US Politics - Hot takes from my cold dead hands

[Ran]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think it's reasonable to say that a 5'4 person who is unarmed probably doesn't pose a huge threat to a bigger person with a very powerful gun.  

Armed people have been killed by unarmed people. Big people have been killed by small people. People have died from just getting pushed over and hitting their head on concrete the wrong way.

This internet tough guy thing where we can all judge what's really dangerous or not is just absurd. I personally would have been terrified if I were there that night and Rosenbaum came charging up after me, especially if I had witnessed his aggression at the gas station where he was screaming demands to be shot and threatening to kill people if he found them alone. He was not stable, and I defy anyone who thinks wrestling around with a mentally unstable person is a good course of action.

@HoodedCrow

I expect he thinks the whole open carry/gun laws thing is crazy, as I do, and has previously expressed sadness and anger at riots. 

[HoodedCrow]

I agree with George:) and He was a conscientious objector, so I doubt that would be thrilled with the outcome. I’m glad that Ran doesn’t approve:)

[Zorral]

Why yes. the Rittenhouse verdict sends the message that armed civilians can go armed anywhere and commit murder with all impunity and immunity from reprisal or punishment.  Time for white supremcist jerkwaddies to dance (armed) in the streets, you betcha.

Quote

 

.... "There was no justice today for Anthony (Huber), or for Mr. Rittenhouse's other victims, Joseph Rosenbaum and Gaige Grosskreutz," Karen Bloom and John Huber said in a statement that was released minutes after the verdict was announced in the Kenosha, Wisconsin, courtroom.

"Today's verdict means there is no accountability for the person who murdered our son," Huber's parents said. "It sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street." ....

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/parents-rittenhouse-victim-anthony-huber-react-not-guilty-verdict-rcna6177

Quote

... the real scandal of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is what might be plausibly determined to be legal ...

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/11/kill-or-be-killed

[sologdin]

Stop looking at this like a lawyer.

pry it out of my cold dead eyes? 

 

This ruling did not make it legal for people to gun down protestors, but what it will likely do is inspire more right wing types to bring guns to protests because they now have a road map on how to potentially get away with killing people if a shooting does occur. 

far right populism is based on grievance, though--asinine, fundamentally misattributed grievance, but grievance nevertheless.  here, however, a governmental process has vindicated several of its pet narratives.  does that encourage it in its contrarian recalcitrance--or does it defuse the grievance and thereby assimilate adherents back into legal institutions? the appropriate case study would be whether there's a rise in similar incidents post-acquittal. 

[Zorral]

"When can we start using guns on those people?" cried a white supremacist shoggoth worshipper to one of the head minions.

"Well," says state legal precedent and the Supreme Court, "you naturally born bad ass, right this frackin' minute.  Hop to it, buddy!"

Yes, yes, indeed, it is legal in the USA YAY to kill unarmed people with your big manly military grade weapon with which you openly can swag prominently down any street in the land because it is LEGAL.  We damned right saw that today, haw haw. Take that you wimp libs.

 

[DMC]

Two Dem Senators - Merkley and Whitehouse - said today they'd vote against Jerome Powell if he's renominated as Fed Chair.  With Warren, that makes three.  I'm rooting for Brainard.

[Mister Smikes]

32 minutes ago, Zorral said:

"When can we start using guns on those people?" cried a white supremacist shoggoth worshipper to one of the head minions.

"Well," says state legal precedent and the Supreme Court, "you naturally born bad ass, right this frackin' minute.  Hop to it, buddy!"

Yes, yes, indeed, it is legal in the USA YAY to kill unarmed people with your big manly military grade weapon with which you openly can swag prominently down any street in the land because it is LEGAL.  We damned right saw that today, haw haw. Take that you wimp libs.

The criminal justice system is about justice for individual defendants. 

It should not be about your desire to send the correct message to those you regard as your political adversaries.

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 hours ago, SFDanny said:

social justice and against police abuse of people of color.

The only people he shot were white.

[Zorral]

10 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

The only people he shot were white.

Which has to do with what, exactly, concerning open carry provoking violence, and those who commit it getting off free to be you but not me, who is dead? >ack-petui<

[Kalbear]

38 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

The criminal justice system is about justice for individual defendants. 

It should not be about your desire to send the correct message to those you regard as your political adversaries.

Aw, that's cute!

Regardless of whether or not you want it to be that's what it's going to be used as. Regardless of whether @sologdin wants it to not be used as a rallying cry for more violence, that's what it already is being used as by right wing militias. 

This is also a particularly ahistorical view of what the criminal justice system has ever been used for. It is certainly not about justice for individual defendants - it is about justice about the case in general, but it's also about the society as a whole agreeing to have a nonviolent way of settling disputes for that society. And hopefully, in a fairly objective, impartial way (though that is very rarely the case). The individual in this situation is part of the equation, but the effect it has on society is absolutely a fundamental part of the legal system and always has been.

And while I concur that this will likely not set major legal precedent, it will be - and is already being - used as a justification for further armed vigilantism, further killings, and further suppression of protest against the state and against the police. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

far right populism is based on grievance, though--asinine, fundamentally misattributed grievance, but grievance nevertheless.  here, however, a governmental process has vindicated several of its pet narratives.  does that encourage it in its contrarian recalcitrance--or does it defuse the grievance and thereby assimilate adherents back into legal institutions? the appropriate case study would be whether there's a rise in similar incidents post-acquittal. 

Yeah, about that. I kind of agree, but I think you're absolutely missing the grievance to be mined here. Now they can say 'SEE HOW WE WERE RIGHT" and get angry about that...

which they already are:

Quote

 

Bombastic Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene went on a rapid fire Twitter spree demanding that politicians, media organizations and social media platforms apologize to Rittenhouse and compared his plight to that of the people who have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington D.C.

“Freedom of Press is NOT permission to LIE about pre-trial defendants like Kyle Rittenhouse & J6 defendants,” she tweeted. “Today, Kyle Rittenhouse has been found NOT GUILTY. The media must apologize NOW! The media must be held accountable for the lies & labels they paint on people.”

 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Which has to do with what,

The insinuation that rittenhouse verdict gives license to kill poc. It makes it appear as the people he shot were poc. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

The insinuation that rittenhouse verdict gives license to kill poc. It makes it appear as the people he shot were poc. 

Sorry!

To be clear, it gives license to white people to kill people who are upset with the police shooting, maiming, crippling and killing people of color, regardless of the upset person's color or orientation of gender.

That's much better!

[Mister Smikes]

3 hours ago, sologdin said:

as there was sufficient evidence for a conviction, either way would've been correct.

Then what were the jury discussing?'

I think there was one correct verdict, and the jury reached it.

Sometimes a judge is asked to decide, not whether he thinks the verdict was correct, but whether a reasonable factfinder could hold a different opinion.   But we can't even reach that question, because the jury reached a verdict of acquittal, which, unlike a guilty verdict, can never be over-ruled by a judge.

[sologdin]

kal--

marjorie taylor greene doesn't ever say anything that makes sense. she is normally trying to incite far right populist anger. her understanding of defamation law is feeble and her invocation of der lugenpresse is totally NSDAP. is there anyone who will mobilize a paramilitary response to that idiotic contribution who isn't already an upper peninsula militia member or wearing the white sheet? it should be an inductive exercise--we can't deduce very far, but need to measure how this sort of acquittal balances centripetal and centrifugal effects. it may well cause a net increase in agitated far right populists. it may well also appease oplocratic authoritarian cultists and prevent them from slipping into lumpenized mode. this is something to work out in the laboratory of history.

the greater concern is that leftwing incendiarism spins up a state of exception where none exists.  we are not in a senatus consultum ultimum or heaven forfend a general justitium.  at times however the discourse appears to endorse a political dream of stasis. i think everyone has an obligation to step back from that.  the case licenses no one to kill protesters in the slightest; all it does is authorize that stupid fucking fascist kid to exercise a second amendment right to self defend.  the broader confrontation is not in this or any single adjudication; that confrontation is legislative.

do you think the prophet of doom persona is running its course?  you could change your name to kalmasutra and start a thread for ars amatoria advice.

 

smikes--

we can disagree as to whether the state presented sufficient evidence or not. my review of the applicable cases suggests that a conviction wouldn't've been overturned under jackson v. virginia.  did the defense present a motion to dismiss at the close of the state's case? that'd be the place your reasonable jury standard would appear. that's one place to see what the trial court thought about that question. 

Then what were the jury discussing?

I'm sure the jury was weighing all of the evidence very seriously, considering that it was sufficient.  they could've reasonably come to any number of conclusions, given the number of counts.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, sologdin said:

you could change your name to kalmasutra

I like it!

[Varysblackfyre321]

27 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

be clear, it gives license to white people to kill people who are upset with the police shooting,

Do you think that’s the only thing Rosenbaum did to Rittenhouse? 

 

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Armed people have been killed by unarmed people. Big people have been killed by small people. People have died from just getting pushed over and hitting their head on concrete the wrong way.

 

And Rittenhouse wouldn’t have been armed if his gun. He also wouldn’t be breathing if the Rosenbaum was true to his promise.

But maybe he was kidding. 

[TrueMetis]

4 hours ago, maarsen said:

Well O.J. got off too. Fat lot of good it did him once the civil case destroyed him. I am sure the families of the victims are talking to lawyers now. 

One hopes, and one also hopes that that may be a bulwark against those who have seen this as signaling they can get away with killing protesters. Though I'm not optimistic about this second point.

[Martell Spy]

48 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

Sorry!

To be clear, it gives license to white people to kill people who are upset with the police shooting, maiming, crippling and killing people of color, regardless of the upset person's color or orientation of gender.

That's much better!

It's very common for whites to profile and harass black people in certain neighborhoods. Now, this harassment is verbal and non-violent. (and needless to say despicable) It can easily lead to one of these situations where these racist chuds feel they need to kill in self-defense.

[Kalbear]

36 minutes ago, sologdin said:

kal--

marjorie taylor greene doesn't ever say anything that makes sense. she is normally trying to incite far right populist anger. her understanding of defamation law is feeble and her invocation of der lugenpresse is totally NSDAP.

She's also a major spokesperson for the far right and a lot of people listen to her. Your idea that they won't have some outrage over this is not justified. Now they will not only use this for their grief, they will be able to convince others that they are actually right to do so.

36 minutes ago, sologdin said:

the greater concern is that leftwing incendiarism spins up a state of exception where none exists.  we are not in a senatus consultum ultimum or heaven forfend a general justitium.  at times however the discourse appears to endorse a political dream of stasis. i think everyone has an obligation to step back from that.  the case licenses no one to kill protesters in the slightest; all it does is authorize that stupid fucking fascist kid to exercise a second amendment right to self defend.  the broader confrontation is not in this or any single adjudication; that confrontation is legislative.

I don't know that it's a greater concern of crying wolf when there are actual wolves, continue to be actual wolves, and the wolves appear to be multiplying. 

36 minutes ago, sologdin said:

do you think the prophet of doom persona is running its course?  you could change your name to kalmasutra and start a thread for ars amatoria advice.

All the kids these days are into ASMR blowjobs, leatherdaddies in the Sims and getting high off the fantasies of someday being able to leave their parent's house. I don't know I can really provide them anything.