Kyle Rittenhouse question

He did write it. And rightly so.

According to Wisconsin law, Rittenhouse need not have proved that he acted in self-defense--rather, the state had to prove that he did not.

It is one thing to argue that the jury reached a reasonable verdict based on this law, and another entirely to celebrate Rittenhouse's actions.

Much of the conservative media and the Republican Party, however, don't see the killings as "wrongful" in any sense,

instead elevating Rittenhouse as the manifestation of retributive violence against their political enemies.

Rittenhouse's critics contend that his intentions were racist, because he showed up armed in anticipation of protests on behalf of Black rights,

The ideological battle lines recall the 2013 George Zimmerman trial. In Zimmerman's case, prosecutors said he assaulted 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman's defense claimed the then-29-year-old had been attacked by Martin, whom Zimmerman had been following. Even though Martin would have had reason to be concerned about a grown man following him,

Zimmerman wasn't simply acquitted; some on the right embraced his actions as the fulfillment of a violent fantasy.

Few people ever use a firearm in self-defense--doing so is rare even for police officers--so the extreme elements of right-wing gun culture have to conjure the specter of impending catastrophe in order to maintain their political salience.

Sometimes this manifests in deranged reveries of armed revolution, sometimes in overt fantasies of murdering urban minorities, and sometimes in the make-believe of resisting a supposedly tyrannical government.

Not content to maintain that Zimmerman was innocent of murder, some of his supporters lived vicariously through his gunning down a Black teenager. People bought Trayvon Martin shooting targets.

Right-wing pundits marked his birthday with jokes, and spread falsehoods about his background in an attempt to retroactively justify Zimmerman's killing him.

Some people turned Zimmerman into a hero, because he killed the kind of person they liked to imagine themselves killing.

The fact that then-President Barack Obama empathized with the fear of many Black parents, that their children will be seen not as children but as dangerous threats, by saying that if he had a son "he'd look like Trayvon," only added to the fantasy's appeal.

Zimmerman had a right to defend himself; his supporters could see Martin only as the sort of person the right of self-defense was meant to be invoked against.

The fact that Rittenhouse has become a folk hero among Republicans points to darker currents within the GOP, where justifications for political violence against the opposition are becoming more common.

The party finds the apocalyptic fear of impending leftist tyranny useful not only for turning out its supporters, but also for rationalizing legislative attempts to disenfranchise, gerrymander, and otherwise nullify the votes of Democratic constituencies.

Whether it's Donald Trump justifying his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, Republican members of Congress threatening their colleagues, or Fox News hosts praising Rittenhouse for "doing what the government should have done," the desire to kill your political opponents is a sentiment no longer confined to the dark corners of the internet.

The principle that canonizes Rittenhouse as a saint for defending his city from rioters, and the mob that stormed the Capitol as martyrs, is the principle that the slaughter of the right's enemies is no crime.

oralloy wrote:

He did write it. And rightly so.

England, formed in 927, gained the first U.K. state other than itself through invasion - because of their "White Supremacy"?

The British colonisation of the Americas only worked because many citizens of the Kingdom of Great Britain from Wales, Scotland and England emigrated to the new colonies. (Yes, the spoke mainly English.)

The White people who wiped out and set up the Slave economy in the US ... where do you think they came from?

maxdancona wrote:

The White people who wiped out and set up the Slave economy in the US ... where do you think they came from?

Quite a few - and earlier than the British, Spaniards wiped out the indigenous population. (Although the Spanish law didn't allow slavery, encomienda was very similar.)

1) The Spanish did not have a doctrine of racial superiority. The British did.

2) If you look at countries colonized by Spain, you will see a mix of skin colors from light skin to dark. That is because Spain didn't systematically kill indigenous people. In Spain they wanted to convert and assimilate indigenous people.

In places that were colonized by Spain, people of indigenous and mixed ancestry are common.

The British activities in the Caribbean were all directly related to the Slave Trade (as far as I am aware).

In places that were colonized by Spain, people of indigenous and mixed ancestry are common.