. He runs back to the police. They did not come to him. They were sitting in their donut vans. He ran to them.
So, Rittenhouse is a young simpleton caught up in some kind of quasi-militia society, armed and literally driven to the ‘battle ground’ by his own mother, no less! He parades and preens around the local police before his incident. They do nothing. Two other militia-types are loosely accompanying Kyle but they are not really together. One said, “He (Rittenhouse) was underequipped and under-experienced.”
Just to make my point regarding the police: the protest that night was about the previous (4 months prior) Kenosha police shooting of a 27 year old black man by the name of Jacob Blake. He was shot seven times in the back. He is now paralyzed. No charges were laid against the police. Blake was charged with resisting arrest!
So, who is on trial here? Really? Obviously Rittenhouse is on trial but he has a great defense: “Your honour, I identify as a policeman and self identification is real now. I was armed but that is an American’s right. The police, sir, knew I was there and encouraged my presence. I did not hide my gun. In fact, sir, my mother drove me there. I had parental permission. I was accompanied by two Wisconsin militia and they supported me as did my brother-in-law who bought me the gun ’cause I was underage. My defense, sir, is simply this: is this not the American way? Have I not been raised and encouraged to do this? Have I not been supported by friends, family and police officers?”
I would definitely convict if I was the judge. (Judge Kanga Roo) Firstly, I would convict the mother for parental neglect, child-abuse, failure to provide….etc. Then I would convict the two militia dickheads for being at large, armed and stupid, aiding and abetting a juvenile to commit a crime and generally promoting camo-idiocy detrimental to the public good. Then I would convict as many Kenosha police for dereliction of duty before and after the incident as I could. I would charge them with misappropriation of public funds (armoured vehicles are not for dunkin’ donuts). I’d definitely revisit the Blake shooting. And I’d fire the chief.
Then I’d convict Rittenhouse. (Sentence him, actually. The jury decides on conviction). If the jury rendered a heavy judgment based on the charges, I’d give a sentence on the less severe side of the ledger. He is a young fool badly parented and led in all the wrong directions. If they came back with one or more of the lighter charges, I would give something longer than just a light sentence. If they come back with a verdict: ‘innocent’ of all charges, I’d demand a retrial. (Yes, even if I was the presiding judge.)
But mostly, if I had the power, I would convict the society at large of gross moral neglect, promoting stupidity, violence and a toxic gun mentality. The USA has gone off the rails completely and that shows up in this instance but, even worse, they are not looking at this case that way. They are only looking at Rittenhouse. These fools think the main crime was Rittenhouse shooting other idiots. The real main crime is ‘Merican values and a rotten police culture.
Ignoring all that is willful blindness and societal neglect to the point of gross dysfunction. And that dysfunction is still growing.
PS: I am not so sure it really changes anything but, in the interest of being as factually honest as my biases will allow, it has been recently revealed that the reports of Kyle’s mother DRIVING him to the protest were wrong. She did NOT drive him to the protest. She encouraged him and supported him but she DID NOT drive him there.
Our Off the Grid Home 
Gun culture.
U.S. citizens own 46% of all privately owned firearms IN THE WORLD….
If there can’t be some type of improved gun control in the US after the Sandy Hook shootings of dozens of kindergarten children and their teachers……there never will be.
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Good point….there probably never will be a way or the will to get that Pandora back in the box. The US will likely descend in to the TEOTWAWKI/Gun Apocalypse that we all kind of expect to happen…someday. It is all so crazy. The lawyers McCloskey who waved guns at demonstrators are now in Kenosha. What the hell does that say? How is that so many people just ‘hang around’ these events….? Is everyone looking to pose in front of a camera or what?
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As an Iranian Canadian once said to me when the US was considering invading Iran.
“If they think Iraq war is a Sh!tstorm with 20 million people…. try kicking the hornets nest in Iran with 60 million people….and they all know how to shoot a gun.
God help any fool that ever invades the US….even a dystopian, anarchic US with no govt….would be an unholy meatgrinder for anyone foolish enough to roll in with an army….
They would be swallowed whole.
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Well, there is a lot to that but don’t forget that most people prepare to fight the last battle they had or remember. And armed Bubbas actually harken back to The American Revolution and NRA myths. In effect, the right to bear arms is almost anachronistic for a modern invader. Modern warfare (currently underway) is economic, computer sabotage and spying. Maybe even biological warfare. Bubba can shoot targets and wild boar til his heart is content but his computer has been compromised, his savings stolen and his information sold. And, while he is donning his camo and putting his cap on backwards, his community is being gutted by unfair trade practices, global hijacking and deep, deep corruption. He may even be feeling a bit under the weather with a higher temp and a nagging cough. Dumb Bubbas are likely dangerous guys within a mile radius but they are also outstanding targets and just a well placed EMP would put Bubba down. Throw in a bit of terrorism and Bubba looks as stupid as he is.
Don’t get me wrong. I fear an armed gang of dumb Bubbas dressed in camo and red hats but I am not a hostile government with an army of spys, hackers and state sponsored corporate thieves backed up by military might. Truly the threat from Bubba is only felt by normal citizens in the same neighbourhood. The Chinese or Russians could not care less that Bubba looks tough and has an AR15.
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If they ever hit us with an EMP or hack and shut down our powergrid, for sure you will be better prepared then us. You have 15 years of off grid training and you are more self-sustainable then we are. I remember like 20 years ago, we had a powerfailure in the middle of winter at 6pm…we couldn’t cook, had no heating, no lights. It only lasted for 4 hours, but it was a wake up call for me for sure. Now, I am better prepared for some of these “events”. Back to basics is not such a bad thing. I even have some books on basic survival techniques, you never know when you need those skills.
But even if the “invasion” is not physical, sooner or later it might be, and then all the Bubba’s will dig up there hidden supplies and guns
Just saw that Rittenhouse is “innocent”
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Took me 15 years just to get ‘acquainted’ with OTG. I am no expert, just opinionated. I am barely adequate at survival techniques save for marrying a tough cookie and stocking up on food. Still, being adequate will do for me and mediocre is my middle name. I am OK with that. I am NOT OK with poor, dickhead Kyle walking away deemed ‘innocent’. He was badly programmed and poorly educated, he was too young to be there and not even adequate for the circumstance. There are crimes there and HE PULLED THE TRIGGER killing two people. They are truly mad down there!
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Rittenhouse Verdict.
Not Guilty On all counts
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As one person related to one of those shot dead said, “This verdict basically licenses any thug with a gun to instigate a confrontation and then shoot the other claiming self defense”. Which is much like what the police do to the marginal and brown people, actually. Shoot ’em seven times in the back and then claim they were resisting arrest.
The Justice system for the Rittenhouse verdict: guilty on a number of counts but no charges will be laid.
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Ahhh.
But the US justice system isnt over yet.
The District Attorney can appeal on technicalities.
OR
The families of the dead can now sue Rittenhouse in Court for violating their civil rights ( ie…they’re dead).
Hundreds of thousands or millions in payouts ensue.
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True, but is that the answer? A death or verdict by a thousand bureaucratic cuts? Who does that serve? Face it, the system is broken. Worse, the culture has gone off the rails. Corrupt elites cannot fix their own system. And we are the fodder for that system. We pay taxes to support a corrupt system. How stupid is that? They feed, we die or get persecuted. If the system was moral, good or even fair, I would not utter a squeak. But it is NOT. See Rittenhouse, see Jacob Blake. I can’t fix it. So I got out. You should too.
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but even in getting out, you can’t completely escape from the system, you are still paying taxes! There is no escape from the system, OTG is a partial escape, maybe that’s the best we can hope for
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Death and taxes, the two inevitables. Still, my property taxes are very low and so they can be ignored for now. The other taxes on food and parts and scotch, well, they are part of the BIG challenge. But still it is one that we all face so it, too, can be lessened by simply comparing our lot to those in town. I’d estimate that living a similar life out here to one in the city, the tax burden is 30% mostly because consumption is reduced 70%. Driving is also reduced. There may be no escape from the omnificent systems that can kill us (war, plague, climate change) but we are like the birds in the sky, free to fly at least a safer distance away. Put another way: I cannot ignore the forces of ugly and how they are proliferating so I have to do what I can. It’s a primal thing………
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And now the far left anarchists in Portland protest, riot, burns, steal, etc.
The “rent-a-mob” at it’s most predictable.
Using the Rittenhouse verdict as the latest excuse to get some “free stuff”.
Time to car pool the 17 year old kids in with AR-15’s ?
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I kinda agree…kinda don’t…here is what I mean: Canucks hockey fans go to the Coliseum in the thousands to watch the Stanley Cup finals (years ago). The Canucks lose. A splinter group roams the downtown core yelling and being stupid. And a splinter group of the splinter group then starts acting up. And then a splinter off the splinter breaks a window and sets a car on fire. Or whatever……bad, bad, bad to the bone but, in the general mayhem that is an every day in a big city, the damage done was infinitesimal. Still, people go nuts. Politicians go nuts. Media go nuts. Names and labels are cast willy-nilly (Hockey thugs, fans, rioters, criminals and, and, ‘protesters’.) The reality is that fewer than four or five were charged. Maybe another 6 got away. None of those dorks were ‘protesting’. Few of them are hockey fans only. 99% of the crowd went home disappointed but did not wreck anything. And yet the incident is touted as something BIG. Vancouver HISTORY!!!
Same for Portland. I have a friend there. He and his family protested pro-BLM but went home before dark. The crowd did not fully dissipate but it shrunk considerably before 8:00 pm. And then, and then, and then it GREW! Whack-jobs came out from under rocks to ‘liven things up’. Buildings burned. Riots ensued. And BLM folks who were legally protesting hours earlier were lumped into the ‘rioters and protester’ category. We really have to separate the terms rioters and protesters. One is legal. The other, not so much.
Personally, I tend to think ‘anarchists’ separates out the loons. NOT ‘left’. NOT even ‘far left’ (tho it is a temptation, I know). NOT protester. NOT ‘right’. Not every political protest results in riots and goonery. Gandhi, MLK, BLM…these were/are peaceful and legal/legitimate acts. I am in favour of protests…….MLK style.
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