I had dinner with my parents last night. Dad watches CNN 24/7, and he knows nothing about anything in the universe but for what’s shoveled into his head by CNN. It should therefore not surprise me that he’s completely unfamiliar with the concept of self-defense or that it had any relevance to the Rittenhouse verdict, and he firmly believes that Rittenhouse got away with double murder. Because that’s what CNN has been shouting for over a year, and much more ferociously since the verdict.
Imagine the lies and lies by omission CNN had to tell for so long to convince viewers that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist murderer who went to Kenosha to kill people. Yet to someone like my dad, all he would need to know to go from “Kyle is a murderer” to “Kyle is a hero and I love that boy” is knowing that a 5 time sodomizer of 9 year old boys lunged at Kyle and was rewarded with a bullet. I’m not saying that kind of facile analysis of Kyle’s culpability, one that’s informed by the past crimes of the dead, is appropriate either. But I can’t shake the feeling that the media’s crooked reporting not only manipulates people into a desired political stance, but does so against the viewers’ own core beliefs. It’s like my dad has been served a very delicious meal that he’s enjoyed and wants more of and raves about, but would have the opposite reaction if he knew he’d just been fed the corpse of his father. It sickens me to see my dad on a puppet string, raving about the lovely meal that I know he would puke up violently if he knew what was in it.
There is no way that honest, productive discussion can take place in this country when so much of the media is captive to a set narrative that conflicts with simply reporting the news and holding the powerful accountable. There are rumors that CNN is going to revert to a pure news reporting format. Not that straight news reporting will be free from The Narrative, but if it gets Chris “Stop Whining About Your 4 Year Old Seeing A 38 Year Old Dick In The Ladies’ Room” Cuomo off the air, that’s a step in the right direction. But I have little faith that there will be any course correction, or that the media will begin to value its credibility beyond declaring that they have it in spades and giving themselves awards for excellence. They love to see cities burning down, and will tailor their reporting and punditry in service of that love. 2024 is going to be absolute hell.
I can't make the callin - this is a chicken and the egg. Had the cities that allowed rioting, looting, and burning to take place all last summer actually NOT allowed rioting, looting, and burning as per their actual jobs, a lot of things would be different. But self defense is a legal doctrine and NO ONE is required to just stand there and be killed because they "aren't allowed" to defend themselves.
There's going to be an inflection point (if it already hasn't happened) where the majority people, especially white people tune out when they hear the phrase "white supremacy". It's becoming trite. The left along with the media constantly throw the phrase around to the point "playing the race card" has become a legitimate response. The few examples of real minacious white supremacy will begin to receive collective eye rolls. I think many are tired of the boy who cried wolf already.
This is what "Defund the Police" looks like in reality. Rich people will pay for private security, while poor people will band together, and both will do what it takes to protect their neighborhoods. Whether that is building walls and living behind them, a la the rich as we have seen, or going on street patrols to keep miscreants away, a la Zimmerman.
And when the mob runs amok, they both look like what we have seen over the last year; Rittenhouse, the couple in Missouri, and so on. This is the true meaning of Militia in the 2nd, the ability for citizens, absent government control, to band together or act alone, in defense of their community. And, frankly, Rittenhouse showed why you need to be able to keep and bear arms.
One of the basic jobs of government is doing whatever it takes to let honest protestors march and holler--while cutting off the air supply of rioters, looters, and arsonists. Fail that, and the Rittenhouses of America will keep filling the vacuum.
Kenosha happened not because of Rittenhouse, but because our politicians abandoned their prime responsibility of keeping the peace in public spaces. During January 6, the Summer of Floyd, Portland, Minneapolis, and Seattle, small groups of zealots from the left, right, and nihilist zone decided to burn, loot, and riot. Instead of jumping into the breach, city and state officials let it happen.
It's simple: If you don't want more Kenoshas, then don't allow more CHAZ takeovers and month after month of arson riots in city centers.
The Social Justice movement has very different thinking than most people in this country have, and the social justice warriors are trying to normalize our thoughts. What you see is a conversation between morality systems, relative morality vs. universal morality.
Relative morality does not constrain itself to a box. The postmodernists do not believe in moral values, as moral values are a standard constraining you to a particular set of thoughts. They tear down all values and definitions and view them as meaningless. To them, this trial was not about self-defense; it was about who had the more just cause.
Was the defense of property, standing for America Just, or attacking property the white capitalist power structure just? In relative morality, any resistance to their movement is considered unjust The men killed supported the CRT movement who believed property destruction was just. Anyone defending property was the enemy.
The left will never accept the "validation" of this trial. because it goes against what they think is justice. Justice using universal morality is an objective debate of what happened and a judgment by the community, and it is reasonable people coming up with a rational decision. It should leave the community and the actors in the dispute with a feeling of respect and dignity.
What the WaPo journalist is saying is, morality is subjective and should be for the cause of CRT. He says; "The jury was not asked whether it approved of Rittenhouse's actions or if individuals should take it upon themselves to supplement or replace law enforcement. They were not asked to take sides in the underlying tension between critics of law enforcement behavior and the police. Perhaps other jurors would have reached a different conclusion."
Was the defense of property something the government should have been doing? WaPo says; "It wasn't that there were no police. It was that the police were containing the unrest, not engaging in it." Isn't it the government's first duty to protect property? Can private citizens defend their own property, or has property become meaningless? Have our principles to "validate" justice changed from universal morality to mob-ruled relative morality?
If there's going to be an academic discussion on vigilantism, everyone must consider the fact that many cities told the police to stand down during riots last year. I am in no way endorsing taking the law into your own hands, but when the police and fire department stop responding to 911 calls what else do you expect people to do?
We should have a discussion about vigilantes in the street defending their town as the police step back and allow cities to burn. And we should have a discussion about the brick-throwing mobs of arsonist rioters attacking innocent people and businesses who somehow mysteriously remain utterly blameless in all of these discussions.
I was Jeremy… you tried to call on last. Couldn’t unmute. Anyway, wondered why people aren’t talking how this happened- ie, from my point of view, this happened in part because democratic governors didn’t want to let the Trump’s national guard in to calm the situations. Always seemed stupid to me to have police manage police brutality protests.
The iPhone-only platform helps keep out the riff-raff, but are there any plans to add a feature to prevent participation by those who own iPhones but attended public schools?
What I learned off of Matt Orfalea's video was the answer to a question that has always bugged me.
Every time I'd watch the MSM blathering on about how Rittenhouse was a murderous spree shooting demon from Klan Hell who farted brimstone and spit out minority killing bullets, I always wondered why these people, who practically masturbate and drool whenever they have cellphone video of a cop acting badly or a white person going ballistic to show, never showed 1 minute of video featuring Rittenhouse firing into a crowd of peaceful protesters. That would have sealed the deal on their story, a picture being worth a thousand words and all.
Now I know they never aired video because all of the available video would have demonstrated, quite nicely, how they're just making shit up.
It's also funny how their audience of feeble minded, terror filled shitlibs never once asked to see the proof. Instead they were like little baby birds lining up for Don Lemon & Brian Stelter to regurgitate right into their eager, yet pliant, yaps.
I'm also amazed that the squad, Omar, AOC, Bush managed to foment racial discord without resorting to one fact in their diatribes. Proving, I suppose, that most politicians are really only fit for jobs that require them to repeat, "Ya want fries wid dat" over & over until the grave claims them.
Then there's Joe "Special Grandpa" Biden who, a year ago, cluelessly said that "we know Rittenhouse is part of a militia group out of Illinois" when he really meant to say "I love me some prepubescent hair stank" also managed to do the same thing.
More bad analysis, by Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler:
"Kyle Rittenhouse beat his case because he put on the best defense money can buy.
Don’t believe the hype that Rittenhouse, who was prosecuted for homicide after shooting three people at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020 was acquitted because self-defense cases are tough for prosecutors to win. More than 90 percent of people who are prosecuted for any crime, including homicide, plead guilty. The few who dare to go to trial usually lose — including in murder cases.
Rittenhouse’s $2 million legal defense funds enabled his lawyers, before his trial, to stage separate “practice” jury trials — one in which 18-year-old Rittenhouse took the stand and one in which he did not. The more favorable reaction from the pretend jurors when Rittenhouse testified informed the decision to let the teenager tell his story to the real jurors. His apparently well-rehearsed testimony was probably the most important factor in the jury ultimately letting Rittenhouse walk...."
So there's your Speculative Narrative for you: Kyle Rittenhouse only won his case because of effective coaching by a high dollar ("$2 million") defense team, allowing him to craft a convincing story and stick to it. As if the incontrovertible facts of the case played no role in the jury decision.
(I'll merely note the irrelevance of quoting the statistics that Butler brought up in order to cast suspicion on the acquittal of Rittenhouse; offering that as tactical support for his argument is just flat out embarrassing. Although anyone who disagrees and finds the quoted metrics relevant is welcome to show their reasoning.)
My policy is to refrain from posting my own verdict on a heavily publicized criminal case, unless I conclude that there's a body of crucial evidence that makes it clear beyond all doubt about who did what when. The Rittenhouse case is one of those rare examples. I didn't require million-dollar defense attorneys to conclude from the available evidence that someone who didn't fire his weapon until after he was physically accosted by people with obvious hostile intent is not guilty by reason of self-defense.
"...Regardless of whether Rittenhouse wants or deserves to be, he is now the poster child for reactionary White men who seek to take the law in their own hands, who want to patrol Black Lives Matter protests with assault weapons and who think that violence is a legitimate form of political discourse...."
So, the only people "taking the law into their own hands" were the Kenosha residents trying to keep their city from going up in flames?
Butler is also implying that the Kenosha riot was merely a "Black Lives Matter" protest? No one has plausible grounds to complain that Black Lives Matter demonstrations are being slandered as violent, lawless riots when they've already implicitly granted that narrative credence.
The New York Times published a detailed, long-form story on the civil unrest in Kenosha on October 26, 1971. (Better late than never.) The headline:
"Kyle Rittenhouse and the New Era of Political Violence: What brought the teenager and so many others to the streets of Kenosha, Wis., equipped for war?"
New York Times skeptics will be surprised to learn that this article consists of actual news reportage, not an op-ed. And the story does a good job of explaining exactly what it was that did bring them to the streets, in a group, as an armed presence. ("Equipped for war" is toxic hyperbole. Just what we don't need any more of. At the very least, it shows a level of ignorance so appalling that the headline editor deserves to be fired.)
I could pull some excerpts and post them here, but I don't want to be accused of cherry-picking out of context. This is an article that deserves to be read in full. If someone else wants to pull some excerpts to support the fuzzy narrative that Kyle Rittenhouse was a lone vigilante who traveled to a strange city in order to find an excuse to shoot and kill nonwhites and antiracist white allies involved in protests clearly intended as support for the Black Lives Matter cause, be my guest.
As a long retired professional programmer, Matt, I only use my "smart" phone as a telephone and as a way to exchange text messages with people I know.
Yes, I appreciate your work and was one of your early subscribers. However, I do not like to waste time listening when I can read far faster than you can talk.
I agree with the remarks John wrote. Your dependence upon Apple applications is worth ridicule.
I'll even go as far in my condemnation of using IOS and/or Android as serious replacements for the power and security I enjoy on the computer I'm using to write this comment.
There must be some reasonable alternative that would allow you to create a transcript of your video and aural content.
I had dinner with my parents last night. Dad watches CNN 24/7, and he knows nothing about anything in the universe but for what’s shoveled into his head by CNN. It should therefore not surprise me that he’s completely unfamiliar with the concept of self-defense or that it had any relevance to the Rittenhouse verdict, and he firmly believes that Rittenhouse got away with double murder. Because that’s what CNN has been shouting for over a year, and much more ferociously since the verdict.
Imagine the lies and lies by omission CNN had to tell for so long to convince viewers that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist murderer who went to Kenosha to kill people. Yet to someone like my dad, all he would need to know to go from “Kyle is a murderer” to “Kyle is a hero and I love that boy” is knowing that a 5 time sodomizer of 9 year old boys lunged at Kyle and was rewarded with a bullet. I’m not saying that kind of facile analysis of Kyle’s culpability, one that’s informed by the past crimes of the dead, is appropriate either. But I can’t shake the feeling that the media’s crooked reporting not only manipulates people into a desired political stance, but does so against the viewers’ own core beliefs. It’s like my dad has been served a very delicious meal that he’s enjoyed and wants more of and raves about, but would have the opposite reaction if he knew he’d just been fed the corpse of his father. It sickens me to see my dad on a puppet string, raving about the lovely meal that I know he would puke up violently if he knew what was in it.
There is no way that honest, productive discussion can take place in this country when so much of the media is captive to a set narrative that conflicts with simply reporting the news and holding the powerful accountable. There are rumors that CNN is going to revert to a pure news reporting format. Not that straight news reporting will be free from The Narrative, but if it gets Chris “Stop Whining About Your 4 Year Old Seeing A 38 Year Old Dick In The Ladies’ Room” Cuomo off the air, that’s a step in the right direction. But I have little faith that there will be any course correction, or that the media will begin to value its credibility beyond declaring that they have it in spades and giving themselves awards for excellence. They love to see cities burning down, and will tailor their reporting and punditry in service of that love. 2024 is going to be absolute hell.
I can't make the callin - this is a chicken and the egg. Had the cities that allowed rioting, looting, and burning to take place all last summer actually NOT allowed rioting, looting, and burning as per their actual jobs, a lot of things would be different. But self defense is a legal doctrine and NO ONE is required to just stand there and be killed because they "aren't allowed" to defend themselves.
There's going to be an inflection point (if it already hasn't happened) where the majority people, especially white people tune out when they hear the phrase "white supremacy". It's becoming trite. The left along with the media constantly throw the phrase around to the point "playing the race card" has become a legitimate response. The few examples of real minacious white supremacy will begin to receive collective eye rolls. I think many are tired of the boy who cried wolf already.
"The New York Times and columnist Charles Blow largely stayed away from the specifics of the case ..."
They have to. The specifics of the case destroy their narrative.
This is what "Defund the Police" looks like in reality. Rich people will pay for private security, while poor people will band together, and both will do what it takes to protect their neighborhoods. Whether that is building walls and living behind them, a la the rich as we have seen, or going on street patrols to keep miscreants away, a la Zimmerman.
And when the mob runs amok, they both look like what we have seen over the last year; Rittenhouse, the couple in Missouri, and so on. This is the true meaning of Militia in the 2nd, the ability for citizens, absent government control, to band together or act alone, in defense of their community. And, frankly, Rittenhouse showed why you need to be able to keep and bear arms.
One of the basic jobs of government is doing whatever it takes to let honest protestors march and holler--while cutting off the air supply of rioters, looters, and arsonists. Fail that, and the Rittenhouses of America will keep filling the vacuum.
Kenosha happened not because of Rittenhouse, but because our politicians abandoned their prime responsibility of keeping the peace in public spaces. During January 6, the Summer of Floyd, Portland, Minneapolis, and Seattle, small groups of zealots from the left, right, and nihilist zone decided to burn, loot, and riot. Instead of jumping into the breach, city and state officials let it happen.
It's simple: If you don't want more Kenoshas, then don't allow more CHAZ takeovers and month after month of arson riots in city centers.
I'd call in but I'm out of range and would have to cross state lines to get reception, so...
This white on white violence has to end, brothers and sisters. Where's our Al Sharpton?
The Social Justice movement has very different thinking than most people in this country have, and the social justice warriors are trying to normalize our thoughts. What you see is a conversation between morality systems, relative morality vs. universal morality.
Relative morality does not constrain itself to a box. The postmodernists do not believe in moral values, as moral values are a standard constraining you to a particular set of thoughts. They tear down all values and definitions and view them as meaningless. To them, this trial was not about self-defense; it was about who had the more just cause.
Was the defense of property, standing for America Just, or attacking property the white capitalist power structure just? In relative morality, any resistance to their movement is considered unjust The men killed supported the CRT movement who believed property destruction was just. Anyone defending property was the enemy.
The left will never accept the "validation" of this trial. because it goes against what they think is justice. Justice using universal morality is an objective debate of what happened and a judgment by the community, and it is reasonable people coming up with a rational decision. It should leave the community and the actors in the dispute with a feeling of respect and dignity.
What the WaPo journalist is saying is, morality is subjective and should be for the cause of CRT. He says; "The jury was not asked whether it approved of Rittenhouse's actions or if individuals should take it upon themselves to supplement or replace law enforcement. They were not asked to take sides in the underlying tension between critics of law enforcement behavior and the police. Perhaps other jurors would have reached a different conclusion."
Was the defense of property something the government should have been doing? WaPo says; "It wasn't that there were no police. It was that the police were containing the unrest, not engaging in it." Isn't it the government's first duty to protect property? Can private citizens defend their own property, or has property become meaningless? Have our principles to "validate" justice changed from universal morality to mob-ruled relative morality?
If there's going to be an academic discussion on vigilantism, everyone must consider the fact that many cities told the police to stand down during riots last year. I am in no way endorsing taking the law into your own hands, but when the police and fire department stop responding to 911 calls what else do you expect people to do?
We should have a discussion about vigilantes in the street defending their town as the police step back and allow cities to burn. And we should have a discussion about the brick-throwing mobs of arsonist rioters attacking innocent people and businesses who somehow mysteriously remain utterly blameless in all of these discussions.
I was Jeremy… you tried to call on last. Couldn’t unmute. Anyway, wondered why people aren’t talking how this happened- ie, from my point of view, this happened in part because democratic governors didn’t want to let the Trump’s national guard in to calm the situations. Always seemed stupid to me to have police manage police brutality protests.
The iPhone-only platform helps keep out the riff-raff, but are there any plans to add a feature to prevent participation by those who own iPhones but attended public schools?
What I learned off of Matt Orfalea's video was the answer to a question that has always bugged me.
Every time I'd watch the MSM blathering on about how Rittenhouse was a murderous spree shooting demon from Klan Hell who farted brimstone and spit out minority killing bullets, I always wondered why these people, who practically masturbate and drool whenever they have cellphone video of a cop acting badly or a white person going ballistic to show, never showed 1 minute of video featuring Rittenhouse firing into a crowd of peaceful protesters. That would have sealed the deal on their story, a picture being worth a thousand words and all.
Now I know they never aired video because all of the available video would have demonstrated, quite nicely, how they're just making shit up.
It's also funny how their audience of feeble minded, terror filled shitlibs never once asked to see the proof. Instead they were like little baby birds lining up for Don Lemon & Brian Stelter to regurgitate right into their eager, yet pliant, yaps.
I'm also amazed that the squad, Omar, AOC, Bush managed to foment racial discord without resorting to one fact in their diatribes. Proving, I suppose, that most politicians are really only fit for jobs that require them to repeat, "Ya want fries wid dat" over & over until the grave claims them.
Then there's Joe "Special Grandpa" Biden who, a year ago, cluelessly said that "we know Rittenhouse is part of a militia group out of Illinois" when he really meant to say "I love me some prepubescent hair stank" also managed to do the same thing.
More bad analysis, by Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler:
"Kyle Rittenhouse beat his case because he put on the best defense money can buy.
Don’t believe the hype that Rittenhouse, who was prosecuted for homicide after shooting three people at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020 was acquitted because self-defense cases are tough for prosecutors to win. More than 90 percent of people who are prosecuted for any crime, including homicide, plead guilty. The few who dare to go to trial usually lose — including in murder cases.
Rittenhouse’s $2 million legal defense funds enabled his lawyers, before his trial, to stage separate “practice” jury trials — one in which 18-year-old Rittenhouse took the stand and one in which he did not. The more favorable reaction from the pretend jurors when Rittenhouse testified informed the decision to let the teenager tell his story to the real jurors. His apparently well-rehearsed testimony was probably the most important factor in the jury ultimately letting Rittenhouse walk...."
So there's your Speculative Narrative for you: Kyle Rittenhouse only won his case because of effective coaching by a high dollar ("$2 million") defense team, allowing him to craft a convincing story and stick to it. As if the incontrovertible facts of the case played no role in the jury decision.
(I'll merely note the irrelevance of quoting the statistics that Butler brought up in order to cast suspicion on the acquittal of Rittenhouse; offering that as tactical support for his argument is just flat out embarrassing. Although anyone who disagrees and finds the quoted metrics relevant is welcome to show their reasoning.)
My policy is to refrain from posting my own verdict on a heavily publicized criminal case, unless I conclude that there's a body of crucial evidence that makes it clear beyond all doubt about who did what when. The Rittenhouse case is one of those rare examples. I didn't require million-dollar defense attorneys to conclude from the available evidence that someone who didn't fire his weapon until after he was physically accosted by people with obvious hostile intent is not guilty by reason of self-defense.
"...Regardless of whether Rittenhouse wants or deserves to be, he is now the poster child for reactionary White men who seek to take the law in their own hands, who want to patrol Black Lives Matter protests with assault weapons and who think that violence is a legitimate form of political discourse...."
So, the only people "taking the law into their own hands" were the Kenosha residents trying to keep their city from going up in flames?
Butler is also implying that the Kenosha riot was merely a "Black Lives Matter" protest? No one has plausible grounds to complain that Black Lives Matter demonstrations are being slandered as violent, lawless riots when they've already implicitly granted that narrative credence.
The New York Times published a detailed, long-form story on the civil unrest in Kenosha on October 26, 1971. (Better late than never.) The headline:
"Kyle Rittenhouse and the New Era of Political Violence: What brought the teenager and so many others to the streets of Kenosha, Wis., equipped for war?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/magazine/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-wisconsin.html
New York Times skeptics will be surprised to learn that this article consists of actual news reportage, not an op-ed. And the story does a good job of explaining exactly what it was that did bring them to the streets, in a group, as an armed presence. ("Equipped for war" is toxic hyperbole. Just what we don't need any more of. At the very least, it shows a level of ignorance so appalling that the headline editor deserves to be fired.)
I could pull some excerpts and post them here, but I don't want to be accused of cherry-picking out of context. This is an article that deserves to be read in full. If someone else wants to pull some excerpts to support the fuzzy narrative that Kyle Rittenhouse was a lone vigilante who traveled to a strange city in order to find an excuse to shoot and kill nonwhites and antiracist white allies involved in protests clearly intended as support for the Black Lives Matter cause, be my guest.
As a long retired professional programmer, Matt, I only use my "smart" phone as a telephone and as a way to exchange text messages with people I know.
Yes, I appreciate your work and was one of your early subscribers. However, I do not like to waste time listening when I can read far faster than you can talk.
I agree with the remarks John wrote. Your dependence upon Apple applications is worth ridicule.
I'll even go as far in my condemnation of using IOS and/or Android as serious replacements for the power and security I enjoy on the computer I'm using to write this comment.
There must be some reasonable alternative that would allow you to create a transcript of your video and aural content.