Rittenhouse and the Slave Right:
Where I quote people who don't deserve equality in a free society
John Cochrane (The Free Market Economist): “He’s [Kyle Rittenhouse is] as poor a hero for the right as Jacob Blake is for the Left. Technically, yes it was self defense but what the hell are you doing grabbing a gun going out and looking for trouble.”
Glenn Loury: “Agreed.”
The Right has a Slavery Problem.
Specifically, many of it’s intellectuals and the dissident liberals it fawns over have the moral character of slaves; a character defined by the complete unwillingness to make meaningful independent moral judgements in opposition to the existing power structure.
The Rittenhouse case served as a canvas for these individuals to reveal their natures. In this article I’ll merely provide a few of their comments and ask that you remember them whenever you wonder if you’ve become too radicalized.
This is what the people who define acceptable dissent are like.
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In the aftermath of his acquittal the ‘Goodfellows’ at the Hoover Institute had some opinions to share.
Here are a few excerpts from their conversation:
Glenn Loury:
(Whose emotional opening, pictured below would’ve convinced anyone that he thought the defense of civilization was an obviously good thing)
“… um I'm the guy who has to report that the country has gone mad if you're gonna to celebrate the likes of Jacob Blake and if you think that what happened to him given all the facts, thorough investigation by responsible parties uh wasn’t* an event of his own making uh I could go into the details uh and that uh a city should burn uh because of uh that event that uh, that uh politicians should uh uh equivocate uh in in their uh defense of uh of the institutions of civil order I'm I'm struck by where we've gotten to here in this country and I'm actually very alarmed by it.”
Niall Ferguson:
… David French wrote an excellent piece on this subject which aligned with my view so perfectly that I don’t even need to say anymore than read the piece, his two points were justice was done the verdict was the right one uh from the vantage point of the law but uh Kyle Rittenhouse is no hero and I apply the simple test uh did he behave in a way that I’d wanted one of my sons to behave and the answer is no, because he behaved in a foolish and reckless fashion. To make him a hero seems to me a grave mistake”
John Cochrane (the Free Market economist) and Glenn Loury:
John Cochrane: “He’s [Kyle Rittenhouse] as poor a hero for the right as Jacob Blake is for the Left. Technically, yes it was self defense but what the hell are you doing grabbing a gun going out and looking for trouble.”
Glenn Loury: Agreed
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Bari Weiss’ comments (Post-Trial, pre-acquittal):
Bari Weiss: “To admit that the press, in the main, got just about every key fact in the Rittenhouse case wrong — that he crossed state lines with a gun, that he had the gun illegally, that he had no connection to Kenosha, that he was connected to white supremacist groups — has nothing to do with whether Kyle Rittenhouse should have gone to Kenosha that day. It has nothing to do with where one stands on the question of open carry. (I am opposed). Or whether or not a teenager should be allowed to walk around with a semiautomatic riffle. (I find it baffling that this is legal.)
No teenager should have been walking around the chaos in Kenosha with a semiautomatic rifle that night. Still, doing so does not forfeit your right to self-defense.
Rittenhouse and his violent acts (justified or unjustified) are tragic. But it is a tragedy that could have been avoided. We saw the night of August 25 what can occur when the state fails or refuses to do what it is uniquely charged to do: maintain the rule of law.”
Jessie Signal comments (pre-trial coverage):
“so much journalism and commentary is geared toward making Rittenhouse out to be the embodiment of all evil (I’m sorry, but he isn’t) or some sort of heroic anti-antifa martyr (I’m sorry, but he isn’t).”
“I want to be really clear that I think it was a damn catastrophe that Kyle Rittenhouse was out there that night, toting a giant weapon, in the first place. He’s a child. He should not have been anywhere near such a potentially violent scene. It doesn’t matter that he wanted to help protect local businesses, or that he cleaned up graffiti earlier in the day. The presence of an inexperienced 17-year-old with a weapon like that greatly increased the probability of a tragedy occurring, and that’s exactly what happened. Of course, Rosenbaum shouldn’t have been there either — he was a mentally ill man with a history of violence caught on camera trying to antagonize someone else earlier in the night. This whole thing was a tragedy.”
Bill Maher and Chris Christie discussion (Post-Trial):
Bill Maher: What about the repercussions from this. What about the message this sends to all the kids who like I say I think this kid watched too many comic book movies, I think he wants to be some sort of hero and I think there's lot's of incels out there like him who will do the same thing and It’s just, it's a tinderbox. I mean I read today - 46% of people in this country according to the Zogby poll think a civil war is likely. Half the country thinks a civil war is likely. I don’t think it’s a good idea to say to people - you know what, if the police aren't doing their job as they weren't at that moment in Kenosha the answer can't be then the citizens have full police power.
That can't be the response, right?
Chris Christie: No. I don’t disagree with that.
The point is that you can’t use an individual case to send a broader societal message if the laws don’t cover it. So what we need to do then, if we’re concerned about that and we should be is then we need to go after the laws and make sure we make it very clear to people that you can’t take the law into your own hands.
To his credit, Steve Bonnell, Aka Destiny defended Rittenhouse almost immediately and was banned from twitch for commenting a year before the trial that:
‘… the rioting needs to f***ing stop, and if that means like white redneck f***ing militia dudes out there mowing down dipshit protesters that think that they can torch buildings at 10pm, then at this point they have my f***ng blessing.’
In theory this should be the part of the article where I describe what I find disturbing about all these comments, except for Destiny’s. But fundamental values are precisely those which one doesn’t need to pre-emptively justify by reference to any others.
I feel that that volunteering to defend private civilian property from rioters when the government has failed to do so is a morally admirable act.
I feel that it’s not actually a tragedy when a serial pedophile rioting rapist like Joseph Rosenbaum or ‘I will gut my brother like a pig’ Huber gets killed while attempting to murder someone.
And I don’t want to share political power with those who feel differently or watch them lauded as dissenters.
I’ll leave you with C.S Lewis' famous quote:
We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
Say what you want about our modern men without chests, no one would make this mistake when it comes to them.