Rittenhouse Acquitted of all charges

Katheryne Helendale

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I actually think this clause could give us constitutional cover to dismantle the American standing military, which is something we should absolutely do. I'm sick of foregoing decent infrastructure, and simple public services, in order to give those disgraceful homicidal maniacs an unlimited budget to go commit suicide in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places.
I actually take great offense to this. We have certainly had some bad leadership at times, GWB being one of them, but the overall mission of the US military, at least since I had joined, is to promote peace. As for dismantling the military, I think that's a really bad idea. I could possibly stand behind converting us to a self-defense force, but the US military is the primary reason few have tried to attack us on our own soil.
 

Zaida Gearbox

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The internet does not forget, Rittenhouses life is ruined no matter he got acquitted, he'll most likely end up as trailer trash.
I bet you a shiny nickel you're wrong. He'll end up working for some conservative organization or another. I mean didn't some senator or congressman already say they'd be willing to take him on?
 
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bubblesort

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I actually take great offense to this. We have certainly had some bad leadership at times, GWB being one of them, but the overall mission of the US military, at least since I had joined, is to promote peace. As for dismantling the military, I think that's a really bad idea. I could possibly stand behind converting us to a self-defense force, but the US military is the primary reason few have tried to attack us on our own soil.
Sorry you feel that way.

It doesn't change the fact that the military, as an institution, is unfit for purpose. Blame it on leadership, blame it on the service men and women, it doesn't really matter to me whose fault it is. We give them an unlimited budget to go out and lose wars.

The idea that the military is preventing attacks on American soil is just crazy. Before we built what Eisenhower called the military industrial complex in World War II, nobody was invading us. We had a civil war, and we attacked native americans, but those are domestic issues. We had a war in 1812, which was with the UK (well, really Canada), and we had a Spanish American war in 1898, which lasted 3 months. Other than that, there were a few terrorist attacks like the Black Tom explosion, but there's a huge difference between a terrorist attack and a full invasion. We won all of these without having the most massive military on the planet.

To be clear... I do think we need a navy, to protect shipping and borders. The navy is the only military branch that's specified in the constitution as something that we must have, so we can't get rid of it without a constitutional convention, anyway. We also need strategic nukes, so give them to the navy to manage. Then sell off half the fleet and keep what's left in American territorial waters. We should shut down all foreign bases, and the remaining military branches, and we should not send our ships out without an act of congress. If another country can't exist without American military support, then they should not exist.

If we ever need the military again, we can rebuild it, like we did in World War II. This standing military that can't fight is just a waste of resources, and a temptation for powerful people to abuse their power.
 

WolfEyes

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Hellooooo people. I LIVE IN A TRAILER PARK. Thanks for thinking I'm trash just because.

Yes, it bothers me because it's stereotyping people which is one step above racial profiling.

Please, think before you hit that enter key.
 

Imnotgoing Sideways

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Not at all. Alexander Hamilton was quite clear what they meant by a militia in the Federalist Papers #29. If you are not familiar with them, they were a series of pamphlets written to persuade people of the time to support the new Constitution. They were intended to be a relatively small body of trained soldiers controlled by the states, who could be called out when needed. That's essentially what our National Guard is. Since the Militia is living their lives when not called out, and they had personal weapons that they were familiar with and maintained, hence the "keep and bear arms" passage.

They were concerned about a tyrannical central government, which they had just fought a war to get rid of a few years previous. So they didn't want the new federal government being created by the Constitution to ever take away the local militia's and citizen's guns. Hence the larger phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". Plenty of people besides the Militia had guns for various reasons - hunting, defending against native attacks, the possibility of the British returning (which in fact they did 24 years later). The Militia were the first line of defense, but the general body of able-bodied men with weapons could back them up if necessary.

(This of course was long before women's rights and modern weapons that no ordinary individual can afford)
The Federalist Papers were only pamphlets. Negotiable subtext, at best.

The potentially tyrannical central government is the federal government. And, yes, that is assuming citizens could be capable of arming themselves to the point where they could defeat a corrupt federal entity. Muskets being a dime-a-dozen, and all.

Again it goes back to commas. "Plenty of people besides the Militia had guns for various reasons - hunting, defending against native attacks, the possibility of the British returning (which in fact they did 24 years later)." assumes the second comma is a period. It's not. If it were, the individual would have the private right to be their army of one. They knew better and didn't need a pamphlet to back the statement. A militia of citizens has a right to bear arms. The individual does not qualify.

The U.S. Bill of Rights said:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,(<= That's a comma) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
So, no. The second amendment doesn't give right wing radical WASP brats the right to lug assault rifles out in public. Murder is still a crime. And the court case really did just boil down to shenanigans.
 

Aribeth Zelin

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So, the military itself is NOT the problem. Nor are the soldiers. Blame the corporate overlords, the 1% and anyone else who benefits from the spending on toys and keeping us in wars we don't belong in.

But while I did not serve [they didn't want a legally blind soldier that badly [I was around a -11 in both eyes at the time]], my dad served, my mother's father and his brothers all served, my ancestors have served in American wars since the Revolutionary war - so if someone wants to knock the military?

Bring it :p
 

Zaida Gearbox

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Hellooooo people. I LIVE IN A TRAILER PARK. Thanks for thinking I'm trash just because.

Yes, it bothers me because it's stereotyping people which is one step above racial profiling.

Please, think before you hit that enter key.
Doesn't Shiloh also live in a trailer? I bet she really appreciates being dismissed as trash. I lived in a trailer for several years. I never saw why people were so nasty about people who live in trailers. I didn't want to have someone above me or under me. I wanted a washer/dryer hook up. I wanted to be able to have a small garden. I couldn't afford to rent a house - that meant trailer.
 

WolfEyes

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Sounds like someone missed banjo practice. =^-^=
People wonder why I don't really like humans.
Doesn't Shiloh also live in a trailer? I bet she really appreciates being dismissed as trash. I lived in a trailer for several years. I never saw why people were so nasty about people who live in trailers. I didn't want to have someone above me or under me. I wanted a washer/dryer hook up. I wanted to be able to have a small garden. I couldn't afford to rent a house - that meant trailer.
I believe so and I'm sure she won't appreciate it much either.

And yes, after owning 3 of my own homes and then having to live in an apartment for almost 20 years, I wanted the same thing and I have that with the trailer. We paid $58,000 for it whereas an actual house would cost us closer to $300,000. Not to mention the cost of maintenance and upkeep.

We also were able to pay cash for the trailer whereas we would never qualify for a home loan. And the only reason we were able to pay cash was because of inheritance.
 

Romana

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VERY nicely put and I highlighted the part that I see as especially key. I'll probably come close to quoting you at thanksgiving with conservative relatives if this comes up (I won't bring it up). Another thing I might ask my parents if this comes up is "Would you have let any of your kids drive to a possible riot with a gun when they were 17?! I don't think he is likely guilty of full murder, but there are a number of lesser charges he is begging for. He was looking for trouble in a way no decent, rational person would do when he had to "defend" himself.
He shot the first victim in the back of the head. That's execution, which is to say, murder. What it is not is self -defense.
 

Innula Zenovka

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Not at all. Alexander Hamilton was quite clear what they meant by a militia in the Federalist Papers #29. If you are not familiar with them, they were a series of pamphlets written to persuade people of the time to support the new Constitution. They were intended to be a relatively small body of trained soldiers controlled by the states, who could be called out when needed. That's essentially what our National Guard is. Since the Militia is living their lives when not called out, and they had personal weapons that they were familiar with and maintained, hence the "keep and bear arms" passage.

They were concerned about a tyrannical central government, which they had just fought a war to get rid of a few years previous. So they didn't want the new federal government being created by the Constitution to ever take away the local militia's and citizen's guns. Hence the larger phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". Plenty of people besides the Militia had guns for various reasons - hunting, defending against native attacks, the possibility of the British returning (which in fact they did 24 years later). The Militia were the first line of defense, but the general body of able-bodied men with weapons could back them up if necessary.

(This of course was long before women's rights and modern weapons that no ordinary individual can afford)
The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, by Carol Anderson, gives a rather different account of that debate and, indeed, of the conditions of the militias at the time, who were hopelessly undisciplined and unreliable, by and large.

According to her, the Second Amendment was part of the price demanded by the southern, slave-owning, states for ratifying the Constitution in the first place, because, while the militias had demonstrated they were little use against a professional army (very prone to desert), they were very good at putting down slave rebellions and searching the dwellings of black people, both free and enslaved, to ensure they didn't have any weapons.

The southerners, notabley Patrick Henry, were terrified that the northern delegates, who by and large hated slavery, would refuse to deploy troops to put down rebellions, and demanded the right to organise their own militias, along with the Three-fifths compromise, the continuation of the Atlantic slave trade and several other concessions, before they'd sign up to the Constitution.
 

Noodles

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He shot the first victim in the back of the head. That's execution, which is to say, murder. What it is not is self -defense.
This is what I can't figure out.

People keep trying to defend his actions as self defense because the one guy did (apparently) pull a gun. But as near as I can tell, that was the third guy, the one who didn't die.

If anything, that guy was acting in self defense against someone who literally just murdered 2 people.
 

GoblinCampFollower

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He shot the first victim in the back of the head. That's execution, which is to say, murder. What it is not is self -defense.
I don't think your characterization of that fits with any source I've seen:


I'm not trying to defend Rittenhouse, he is an idiot, but it's also not like he randomly executed people.
 

GoblinCampFollower

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If you shoot someone in the back, regardless of head, torso etc., it is not self-defense. Only a coward shoots someone in the back.
What if my husband has been beating me for years before I shoot him in the back of the head? That obviously doesn't apply to Rittenhouse, but I'm just saying it's more complicated than that. I agree there was an argument for murder and it's a damn travesty he didn't at least get a lessor charge, but it's misusing facts to try to say it was an execution in the back of the head.
 

Zaida Gearbox

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Witness: Kenosha victim was belligerent but no threat (apnews.com)

Kelley, the pathologist, said Rosenbaum was shot four times by someone who was within 4 feet of him. He testified that Rosenbaum was first wounded in the groin and then in the hand and thigh as he faced Rittenhouse, and then was shot in the head and in the back.

The first shots were not to his back and came after Rosenbaum followed Rittenhouse and after he made a grab for Rittenhouse's gun. Though Rosenbaum was the one I expected him to at least get manslaughter on because he fired more than one shot. I've seen self-defense cases where an intruder was in the person's house, blocking his/her only means of escape - and the person still get convicted of manslaughter because they fired more than one shot.
 

WolfEyes

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I'm sorry but if you shoot someone in the back of the head, you just executed them, mob style.

I have been abused. I've been shot at, nearly pushed out of an El Camino onto a gravel shoulder at 60mph just to name 2. No, I would never have shot him in the back or the back of the head. I would have wanted him to know it was me. I wouldn't have done that anyway as I wouldn't want the death of another human on my conscience. Karma got him in the end. I couldn't have wished a slower more agonizing death for him.

The only time you shoot someone in the back of the head is when you are executing them.

Google "shooting someone in the back is cowardly" and you'll see tons of links.