Unless the verdict is returned overnight or early tomorrow, it’s hard to predict what the ultimate verdict will be. That they’re trying the case of the State of Wisconsin vs Kyle Rittenhouse at all, is almost impossible to comprehend.
As far as I’m concerned (and I’ve talked with defense lawyers about this), the verdict should be “not guilty”. They’ve told me it is clearly an open-and-shut case of self-defense and prosecutorial overcharging.
I’m not a lawyer so I’ll take they’ll word for it. However, I am a concerned citizen and from where I sit, Kyle Rittenhouse –and other ordinary, law-abiding Americans everywhere else–have lost already.
Why do I say this?
Not in the court of public opinion, but in the fact that he has been jailed, had to acquire attorneys, and had his face publicly displayed. In Kyle’s case, even if he walks free and sues the city of Kenosha for $10 million (and wins), he’s a marked man. Antifa thugs and BLMers will be on the lookout for him from now until Doomsday.
I think it’s a pretty safe bet the Department of Justice has been weaponized against him (and pretty much everybody else who dares to confront the status quo).
But that’s on a meta-narrative level. Instead, we need to get down to brass tacks: simply put, there’s no way that he should have been prosecuted in the first place. There is no question that he acted in self-defense and with remarkable restraint. His marksmanship was phenomenal. Had you, I, or any other random person been in his position, armed with the same weapon, it would have been a bloodbath. A youth of his skill would have gone straight to Special Forces training.
Then there is the fact that the multiplicity of charges brought against him were horrendous. This was a case of prosecutorial overkill. No doubt about it.
Going further, the prosecution was spectacularly inept in its presentation. It was caught fabricating evidence. For a while, I thought that maybe the prosecutor was actually throwing the case. It was that bad.
But that’s not all. George Floyd’s brother was caught filming the jurors as they got off the bus. That’s a federal crime; it’s called jury tampering. Has anything been done about it? No. The judge should have declared a mistrial right then and there. Obstruction of justice is a huge crime as it should be.
And how can we forget the fact that the Presidentish Biden actually defamed Rittenhouse several months ago? As I understand it, Kyle’s mother is considering suing that jackass. Good. I hope she wins. Maybe Hunter will have to sell several of his paintings to come up with the money for his father’s damages. Fine by me.
But let’s be honest. It won’t happen. Why? Because we now live in the disUnited States of unAmerica. A nation that has two sets of laws: one for the elites and another for everybody else. Our Department of inJustice has not lifted one finger against Antifa and BLM or anybody else responsible for all the carnage last year, but by God, they’ll sic the FBI on suburban housewives who have the temerity to attend a PTA meeting.
Oh, did I forget to mention that the FBI sat on exculpatory evidence for over a year? Evidence that showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense?
That ain’t justice. Not by a long shot.
Rittenhouse was brought to trial because he had the courage to stand up to thugs, bullies, and rioters, preventing them from carrying on with their rampage, actions that upset the likes of George Soros, the real ruler of America.
Did you know that the villains he shot were in the process of rolling a burning dumpster into a gas station? Think about the sheer evilness of that; especially if you are in the station buying gas or minding your own business relieving yourself in the bathroom. You’d be roasted alive. Fun stuff, huh?
I could write volumes about what a devil Soros is; how he is single-handedly destroying cities all over America by installing ultra-liberal District Attorneys. DAs who are practicing “catch-and-release” policies when it comes to all but the most violent offenders. In California, petty theft has now been defined as up to $950; anything less than that will not result in any charges.
Things are so bad, that Walgreens is closing dozens of stores in the San Francisco Bay area. There’s film-footage of robbers brazenly robbing stores, going up and down the aisles with their grocery carts and then strolling out the door. One guy, at least had the grace to go through the cash register check-out to make sure he wasn’t above the $950 limit. (That almost restores my faith in humanity.)
Not that I’m crying, mind you. Walgreens, CVS, Target, Wal-Mart, and every other major American corporation have gone out of their way to tuck the little darlings over at BLM in their beds at night, letting them know that they’re just the cat’s pajamas. Oh, and giving them millions upon millions of dollars because of “muh racism”. And I really hate to say this, but you people who live in Blue States (like California), get what you deserve. You voted for creeps like George Gascon and London Breed in the first place. You had your chance to get rid of Gavin Newsome, arguably the worst governor in the country. But you punted on that one.
Soros’ credo is “the more carnage, the better”. Look for more riots if Rittenhouse is acquitted. As he should be.
And then maybe we can turn this thing around.
My comments below are based on my experience as a state prosecutor who has handled criminal jury trials and appeals.
George Floyd’s brother was caught filming the jurors as they got off the bus. That’s a federal crime; it’s called witness tampering.
If there’s a crime, it is jury tampering, not witness tampering. In this particular case, it would be state crime. Moreover, assuming the jurors were not aware of being filmed, it would not affect their performance of their obligations as jurors, so it would not be a basis for a mistrial.
Has anything been done about it? No. The judge should have declared a mistrial right then and there.
Something should be done about it. However, as noted above, there would be no basis for a mistrial based on conduct that did not affect the trial itself. In fact, a mistrial might very well result in a retrial, which would give the prosecution a second opportunity to prosecute. A better prepared prosecution would not inure to the defendant’s benefit.
You should be glad the judge did not declare a mistrial on the basis of the filming of the jurors. That act should be dealt with separately.
The mere fact the question is being asked could change the direction of the trial. That’s jury tampering.
Bliimbax, thanks for catching that.
Welcome Back …Kyle Rittenhouse’s life has been destroyed, the judge in the case admonished the jurors not to take into consideration what the so called president said on national tv, calling Rittenhouse a white supremacist .
Jesus saves.
Lina…
Huh???
Jesus can redeem all sorts and conditions of souls. Given the opportunity, Jesus transforms lives. And uses all manner of sinners.
I do not believe that all is as it appears with the prosecutor. And I suspect that one way or another, sooner or a bit later, Kyle will walk.
Misha, I would really like you to expound on that (“I do not believe that all is as it appears with the prosecutor.”) The prosecution’s case is a, well….the phrase begins with “cluster”. I considered that this might be intentional, but I can’t figure out a reason for the prosecution to do that, especially in the manner in which it was done. What am I missing?
The kid may be acquitted outright. However, if for some reason he is convicted of anything, there is enough prosecutorial malfeasance in the record for that jury conviction to be overturned on appeal, even enough to preclude a retrial. One wonders if that is not Binger’s intent.
I live about 15 miles from Kenosha. Formerly was a member of St. Nicholas there. The whole area is tense, though the nights of rioting were much worse.
I think the biggest lesson that Kenosha learned because of the riots is that ordinary people cannot depend on local government to stand up to the woke mob. Kenosha and Kenosha County are about as “purple” as it gets politically; Kenosha is the northernmost community in what is considered the Chicago metropolitan area, and a lot of its residents have connections in or through Chicago, but at the same time is much different than places just across the border like Winthrop Harbor or Antioch because of the state line separating them. Wisconsin life is much more laid back, and focuses a lot more on being outdoors… Some joke it’s because the summer is so short, but there’s a good deal people do in the winters as well.
My impression is that not only did the prosecution do a fantastically bad job in trying to prove their case, but the condescension and contempt Assistant District Attorneys Binger and Kraus had for the witnesses and the entire community did not play well at all. It’s to be expected that they wanted to play down that all of this happened in full-blown riots, but they pooh-poohed them to the point where it was downright insulting to the entire area. I know multiple people who took their kids and left their homes because they didn’t know if they would be left standing through more nights of rioting.
If nothing else, the Rittenhouse shootings seemed to shut down the riots pretty quickly. It’s one of those bizarre things on top of a pile of bizarre things. Before the bodies were even cold, the Twittering classes had declared Rittenhouse a mass murderer, as though this was planned… Not that what happened to Rittenhouse was specifically planned, but as though there was already a developed narrative in place should some BLM/Antifa people get killed, and it was ready to drop at a moment’s notice. BLM/Antifa got their martyrs, and then the police were ready to do more to actually bring some order to the city. It was incredibly weird.
The thing is, Kenosha is not really a suburb of Chicago or of Milwaukee. Kenosha and Racine are small cities in their own right that have connected into the larger metro areas of Milwaukee and Chicago. Coming up the Lake Michigan shoreline, there’s a pretty continuous line of settlement, but in some places, even less than a mile back, one can still find farms – mostly smaller – which have probably stayed with families through many generations. I would still say that Racine is more the cesspool of liberal idealism, considering Kenosha to be more the home of “old school” Democrats, but when push came to shove, no Democrat was going to stand up to Gov. Evers (also in office through 2am vote dumps) or the people controlling him. As for the rest of Kenosha and Racine counties, they get more conservative with every election cycle. These are citizens of “flyover country” and believe in outdated things like the rule of law. Seeing the incredible damage to Kenosha from 2 nights of rioting – and it was worse than any mainstream media outlet even hinted at, (remember, “Fiery but mostly peaceful” came out of CNN’s reports from Kenosha) – people went out, including Kyle Rittenhouse, to try to limit the damages done to the city by further lawlessness. It didn’t happen in the bigger cities, because it’s so hard to exercise one’s 2nd Amendment rights there.
If anything, I think a lot of people in the area reacted by arming up. Friends of mine, for example, who weren’t terribly “political” at all, buying guns, learning to use them, and actually enjoying time at the shooting range and stuff. Should the thugs come back, say, if Rittenhouse is acquitted – which he should be – I’d hope that there’d be the kind of response that Coeur d’Alene gave BLM in the summer of 2020… You’ll notice, too, that no one was killed or injured there, even with all the “crazies” standing around with their weapons.
So this is my hypothesis — I think well-founded on Common Law and US customary law:
Originally there were no police. The law enforcement powers that we now associate with policing were exercised either by a grand jury (investigation), or by ordinary citizens (pursuit, arrest, and lawful homocide). These powers are inherent to the capital-P People. Over time, the police were established to exercise these powers in a specialized, professional way. In certain circumstances these powers can still be exercised by the People: citizen’s arrest exists, homocide can be lawful, etc.
My argument is: if the police cease to function, the People can lawfully resume their inherent powers to enforce the law.
The basis of the prosecution’s argument is that Kyle should have stayed out of Kenosha because it was in a lawless state since the police were not enforcing the law. But why should that be the case? So if a mob is able to overpower the professional police services, the law is effectively suspended? Why should law-abiding citizens not have the right to resume their rights to enforce the law in those circumstances?
I understand self-defense is the logical argument here, but there is a larger question at play. I argue that, by standing to protect the property of others, Kyle was effectively taking up policing powers, and that should be lawful if the police could not keep order.
The courts should establish a litmus test for a breakdown of civil order, at which time civilians are justified to exercise law enforcement powers.
AS, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Natural rights exist. The most basic one is self-defense.
Previous to the late 19th century, people in a village took the law into their own hands. That wasn’t that much of a problem because in a small town, people pretty much know each other and/or are fairly closely related. A formal constabulary was created in larger towns because things could get messy and everybody decided that it would be better if an independent institution had a “monopoly of violence”.
In ancient and medieval times, the few cities that were large (e.g. Athens, Rome, Constantinople), there was no real constabulary so people divided their cities into sectors. In Byzantium, people who supported one of the teams in the Hippodrome tended to live together and support each other. They also knew what “their” citizens looked like. (I believe the Greens wore haircuts that imitated the Huns, basically a mullet.) People from the other teams (Blues, Reds and Whites) knew to stay out of each others’ neighborhoods.
If you ever get a chance, see Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York to get an idea. In my hometown back when I was very little, whites didn’t go north of Admiral Blvd and blacks stayed away from West Tulsa.
I’m not saying this is ideal but given the whole Defund the Police movement, many of our bluer cities are going to devolve into this regime. In other words, the monopoly on violence will be shattered and people in various neighborhoods will regroup into gangs which will be policed by violent young men.
In Europe, people have been trained over the course of the last three generations or so that self-defense isn’t really allowed. Not only that, that it is a punishable infringement of the wrongdoer to fight back.
I know that there are Christian groups that are radically pacifist, and I respect that. However, I don’t believe that this position is supported by the Bible or the early Church. While there certainly is the teaching of “turn the other cheek” there is also the admonishment to protect and defend those who cannot, in particular widows and orphans. There must be those who stand up against evil.
Apart from that, I believe that each of us is created with a soul, and that which seeks the Divine. Even within ourselves, I believe that we have a duty to protect that, and so when we are in a situation where we are being threatened with death or great bodily harm, it is no sin to protect that. Furthermore, when we believe that we have such rights and dignity from God, we are no longer subjects of the earthly kingdoms, but free people.
Tyrants cannot abide this, and so if a few – such as young Rittenhouse – must be sacrificed to show the world that their mob rules, so be it. However, Rittenhouse refused to die, and he’s still standing. He did not ask for this, but he was brave, and stood up for the right to his life, and he’s standing up to those who would take his freedom. May we all have such courage when we are called to stand! He definitely needs our prayers, now and in the future.
He needs our prayers and he deserves a statue, regardless of the case’s outcome.
I hope he prays for the souls of the two people he killed.
I’m sure he does. I can’t imagine it’s easy to live with, especially given what he’s been through.
I was told by a Tulsa cop several months ago that if people started swarming my car, I should gun it. I would NEVER get over something like that.
RE: “I know that there are Christian groups that are radically pacifist, and I respect that. However, I don’t believe that this position is supported by the Bible or the early Church.”
“Rhipsime,” you might consider reading my book titled, The Pacifist Option: The Moral Argument Against War in Eastern Orthodox Theology (International Scholars Publications, 1999 paperback edition). It is still readily available via amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Pacifist-Option-Argument-Orthodox-Theology/dp/1573092436/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Pacifist+Option&qid=1637915171&qsid=136-3747026-0297058&s=books&sr=1-1&sres=1573092436%2C0553803549%2CB00ICPYK2O%2CB00YY84HQW%2C160126691X%2C1732270775%2C1789040167%2CB08K94RP2C%2C0578581736%2CB08W551Q1Y%2CB07PZ8ZPJX%2C1138264369%2CB082T1QZNY%2C1492902063&srpt=ABIS_BOOK
Christ actually commanded his Apostles to arm themselves in self-defense in anticipation of persecution. To those who cast Christ as some type of Gandhi figure, this is unintelligible. To normal people with common sense, it’s a no brainer. He cautioned them to arm themselves when they went out to the nations because it would be dangerous.
The most pernicious lie ever told about Christ is that the “new sword”, non-violent cooperation, that He brought was some kind of absolute and mandatory for all situations and at all times. This “new sword” was calculated specifically to the situation in which the Jews found themselves in Judea under Roman rule. It is an echo of an Old Testament concept – as is everything else He did and said: Proverbs 25:21–22, Romans 12:20. The reference to “heaping burning coals” means “induce repentance”.
Christ was not really inventing a new teaching but rather sharpening what had always been there. And He wasn’t overruling the Old Testament witness regarding righteous violence either. Sometimes violence, at least by one of the parties to a conflict, can be righteous. St. Athanasius held this quite explicitly. However, the Jews were in a no-win situation with the Romans. Violent resistance meant rows of crucified zealots and costly defeat. In a sense, Christ was echoing Sun-Tzu here: If a battle cannot be won, don’t fight it.
Now, pacifism is certainly an option. And in certain situations it may be the only rational option. But it does not discount God’s witness in the Old Testament and in other parts of the New regarding the righteousness of the old fathers.
Thank you, Misha, for your prompt, reasonable reply.
For newcomers on this blog, I should note that Misha and I have sparred (“non-violently,” of course!) on this question for some years here.
Since Misha has cited St. Athanasios the Great’s “Letter to Amun,” I would refer readers here to another book of mine that presents my argument also for “justifiable war” in Orthodox moral tradition: The Virtue of War: Reclaiming the Classic Christian Traditions East and West (co-authored with Darrell Cole of Drew University), Regina Orthodox Press, 2004: https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-War-Reclaiming-Christian-Traditions/dp/1928653170/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=The+Virtue+of+War&qid=1638150921&qsid=136-3747026-0297058&s=books&sr=1-2&sres=0553382055%2C1928653170%2C178329423X%2C1783294264%2CB09JHF26NV%2C1137263407%2C1138900885%2C0375701737%2C1610055209%2C1945619163%2C0996639136%2C0895267128%2C0316592358%2CB09F1D2L4Q%2C0648665976%2C0802144039&srpt=ABIS_BOOK
Together those two books reveal the paradoxical (or “antinomical,” to use Fr. Georges Florovsky felicitous term) Orthodox embrace of both absolute pacifism and justifiable war through careful, thorough sifting through the multiple components of Orthodox moral tradition: (1) the Bible (both testaments), (2) patristic writings and spiritual writings of great teachers in the post-patristic era, (3) liturgical texts and hymnography, (4) lives of the saints, (5) canon law, and (6) great Orthodox modern writers such as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
How the obvious paradox (“antinomy”) makes any sense in our post-modern rationalistic culture is a question that I attempt to address somewhat gingerly in both books. However, the historical evidence for both moral positions in Orthodoxy is overwhelming.
Fr. Alexander is very well read (and written) on the subject. I’m not sure we actually disagree in substance on this particular issue though probably we would characterize the same underlying reality differently.
I would just like to add that Fr. Alexander’s contribution to this field is second to none and both of his books are of great interest. As an Army veteran who has tried to grapple with these issues, Fr. Alexander’s works certainly deliver much food for thought.
Wow. Thank you for painting the picture here. I think its so valuable to hear from people who live there.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10208119/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-NICHOLAS-SANDMANN-media-defamation.html
This case demonstrates to me the corruption of the media. And also how easily it is to agitate an entire group to believe their group are victims when all the evidence shows otherwise.
I’ve noticed this phenomenon recently amongst the Greek community. Certain greco-american outlets bring up some case of bigotry against a tiny Greek community 100 years ago so today’s Greeks can also jump on the victimhood bandwagon. That’s when I have to remind them their (grand)parents all came here of their own free will without coercion, nor with ever taking into account the feelings of the natives. no consideration for them. These Greeks have done well with quite a few of them having made their fortunes by being slumlords iby owning multiple family houses in the boroughs of NYC and elsewhere.
I didn’t think the decision to consider lesser charges was in Kyles best interests. It seems to be in the lawyers best interests only. If he gets a lesser charge it will make both the prosecutor and the defense look good. The prosecutor because they didn’t go away with nothing and the defense because he didn’t get life in prison. I also think it’s not in Kyles interest because of the middle bias that people have. It makes people feel smart and sophisticated when they find a golden mean.
Agree. And now that it’s stretching into the third day of deliberation, a compromise verdict or a hung jury is becoming more likely. Acquittal would seem unlikely.
If he committed premeditated murder (he didn’t) the state should prove it. They haven’t. The whole concept of lesser included charges is a travesty of justice. The Chauvin trial is the most glaring example, being found guilty of mutually exclusive charges.
The defense has done a bad job objecting to everything the state has gotten away with, and the judge is clearly more concerned with how the media portrays him than anything else. Even the prosecutors told him he should stop reading the news!
I don’t know if it’s in Kyle’s best interests, but I think that if he is cleared of every possible permutation here, he’s much more likely to be able to put this behind him in the sense that the lesser charges would not be brought up separately, civil suits, etc.
I remember being in central and southern Germany in the 1970s as a boy. We were all teenage sons of US soldiers serving there.
We all played sports, loved to hike and camp, and knew every inch of those forests, those rolling hills and valleys. We outfitted ourselves with lots of cast-off US Army gear, with tough East German army wool clothes, with cool West German army cookstoves, tools, and camping gear that never failed. We scrounged the places where NATO maneuvers had just finished and found all kinds things they’d left behind, like C-rats and K-rats and sometimes equipment.
We weren’t very far from the famous Fulda Gap, known to be a route Soviet armor was predicted to hit us on the way to the Rhine. We also knew our fathers’ units were expendable, mere stopgaps and speed bumps to try and slow them down.
And we’d lived through the PLO massacre of the Israeli athletes at the Games, the Red Brigade bombings, the Baader-Meinhof gang. We didn’t know anything about Gladio then. One of those bombs went off just a couple hundred yards from our apartment building on a sunny Saturday afternoon one summer in front of the base PX. The American servicemen killed were fathers of some of our classmates.
We were American military kids. Black, white, mixed, officer or non-com, it didn’t matter. We were Americans, we stuck together, and we knew our history. We knew the significance of all the towns and cities and battlefields within a hundred miles of us. The Serbs, the Yugoslavs were still the good guys to us then. The deeds of the Partisans were famous. We poured over those Army field manuals with considerably more enthusiasm than we did our schoolwork even though most of the jargon was over our heads. But we knew what sabotage meant, we knew about the NATO plan for ‘left-behind’ forces, and we practiced insurgent-counterinsurgent operations and escape and evasion all on our own. We’d find old bunkers, fix them up, and hide them. We were just boys so could be sneakier than grown men. And many of these GIs were near the same age as we were, and were often our coaches and mentors in sports and things. They taught us stuff.
Oh, we figured the Commies would just roll over us for sure. But the Germans in our area liked Americans and were afraid of the Reds. We had been good to them after the war and they remembered that. We learned some of their language pretty well, too. We didn’t have social security numbers back then, so we memorized our fathers’ in case we were captured. But above all, we knew we could never allow ourselves to become refugees.
There’s something deep, something unusual that happens to boys like us. You feel a kinship with your father you don’t otherwise have. You feel a kinship with all the other Americans that are going to be facing this enemy, too. And you feel something good and right and noble inside yourself about what you’re about to try. You heart tells you it’s the right thing to do and it calms you down.
So I feel for this boy Kyle Rittenhouse. I most assuredly have felt the same way: standing quietly with strong, grown men ready to face invaders and bombers burning towns and coming for us. Knowing I’m fighting to buy a little time for Mom to get my little brother and sister somewhere safe.
It’s the right thing to do. It’s somber as hell, it’s frightening as hell, but it’s very, very good. God, bless that boy today, and stay with him. He’s very, very brave and his heart’s in the right place.
I hope to be able to tell him all this no matter which way it goes.
Well, I don’t live in California George, but less say Austin Texas is far worst on this subject than Orange County California or Riverside. People in the OC or Riverside are dictated by LA and the Silicon Valley region. Austin Texas doesn’t dictate policies in Texas as much. In fact the problem is too many on the right have wishful thinking about Hispanics. LA is about 48 percent Hispanic and if the Hispanics were on our side as some are saying, then Newsom would have been recalled because LA has the biggest population in California.
“It makes people feel smart and sophisticated when they find a golden mean”;
which is, I think, really another way of saying: “Let us pick the lesser of two evils.”
For a perfect example of how this reasoning works in the real world,
we need look no further than John 11:50, where Caiaphas says:
“…it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people,
and that the whole nation perish not.”
This is redundant, but it’s just too funny not to share…
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1576719879348204&set=a.145451702475036
🙂
Analysis of the jury questions indicates the worst possible juror, one of the liberal women, is probably the foreman.
It’ll either be a bad compromise or a hung jury I think.
They wanted to see the uncompressed video in question. That indicates to me that perhaps a couple of the jurors are hanging onto the notion that KR provoked this as was asserted by the prosecution through the blurred/compressed video.
I’d say it will probably be a unanimous acquittal or a hung jury, in which case the judge could still grant the motion for mistrial with or without prejudice. If the judge finds willful misconduct on the part of the prosecution calculated to obtain a mistrial, he can make the mistrial “with prejudice” which means that the case can’t be brought again. My guess is that those are the two real possibilities.
Happy belated birthday. 🙂
Thanks, Gail!
I think many of you underestimate the vast reservoir of burning hatred in the black community directed toward whites. That is the source of CRT. That is the source of the fervor in the present case. Though no blacks were killed, the fact that a white vigilante dared to defend himself against rioters bodes ill for future Antifa/BLM adventures. The unspoken message is “whitey should take it ’cause he got it comin'”.
The problem is not white rage. It is the use to which white guilt has been put: divisive political exploitation by creating black rage. White liberals, a dying breed, know that their only hope of clinging to power is to indict their own race and use the guilt to placate minorities whom they have indoctrinated into self-righteous wrath against whitey.
At this moment, about 70% of the electorate is white. However, 80% of the Republican electorate is white whereas only 60% of the Democratic electorate is white. Moreover, Democrats, due to ideology, are profoundly deferential toward that 40% minority. And the trend is clear in the Democratic Party: It is losing its whiteness steadily and consistently. While it is true that Republicans are picking up black and Hispanic voters, this is a minor trend that is not changing the center of gravity of the party.
Saturation for block busting purposes is usually figured at about 35 percent. Black and Hispanic share of the Democratic electorate is at about 32 percent (8 percent are “other”). IMHO, we are closing in on the point where there should be a mass white exodus from the Democratic Party. Once white liberals who are not ideologues feel free to bolt, they likely will. This will have some potentially volatile consequences.
You see the Democratic Party already becoming more totalitarian and radical. Even the Virginia elections and the near upset in NJ seem not to have swayed them. However, many Democrats are also retiring, seeing the writing on the wall. What you are likely to see for the next year is increasing desperation and hopelessness in the Democrat ranks. This will accelerate into high gear after the 2022 midterms.
We may see riots in the summer of 2024 like we’ve never had in the United States. And we may see them again in 2025.
Pat Buchanan offers an excellent analysis at:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/11/patrick-j-buchanan/kyle-rittenhouse-both-right-and-righteous/
This long-term resident of Hawai’i has been traveling around the Eastern Time Zone over the last week. Think “Old guy from tropical backwater lands in big, bad America.” I’ve caught glimpses of Detroit, Atlanta and Charleston in this short time. All three cities have large black populations. After watching television coverage of the deplorable riots of the summer of 2020, I was expecting a palpable tension between the black and white races in these cities, but have been delighted to see how well people seem to be able to ignore the obvious physical differences and treat each other cordially. Many are obviously fast friends who pay no mind to the color of the other’s skin. Most people are just plain, decent folks who treat each other with the same degree of aloha that I see back home.
Maybe my anecdotal observations have led me to the wrong conclusion. Maybe I’m just an old fool. But what if I’m not? That begs the question for the many of us whose opinions of the other race has been spoiled by the media, especially news stations. Why are we who are able to get along so well on the interpersonal level so apt to allow our sentiments to devolve into anger and suspicion when we watch reports of ugly events by the network news?
The police are under no obligation to protect you. (Warren v. District of Columbia, DeShaney vs. Winnebago and Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales).
When the SHTF the police will go home to protect their families. Son – you are on your own.
When the festivities kick off – again, keep this in mind. Make sure you and yours support gun control – hitting your target.
You do not need a government, constitution or any earthly authority to grant you permission to own, carry and shoot a firearm.
YOU have a God-given right, obligation and responsibility to protect yourself and your family first !
Accept the fact that we are deluged with propaganda, dezinformatsia, and stupidity.
What do you think will be the end result of all this ? Are you prepared – at the very least spiritually ? We are surrounded by lies, noise and confusion. The media will take spit whip it into merengue and tell you it’s cheesecake.
There is only One Truth.
There will come a day when we Orthodox will have to protect our faith and right to worship God as we know and have been for the last two millennia. There are active elements of the antichrist working right now who seek to destroy The Truth.
We must wrap our minds around the possibility that we may have to defend ourselves, our loved ones and our faith by the correct application of firepower – if necessary.
I pray that we never have to cross that Rubicon, but in my humble opinion – I want to be prepared – not for myself, but to protect those who will continue to praise and worship Our Lord as we have been for years.
“Not Guilty” on all charges! Hallelujah!
Pray for him; pray for our nation; pray for us all!
Not guilty! Woot!
Praise the Lord!
If I had a seventeen year old son, even an eagle scout with all the decorations or whatever, would I let him go into a riot zone with an semi-automatic rifle? No.
But it doesn’t change the fact that the verdict was correct.
And I have heard the argument that we send seventeen year old boys off to Afghanistan to fight jihadis. That is true. But we do not put them in command. Not at that age.
There was a time when a fourteen year old boy was considered a man for many purposes but those were much simpler times and boys matured more quickly in an incomparably harsher environment. Today, most seventeen year olds don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain.
None of that is to criticize what KR did once he was at the scene. By all accounts, he performed with remarkable discipline and in a completely lawful, responsible manner, given the situation. He obviously suffers from PTSD as a result of the experience and will carry that for years, if not til he dies.
And after the verdict, even acknowledging that it was just, I would still not allow my seventeen year old son (if I had one) to go into a riot zone to protect property with a semiautomatic rifle. Was it a mistake for him to go? That is arguable. What is not arguable is that he was perfectly within his rights to defend himself as he did. It was obvious from the video recording.
And there is a broader point to be appreciated here. Riots are not victimless crimes. Property damage is harmful to property owners. The argument that it is inconsequential is socialist. People protect their property and have a right to do so. In the larger scheme of things, KR’s age is irrelevant. Let us say it was the older property owner defending his auto lot with the same result. What’s the difference? None.
The decedents signed their own death warrants by attacking a person with an AR-15. That’s the bottom line. KR had a right to possess the gun and a right to use it in his own defense as he did. And we should thank God that those rights were vindicated.
The provocation was the riot.
Please don’t take this as an argument – it’s not meant as that. However, over the last couple of days in following the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, I’ve also found tidbits here and there that seem to maybe make some of this a little more understandable.
From what it looks like, the Rittenhouses were very poor. Parents split up, father has had problems with opioids, Kyle becomes “man of the house” at a very early age. Apparently, his family in Antioch – mom and two sisters – were evicted multiple times because of not being able to pay rent. I read somewhere, too, that he started taking summer jobs at 14 to try to help his mom out. Knowing the area, and having experience with people around there… Seventeen really is considered “grown up”. High school is the last, restless vestige of childhood, college is not in the cards for most of the young men, and a life of work – mostly low-skilled – lies ahead.
So you have a kid who’s had to grow up quickly. And he’s a good kid. He’s going to get experience and knowhow and pull himself up by his bootstraps to do something good and noble with his life. There may be nothing glamorous about a police officer or a fire fighter, but they are respectable professions that pay the bills, help the community, and if you survive 30 years of it, will provide a pension for you, and maybe access to an easy government job afterwards, to pay the bills when the state stops paying your pension (a real threat in Illinois!).
Of course Kyle knew he was only 17, but I don’t know that he thought of himself as a child anymore. So when the community was in need, it made sense to heed the call. After all, that magic number of 18 was only 4 months hence. He didn’t just show up to patrol a car lot, he cleaned graffiti during the day, he was trying to help the injured. Regardless of whether he saw himself as a child or not, I am positive he became a target in the first place not because he had a gun, but because he was perceived to be weak and soft. But there was more to Kyle Rittenhouse than met the eye; he fought back to save his life with the grit he’d learned growing up on the wrong side of the state line.
Kyle probably shouldn’t have been there, even he admits this himself, but it was a place he was legally entitled to be and his actions were lawful.
You’re right, the riot was the provocation and the government should be held responsible. I like the idea of Kyle’s Law, but there also needs to be a reckoning for cities/states that allow rioters to take over, burning property and threatening lives.
And there needs to be a mechanism that allows citizens to take up law enforcement powers if there is a total breakdown of civil order, while also holding such citizens accountable to all regulations covering police officers if they become lawless vigilantes. While the “organized militia” now consists of the National Guard, the “unorganized militia” of all able-bodied men age 18-45 could be offered training in riot policing and volunteer to protect their communities if these things happen. (Of course, the states that have riots, like Oregon, would never enact such a policy so it’s a moot point, but it’s how things would work if this wasn’t clown world.)
This, yes, this:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1576719879348204&set=a.145451702475036
I like this proposal: “Kyle’s Law”
“….Why are we who are able to get along so well on the interpersonal level so apt to allow our sentiments to devolve into anger and suspicion when we watch reports of ugly events by the network news?”
Very relevant question today. We should wait until we get more facts, however it is looking very likely that innocent people (including children and a Catholic priest) are now dead in Waukesha because of hateful rhetoric spewed by talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS – as well as hate speech recklessly thrown around by the President, some members of congress, and Hollywood celebs.
All of those screaming about white supremacy after the Rittenhouse verdict now may very well have blood on their hands. Let’s see if facts tell a different story. The moral decay of this country continues its frightful slide into the abyss.
“Those saying CNN shouldn’t be worried about lawsuits
need only watch their recent report to see … their general counsel is VERY concerned.”
https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1461868710856175620?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1461868710856175620%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2021%2F11%2Fcnn-worried-suddenly-reports-new-details-following-rittenhouse-verdict-video%2F
[Video – 02:20]
It’s TBT (Twitchy Butt Time) at CNN…
Those of us who have been paying attention knew all this 14 months ago, but I’m glad to see CNN eat crow, along with Ana Kasparian and so many others.
So what is MSNBC doing? They are so lacking in self-awareness they’re still on the old narrative. I can’t wait to see the millions they shell out. I hope Kyle doesn’t settle out of court. Go for a full jury trial.
You voted for creeps like George Gascon and London Breed in the first place. You had your chance to get rid of Gavin Newsome, arguably the worst governor in the country. But you punted on that one. I lived mainly in Orange County when I lived in California. La has aleays had a lot more progressives, think Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda made Santa Monice a progressive stronghold about 45 years ago.
This is quite a piece and worth looking at: https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-devils-in-the-demonstrators_1/
The Zomby Pocklips may be nigh.
This article speaks for itself and I’m forced to agree with its logic. I had reservations about the wisdom of KR going out there in the first place but those were dispelled by the article.
We will need many more Davids inasmuch as the Goliaths are quite real.
Excellent indictment on the gutless, nutless Fake Right.
World’s First Vaccine Murder case against Bill Gates,
Adar Poonawalla filed in India’s High Court
https://indianbarassociation.in/worlds-first-vaccine-murder-case-against-bill-gates-adar-poonawalla-filed-in-indias-high-court/
‘ Petitioner has sought prosecution of AstraZeneca’s (Covishield) manufacturer Bill Gates, his partner Adar Poonawalla and other Government officials and leaders involved in the murder of a 23 year old man, who lost his life because of vaccination. The deceased took the Covishield vaccine by believing in the false narrative that the vaccine is completely safe and also owing to the compliance requirement set by the Railways that only double vaccinated people would be allowed to travel.
The Government of India’s AEFI (Adverse Event Following Immunisation) Committee has recently admitted that the death of Dr. Snehal Lunawat,was due to side effects of the Covishield vaccine. The said report has exposed the falsity of the claim made by vaccine syndicate that vaccines are totally safe. …
If any person is vaccinated by suppressing the facts or by telling a lie that the said vaccines are completely safe, amount to the consent being obtained under deception. In India, vaccination under deception or by force/coercion or by putting certain stifling conditions, is a civil and criminal wrong. …
Bill Gates and Adar Poonawalla, the partners in manufacturing the Covishield (AstraZeneca) vaccine are made accused for their involvement in conspiracy.
In India, the person allowing the false marketing of his product is also held to be guilty due to his act of commission and omission. In this regard the provisions … make Bill Gates and Adar Poonawalla guilty of mass murders …
As per the expert opinion, considering the proofs of sterling nature, Bill Gates and Adar Poonawalla will get death penalty.
The Petitioner also relied upon the criminal antecedents of Bill Gates in killing 8 female children by unauthorized trial of HPV vaccines in India and judgment of Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Kalpana Mehta’s Case (2018) 7 SCC 1, which is a strong proof against Bill Gates and his vaccine syndicate. …
As per experts, there is no chance of Bill Gates getting bail in the case and all the movable and immovable properties of the accused will be confiscated soon. … ‘
The globalists have not won yet…
There are rumors about the Gates having had a run-in with India over vaccines before. It didn’t end well. Check out Melinda Ann French on Ansestry.com. (My cut and paste no longer works. Thank you, Hackers.)
A couple of curious details about the above:
(i) Dr Snehal was female, not male;
(ii) she was 33, not 23, when she died.
How the Indian Bar Association could get this wrong puzzles me.
Nevertheless, the basic story seems to be accurate:
Govt Committee Accepts Doctor Died
Due To COVID Vaccine Linked Blood Clot
https://www.boomlive.in/coronavirus-outbreak/aefi-vaccine-induced-death-covishield-committee-doctor-maharashtra-snehal-lunawat-astrazeneca-clotting-15211?infinitescroll=1
Also, Indians seem to have similar troubles reporting adverse events
as do people in the US and UK – I wonder if these are related…?
Interesting. I remember posting something on the blog about the CDC’s intent to roll out the vaccines. What interested me is that the first group was to be the Native Americans followed by the blacks. Of course, the blacks weren’t such a surprise because they have always targeted the blacks first. Thankfully, they know it, too, and they are tired of being the guinea pigs.
But why the Native Americans? I’ve made some good friends here in OK and some of them are from these tribes. They said the heat to take these vaccines.
True, genetically, they may be of higher risk for COVID but they couldn’t know that. At this point, they weren’t doing autopsies.
“…why the Native Americans?”
Perhaps, as maybe with the Aborigines in Australia,
there is a land grab going on…
True, but this CDC document was nothing recent. It was in March or April of 2020, I believe. I’d try to find it for you but I am unable to copy and paste links with my new “administrator” (hacker).