Posted on 11/22/2021 4:00:13 AM PST by MtnClimber
The Kyle Rittenhouse trial has given us an unusual opportunity to contrast uncontestable facts as shown on many video recordings with an endlessly repeated media narrative that seems to exist in an alternate reality. To my amazement, even after two full weeks of livestreamed trial, most notably featuring videos taken on the night at issue and a witness testifying that he had pointed a gun in Rittenhouse’s face, many on the left cling to the prior narrative of the case as though it contains a greater truth about our justice system and racism in this country and therefore cannot be disputed by facts.
Could they just not have been paying attention? Or alternatively, do they have such a strong sense of emotional conviction that no amount of evidence, rationality, or logic can persuade them that Kyle Rittenhouse deserved the presumption of innocence and a fair trial?
I decided to test these hypotheses by engaging with a Progressive friend of mine when she posted an angry Instagram story in response to the Rittenhouse verdict. She was not the only one in my social media feed to do so, or even an outlier: Among the people most would consider my peers (in age, educational background, and location), the near unanimous opinion, even after the trial and jury verdict, is that Kyle Rittenhouse should spend his life in jail. But she and I have had productive conversations on other subjects in the past, so I thought she was a good target.
In her post about the verdict she wrote, “I don’t normally use my instagram for political commentary but this is a step too far” along with a series of angry emojis.
I responded with: “Did you follow the trial?” I wanted my opening comment to come across as innocuous. I was also genuinely curious to know if she had followed the facts of the case.
“No,” she replied quickly, “what did I miss? I heard he was a blubbering idiot.”
“A lot.” I responded. “I’ll send you an email that I think has an even-handed breakdown of the case.” I then forwarded her this article by Bari Weiss, which I sincerely think does an excellent job contrasting the media’s narrative about what happened with the facts. I also thought that if any journalist could get through to someone on the left, that person had to be Bari Weiss.
I was wrong. This morning I received this email from my friend in reply [unedited]:
“Bari Weiss is a racist is all I can garner from this ignorant article. Show me a world in which a black weaponless kid standing on that street corner doesn’t get shot or jail time. When the law only applies white people it’s not the law. F*ck this perspective.”
I was stunned. So I followed up: “Which part is the racist part???” Noting when I did so that the three men shot by Kyle Rittenhouse were all white.
To which she said [unedited]:
“To write an article that justifies the verdict based on the simple suggestion that the law will set you free when that simply does not apply to black Americans is disgusting to me. This was a highly racially charged news story and has been since it happened and if he was black with the same exact situation he would be in jail - and often it’s for a lot less. Until the system works for everybody - this kind of blanket unwillingness to acknowledge the imbalance in our country disgusts me. The article is racist because she wrote it, I’m not saying he [Rittenhouse] is racist - that isn’t the point.”
To avoid turning this into a literal “she said/she said,” I’ll summarize the rest of our multi-email conversation. In my summary below, I have made a concerted effort to represent her argument as fairly as I possibly can. I found our conversation eye-opening, and a useful insight into the prevailing Progressive view of the Rittenhouse case.
Her opinion: The criminal justice system is fundamentally racist and treats black people unfairly. Therefore, in the racially charged context of the Rittenhouse case, it does not matter whether or not self-defense was justified. Rittenhouse should be thrown in jail because that’s what would have happened to a black man in his position. Jurors should make an example of Rittenhouse. White lawmakers will only be motivated to take action on criminal justice reform when they see that actions have consequences that can affect children who look like their own.
My opinion: If we believe the justice system is unfair, it doesn’t become more fair by using this case to set a precedent that trial outcomes can be determined based on our desire for emotional satisfaction and revenge. The only way to create a “more equitable” system, is to agree on a set of principles (such as the right to self-defense) and then continually uphold those principles even when it’s politically inconvenient or unappealing to do so. I want to live in a world where, if Kyle Rittenhouse were black, he too would be acquitted because he acted in self-defense. We undermine that future possibility by undermining the very notion that acting in self-defense is a legitimate defense. We reduce the notion of justice to taking an eye for an eye.
Predictably, my friend and I ended our conversation exactly where we began. After 20 emails back and forth, I finally admitted “we’re not going to get any further on this.” No matter what I said, she could not get past the idea that the criminal justice system can only be made more fair by making an example of Kyle Rittenhouse, even if it would require making the justice system unfair to do so. Her view did not change when I pointed out ending the drug war would do far more to get black men out of prison, nor when I argued that black men would benefit by our upholding the right to self-defense (such as in the recent, barely reported case of Andrew Coffee), nor when I suggested that the unintended consequences of sentencing Rittenhouse could easily be used to justify sending even more black men to jail down the line.
I left the conversation more discouraged than ever. There seems to be no understanding or awareness among my peers that in pursuit of “equity,” Progressivism is pulling us further and further from something that resembles true equality — that is, a world where we can trust that the same rules will apply to all and people will be treated equally under the law.
Is there any point engaging with Progressives on these subjects, when no arguments -- even those grounded in protecting the groups they claim to care most about -- seem to move the needle? I’m tempted to throw up my hands and say no, but then I remember that our democracy gives them a voice in how justice is carried out in this country. These views are echoed by leftist politicians with the ability to write or enforce law. A few examples following the trial verdict:
Said Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers: “No verdict will be able to bring back the lives of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, or heal Gaige Grosskreutz’s injuries, just as no verdict can heal the wounds or trauma experienced by Jacob Blake and his family. No ruling today changes our reality in Wisconsin that we have work to do toward equity, accountability, and justice that communities across our state are demanding and deserve.”
Said Wisconsin Representative Gwen Moore, “A system that legitimizes vigilante murder is deeply broken.”
Said NY Mayor Bill DeBlasio: “Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum are victims. They should be alive today. The only reason they’re not is because a violent, dangerous man chose to take a gun across state lines and start shooting people. To call this a miscarriage of justice is an understatement.:
If these opinions didn’t have the potential to affect my life, I wouldn’t care so much, try so hard, or be so afraid.
“the only way out of this, given the reality you just described, is to loosen the political bands that connect us.”
Agreed
National Divorce is the answer.
No Civil War - just Civil Separation
Choose Freedom - Choose Peace
“Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.” Jonathon Swift (1721)
In other words… It is futile to reason someone out of a thing that he was not reasoned into in the first place.
true ... but I guess it went over your head ...
civil separation just kicks the can down the road ... a war is required for a long-lasting fix ... unfortunately ...
The root reason is pride.
Excess self-love leads to believing oneself to have more value than other people and this leads to self-worship.
Self-worship causes a person to regard themselves as equal to God, or, at least, equal to being god-like.
God is never wrong, so guess who also never is wrong?
Believing themselves never to be wrong, the prideful feel obligated to announce and enforce their most-enlightened-and-most-important-in-the-world opinion for the benefit of the little people, bless everyone else’s second class little hearts.
The longer people go on being prideful the harder it is for them to admit being wrong about anything. Frail as a house of cards, their lives are built on a series of untruths because they have had to twist so many truths in order to always be right. These people know that if they go back and remove even one card the entire house will crumble and that is too much for them to face and too far for them to fall.
Social media has magnified the problem of pride because the prideful person’s audience size reaches into unknown numbers instead of being limited to his or her traditional circle of acquaintances. Admitting that we have been wrong to one person is difficult for most of us and admitting it, after claiming infallibility, to vast numbers of people who are perceived to be less valuable than oneself has got to be nearly impossible for the prideful person.
Toss in the powers of evil, our world’s original spark of self-worship and pride, and this societal turn from the individual knowing that his or her value is rooted in being a creature loved and valued by God to the individual believing that he is perfect just the way he is and can do or be anything he wants or that she is a perfect princess, and we have the recipe for societal destruction.
Just a few happy thoughts for the day!
:-)
My experience with liberals is that they don’t know facts, they spew what they have heard on MSNBC, CNN, etc and many issues don’t even make it to MSNBC, they will say, I didn’t hear that so it must not be true. Then when undeniable facts are pointed out, they say, “so what, who cares”. I have a niece who continually calls “Rick” DeSantis an idiot, “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about”.
Most libtards are mentally ill and don’t even know it 🤪
They don’t know the difference between fact and fiction or good and bad.
Any hope we have of convincing a liberal with facts about a topic is only early on before they've argued their side a lot. Once they've spent a lot of energy expressing their emotion, then their emotion is dominant in their thoughts.
Proverb 25:9 (AMP) -- Do not rush out to argue your case [before magistrates or judges]; Otherwise what will you do in the end [when your case is lost and] When your neighbor (opponent) humiliates you?
Tribal warfare is the easiest to instigate.
The government is also importing Islam, for the same purpose.
Suicide the society.
It’s spiritual.
“They can only be convinced by death camps, as they are being dragged away.”
More likely, they’ll claim that something went wrong or tha Left didn’t follow the Left’s plan correctly. They won’t fault the plan.
"If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs you can tell which one you hit, because that one will be yelping."
Excellent post.
If you are not familiar with them, you will enjoy the podcasts of Terence McKenna.
He is off the charts brilliant and focuses on similar themes.
https://psychedelicsalon.com/category/people/terence-mckenna/
I will give you some to start with since there are so many:
(you can use this link for easier searching by number:
https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcasts/)
Podcast #261
Podcasts #295 and 296
Podcasts #589-593
Podcast 560
Podcasts 223-226—These are the most difficult to understand so should be listened to last—really worth the effort though.
I can tell you that everything I say to anyone about COVID (and I include some of the most highly placed public health people and scientists in the country) is usually responded to by either “You must be a Trump voter” (80%) or “You obviously voted for Biden” (20%).
Reality is taking a break in this country, and it’s not just progressives.
“If you read the FBI declassified files on the Weathermen you will find they landed on the idea of using the blacks to cause dissention in the United States.
Obama has connections to the Weathermen. I’m sure this is all been the plan for years and is now so big it’s hard not to see the leaks.
Stemming from communists of course.”
The Weathermen’s closely related group, the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) in 1968 carried out a plan in which they claimed that Columbia University was harming Blacks in wanting to build a community gymnasium on the side of campus that faced Harlem. This claim was a total, facade, invented by outside Communist strategists, an excuse to take over the university president’s office and incite chaos on the campus. The same pattern of inventing narratives that incite chaos and destruction continues today in our cities.
Related tidbit—Charles Manson also was trying to cause a race war. It is a common theme in leftist lore.
Progressives not only lie to others, they lie to themselves.
Back in his famous book "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers (who was crucified on a political cross by the Left) he writes an incisive passage that bears on this:
"Communists are that part of mankind which has recovered the power to live or die - to bear witness - for its faith. And it is a simple, rational faith that inspires men to live or die for it.
It is not new. It is, in fact, man’s second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “Ye shall be as gods.” It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision…Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man’s relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.
It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man’s destiny and reorganizing man’s life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in His image, but because man’s mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals. Copernicus and his successors displaced man as the central fact of the universe by proving that the earth was not the central star of the universe. Communism restores man to his sovereignty by the simple method of denying God."
This is why I regard this former communist spy, this dumpy man, as one of my personal heroes. He understands the Left all too well, in ways we simply refuse to face.
This was also an assault on the 2A.
If Kyle had been convicted then *any* use of a firearm in self-defense would become an automatic charge of murder. The left needed to stop anyone from thinking that they can use a weapon against a leftist ‘rally’ (mob). It would empower the mob no end.
I am leaning towards that (see the post above about Whittaker Chambers)
It is a religion. It is the way they approach everything, from race, economics, international relations, global warming, the environment...
Hating Trump.
You have to be a believer or an apostate. In this, the Left has much in common with radical Islam in their attitude towards apostates.
It is what will empower them to destroy those who disagree with them if they ever openly assume full control of the levers of power and remove our right to defend ourselves.
It is another reason why the Rittenhouse trial was in no way trivial-that is just another avenue of attack on our right to self defense.
They have been working on eliminating the means for some years now.
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