The Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict: America’s Guilt
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
The Kyle Rittenhouse defense, to me, when parsed and cleansed of judicial tactics and obsequious legal jargon, without loud corporate media and social media interference, whittles down to something akin to Aesop’s well-told fable: the boy who cried wolf.
The boy went into the den that was unfamiliar to him, that was indeed unwelcomed by him, with White bravado and weapon in hand, and cried when those around him responded in an equally emotional manner. Rittenhouse rightfully whined that the protestors were threatening him. As they should.
Before having his mother drive him across state lines, he commiserated to his paramilitary friends online that the protestors were there to hurt him and others (and the businesses to which he had no connection) and went in to do battle.
The media blitz disappeared this origin story. That specific moment in witness cross-examinations about the infamous photograph of Protestor Gaige Grosskreutz standing over Kyle Rittenhouse, who was on the ground, became the quintessential element of the Rittenhouse murder trial for many watching partisans. The photograph is terrifying. There are not one but two guns in an arena that would be better without them. I would be scared if someone stood over me like that too!
Here, the defense put the onus on the victim rather than the aggressor, a common tactic. The argument is as follows: See! Kyle was the victim! He was on the ground! The gun was aimed at him! He had to defend himself! He had to stand his ground.
But context matters.
Where did this confrontation originate? Who crossed the state line, then illegally carried a firearm and willingly entered the den, playing the agitator, the role of antagonist? Kyle Rittenhouse. He should not have been there, but he was of his own volition. The town did not need his protection (nor any paramilitary fanatic’s protection.). That’s why we have local, state, and federal authorities. However inept and corrupt they prove to be.
If he was acting in self-defense, it was because those at whom he was pointing his rifle were acting in self-defense to his unwarranted violent aggression.
Unfortunately, friends and family and Facebook friends alike, on both sides of the aisle, without context, saw and pillaged moments in the trial to bolster their biases. Conservatives — or most of my family — liked this particular defense tactic that showed Rittenhouse on the ground in a vulnerable state. They then took to social media postings with musings of their own, calling for murder. Or they stole silly memes from reputable sources like Tomi Lauren.
My conservative family and friends and their advocacy of and longing for violence have me dismayed. Truly. And it hurts. For years now, they have sided with murderers, like Kyle Rittenhouse, over protestors. They have sided with them even though protestors are exercising their free speech rights in a fight to make real change, and not through violence a la vigilantism. Somehow, in their eyes, vandalism is a worse offense than murder.
The following is for those I love:
With your comments about criminals, about the desire to murder just because someone has looted, you are proving yourself to be someone I do not know and maybe never knew well enough. I am utterly convinced that you do not have the guts to prowl the streets with a weapon to murder someone looting a building to which you have no connection. Pathetically, you would probably have someone else, like a 17-year-old, do your bidding for you. I think there is a litmus test here. If you are unwilling to take up arms and see firsthand the face of murder, then perhaps do not advocate for it.
This Rittenhouse verdict, like many others, is being used to examine not only systemic racism but the justification for violence in the face of free speech (even when vandalism is involved). It sets a precedent for further violence. And this increasingly violent America that you (on the Right) seem to fear has now been given license to increase. First, you had looting and vandalism. Now you will have murder alongside it. As with Rittenhouse, the equation is simple: with him at the protest, two murders occurred. Without him, no murder.
Dear family, if you want to live in a militarized America, where the government orders citizens and police to shoot to kill without consequence, or what is an America modeled after Mayor Daley’s 1964 Democratic convention, the Kent State Massacre, and the countless racial protest beatings, including the very recent Charlottesville and Rittenhouse murders, then you might as well invite in the Gestapo or the KGB or any of our homegrown terrorist paramilitary groups as our overseers.
But like all societies where these groups proliferate, where do you turn when they aim their sights at you?
But outside the media fray and family and friend drama, there is Judge Bruce Shroeder.
Judge Shroeder made a questionable and legally dubious decision by disallowing pictures of Kyle Rittenhouse posing with the white supremacist organization the Proud Boys and giving a thumbs up in celebratory fashion. The event at which this photoshoot occurred was mere weeks after he murdered Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. Judge Shroeder’s explanation for why they were relevant proved less than convincing. He proved himself biased and ideological when he censored specific nomenclature.
Judge Shroeder disallowed the prosecution to use the term “victim” when describing the young men Kyle Rittenhouse murdered but allowed both legal teams to use “vandal” and “looter” to describe the murder victims and all those present at the protest.
Those odd choices aside, the verdict sets a precedent that further erodes the protection of free speech and justifies not the confidence of our forefathers but the radical gun rights groups and their political allies who are winning this culture war. Murdering protestors, whether or not the protestor is a looter, is now not merely forgiven but aided by this verdict. Paramilitary groups, rejoice: This is your America.
However, we who cherish free speech and a better America, who understand our young nation to be in a perpetual state of transition, will march on and protest injustices, even in the face of intimidation of violence and bloodshed. That is our America.
