ObjectivityIncarnate

It’s more known as a right-wing thing these days because of Covid, but the OG antivaxxer stereotype was the hippy mom who didn’t want to put “chemicals” in their children because ‘big pharma’ is evil, and don’t you know vaccines cause autism?

I’ll be honest, I’m burned out. I need a break from morons and their stories. I really do.

You need to stop going out of your way to doomscroll on social media, then. It’s ultimately entirely in your power to not be exposed to them.

I’m being serious. It’s not good for you–social media makes it extremely easy to be exposed to negativity 24/7 if you’re looking for it, since you’re 1 person in a world of over 8 billion. You don’t have to get even close to 1% of the people being assholes, for this to be not only possible, but trivially easy.

The human psyche is literally not designed to withstand the kind of barrage technology has made possible. Please do not feel guilty about giving yourself a break at times, to say the very least.

Edit: not a single inaccurate statement in my comment, but narrative-clingers gotta downvote because inconvenient facts just make them that mad, lol. Shameful.

Fact checking time~

the kid who took a gun he didn’t own to

The gun was not in his possession until the day after he arrived.

to a state he didn’t live in

But that he previously worked in, and his father lived in. Not exactly a strange neighborhood.

to shoot protestors he didn’t know

It’s obvious he didn’t go there “to shoot protesters”, for several factual, verifiable reasons:

1. He had hours of opportunities to open fire on protesters, and never did. He did not even anti-protest.
2. He didn’t shoot anyone unprovoked, and every time he was provoked, he ran away instead of escalating.
3. The only people who were shot by him that day were people who, when he ran away from their provocation, instead of letting him run away, chased him down and tried to kill him when they caught him. He prevented their murder attempts. This is crystal
4. None of those who were shot were ever protesting; all three were destructive rioters with violent criminal records who were there not there to support any cause.
5. Actions speak louder than words. Tons more people, tell their buddies they’d ‘kick that guy’s ass if I was there’ etc., but do not act that way at all when they’re actually in the situation. What happens in the actual situation is what matters. Also, none of the rioters who attacked Rittenhouse were known to have shoplifted/looted, so they don’t even fall into the category he was speaking about.

ostensibly to protect businesses he’s unaffiliated with

There are text records of the business requesting his help, and one of the co-owners of that business, after denying it, was seen taking a posed ‘thank you’ picture with him after they had spent some time at the dealership that day. The evidence is clear they were there because they were directly requested to be there.

Honestly of course he wanted to murder people, anyone who disputes that is and has always been deliberately lying.

Nope, but I can understand how you’d reach that conclusion, considering you have basically every relevant fact of the case wrong. That’s what happens when you get narratives from social media, instead of drawing conclusions based on facts and evidence. There’s a ton of hard video evidence, you know.

It’s funny that on the day the verdict was delivered, the megathreads on Reddit announcing it were full of people admitting coming to terms with the fact that it was ironclad self-defense, and that social media and sensationalized news sources had created a narrative that directly contradicted the facts. And now years later, the only people still really talking about that case are the ideologues on both wings still clinging so desperately to those bullshit narratives, still repeating the same easily-debunked talking points they were fed by their echo chamber of choice, that were debunked before the trial even began. Hell, you can still find people claiming all the people he shot were black, lol.

This case has become such a perfect litmus test for identifying ideologues over people who both care about what’s actually true, and are actually willing to inform themselves instead of just swallowing whatever talking points they’re fed. Especially considering how EASY it is to debunk the bullshit, in this particular case.

It almost makes me not want to correct the lies, to make sure I can keep easier tabs on the liars, lol.

Nah, there’s plenty of both, even mixed in very similar subject matter. Example:

An ATM (initialism) takes a card then asks you for its PIN (acronym).

To be fair, UFO is an initialism, not an acronym. But at the same time, if it was, I think it’d still be an example, because we’d likely pronounce the U like “oo” (as in “boo”), lol

I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn’t take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It’s clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother’s mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it’s a peach of cake.

You’ve established pretty unambiguously that you don’t care what the facts are. You’ve got your narrative, and you’re gonna cling to it with both hands, inconvenient truths be damned.

That’s not a virtue, you know. But defending the truth against lies, even if they are lies about your enemy, is. You should consider it.

the primary reason he was being threatened was because everyone else saw a random civilian with an assault rifle

This is simply objectively bullshit, and you obviously don’t live in an open carry state. Nobody gave a shit about his rifle. There is video of him walking around, rifle in plain view, and nobody is even giving him a second glance.

he knew he was sending a threatening message just being there with it

More bullshit–even if he was trying to ‘send a threatening message’, he clearly failed, see referenced video above

he then seemed shocked when people started responding to that threat

Another lie. NOBODY “responded” to him being armed. He was attacked by a maniac for putting out the dumpster fire said maniac set. Had literally nothing to do with his rifle. And that attack is what caused the two other idiots to try to kill Rittenhouse, and in turn reap the consequences.

Your delusion that he was this menacing, threatening presence just by existing in Kenosha while having a rifle strapped to him is pure fantasy, period.

This is a lot of words to say that you don’t understand that nobody freaks out about someone open carrying in a state where open carry is legal.

No one felt threatened by his presence. No one reacted to him showing up. No one had any problem with him walking around doing his thing for hours, while the rifle was strapped to him the whole time. If him merely existing with a rifle on him was such a threat, why is that? How come no one gave a shit about him except for a crazy guy who set a fire that Kyle put out?

Funny how this question never gets an answer, because there’s no way to answer it honestly without piercing a massive hole in your argument.

It’s not me, you’re literally the only one I’m actually having some sort of actual dialogue with.

Rittenhouse was already breaking the law by having a firearm; he was 17 at the time and not legally old enough to possess one.

Not true–Wisconsin state law allows minors to possess shotguns and rifles as long as they’re not short-barreled.

He was a staunch supporter of the ‘blue lives matter’ movement, a rally-attending Trump supporter, and otherwise very openly far-right leaning, and… He was attending a protest populated primarily by far left-leaning individuals.

And yet, he didn’t do a single second of counter-protesting, nor did he act to inhibit the protesters in any way–in fact, it was primarily protesters who received his handed out bottles of water and basic medical aid.

The only real argument you can make that he was antagonistic is if you argue that cleaning up after and putting out the fires of rioters (those not protesting, but just running around creating havoc and destruction) is antagonistic toward them–I guess it is, technically, but…I mean, come on. No way my conscience would let me fault someone for undoing rioters’ damage.

He is on record stating he supports BLM, for what it’s worth.

I’m not aware of him attending any other protests, since or prior, under this premise; if he was the good Samaritan he tries to make himself out to be, why did he choose this, and only this, protest to “protect businesses” at?

Because it’s his community, so it makes perfect sense he’s more compelled to take action in his own neighborhood. He has friends in Kenosha, his father lives there, he worked as a lifeguard there, etc… He had spent lots of time over the course of his life in that area, and had ties to it. If he had gone to one protest, and it deliberately WASN’T the one in Kenosha, that’s what would look potentially suspicious, imo.

Why did he feel the need to bring a gun in the first place? You could argue that it’s “just in case”

Seems pretty obvious that is the reason–he’s even on video while at the protest saying exactly that, “for my protection”.

• which may make sense, except that he drove an awfully long way

Not really a long way at all (20 miles), especially not unusually long for him, who had made that exact trip countless times before. This was literally his regular commute to his lifeguard job, and spending time with his father, etc.

a reasonable conclusion could be that he expected things to go south, and chose to go anyway.

And if one isn’t starting out trying to find fault and looks at his actions objectively in hindsight, one could easily argue that the decision to deliberately put himself at potential risk in order to undo some of the damage and maybe prevent some damage, and help people, is selflessly altruistic.

He (to my knowledge) didn’t have any personal affiliation with any of the businesses there.

Well, owners of the Car Source denied accepting Kyle and Dominick Black’s offer to help protect their business, and one of them denied even knowing who Kyle was, and then text exchange between them, with Kyle offering to help out, surfaced, and the other owner literally had his picture taken with Kyle and the rest of his group, in front of the dealership. Kyle was obviously not randomly taking the liberty upon himself to spend time defending that place, nor was he unwanted there.

Since the incident, he’s used the fact that he went to a leftist protest and shot people and was acquitted to become a bit of a far-right celebrity,

All the left did was call him a white supremacist serial killer (as you can see, this continues to this day), even after all the facts came out. It’s no surprise he became amicable with the only people who weren’t doing that. Wouldn’t be nearly the first time such a thing has happened, sadly.

Still, this is beside the point–it doesn’t matter to me if he became, or always was, or whatever, someone with shitty views. All I’m talking about is what I know about, and that’s the facts of this case, and what we know (or should know, given how many people still get very basic, known facts wrong)–as far as notorious legal cases go, there are few with more hard evidence easily accessible to the public, so even a ‘random’ civilian can have 100% of the facts anyone else does.

I speak from a position of knowing the facts, and being frustrated that, even though the facts are so readily available, there are still so many people saying things the facts don’t agree with, and drawing conclusions that make zero sense in the face of said facts.

That’s all there is to it.

What matters, though, is intent. In that hypothetical, the woman put herself into that situation intentionally hoping she’d get attacked because she wanted to shoot someone. I firmly believe Rittenhouse did the exact same.

But the point is that there is literally no reason to believe that, if you’re actually being objective, and looking at the facts of the matter. He cleaned graffiti off a high school, then he showed up, he handed out water bottles, gave basic medical attention on request (literally walking around yelling “medic! friendly!”), and put out fires. He did nothing that any reasonable, objective person would conclude contributed the slightest bit toward ‘hoping he’d get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone’.

Firstly, everything started going south because of an event nobody could have predicted: a guy who set a fire earlier had it put out by Rittenhouse, and his response to that is literal homicidal rage (?!) (later, we learned that he had literally been released from a mental health facility for a suicide attempt…looking at all the evidence and in hindsight, I think it’s reasonable that Rosenbaum was actually trying to get himself killed in a manner similar to ‘murder by cop’, but I digress).

Secondly, if he was hoping to get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone, why didn’t he shoot Rosenbaum right when he started chasing him down? This was already after Rosenbaum had literally been screaming “I’m going to kill you”, so it’d be a very strong self-defense argument to put him down right there as he charged at Rittenhouse. But instead, he ran away, and continued to run away as Rosenbaum chased him. This course of action makes NO SENSE for someone who is ‘hoping he’d get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone’.

He also didn’t shoot when he got cornered and was no longer able to flee. At that point, Rosenbaum had not only threatened his life, but had chased him down, leaving NO question he was intending to make good on his threat. Rittenhouse could have very justifiably shot him dead then as well. But he didn’t.

Rittenhouse only fired when Rosenbaum had COMPLETELY closed the distance between them, and was LITERALLY trying to wrestle the gun of someone he had just threatened to kill, out of his arms. Objectively speaking, he did everything he could to keep the situation from escalating to the point of using his weapon.

His actions toward his other two attackers was similar–no aggression from him, and when he encountered aggression toward him, he didn’t ‘take advantage of the opportunity to shoot someone’–instead, he fled. Consistently. Every single person he shot had literally put him in a position where he had to choose to either protect his life, or forfeit it. And he never used his weapon a moment before he was in that position, all three times.

The argument that Rittenhouse was ‘hoping he’d get attacked because she wanted to shoot someone’ simply does not hold water.

And the guy he actually killed had a skateboard!

Yeah, try to minimize this after you let someone whack you on the head full swing with a skateboard–that is, if you survive. They weigh over 10 pounds on average, did you know that? Very literally a potentially lethal weapon. Also, he actually WAS hit by a full swing of said skateboard, on the head, before he shot at that guy, who was clearly trying to kill him by doing so.

you can go looking for blood

Every single action he took in Kenosha directly contradicts this, lol.

and as long as someone flinches

Trying to kill someone is not a “flinch”. This is some absurd fantasizing you’re doing.

Everyone shot by Rittenhouse was actively in the act of attempting to kill him at the moment they were shot. The first LITERALLY screamed “I’m going to kill you”, and after chasing him down, tried to wrestle his rifle out of his hands (gee, wonder what he might want to do with it if he got a hold of it?). The second tried to cave his skull in with a heavy, blunt object. And the third was only shot after he pointed his handgun at him–luckily, Rittenhouse was able to react fast enough to stop him.

“She dressed provocatively, but was carrying a revolver, and walked into a bad part of town waiting for someone to come onto her so she could shoot them.” In which case I’d be making the same argument.

I like how you subtly modified the obviously implied rape attempt to “come onto her”, lol.

You also left out running away at the first sign of aggression, and then only shooting after she’s chased down and has nowhere else to go, and the attacker, who screamed “I’m going to kill you” moments before, is now trying to wrestle the gun out of her hands.

Zero chance you’d be making the same argument in an actually equivalent situation, lmao, who do you think you’re kidding?

unarmed people protesting against authoritarianism

https://youtu.be/Bv21bE9PWtE?t=10366

“It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at [Rittenhouse] — advanced on him with your gun, now your hands down, pointed at him — that he fired, right?” the defense said.

“Correct,” Grosskreutz replied.

The fact that no one gave the slightest shit about Rittenhouse’s arrival or presence (regardless of the fact that he was visibly and obviously armed) until Rosenbaum freaked out on him for putting out Rosenbaum’s dumpster fire, makes that not really the best analogy, lol.

He did literally nothing that merited the aggression upon him. Your argument is literally identical, logically, to “she was asking for it by being dressed so provocatively”.

If a black guy knowingly strolled through a KKK meeting, without saying or doing anything other than walking, and defended himself if one of them attacked him, would you argue he gave up the right to defend himself?

That’s not how it works, goofball.

If the mom was capable of driving her child to another state

She didn’t do that.

It’s really sad how many people are still so completely ignorant of even the simplest facts of that case. Whatever your ideology declared was the truth, you just swallowed, facts and truth be damned.

Pitiful.

P.S. Self-defense isn’t murder.

No time to call 911 my ass.

Let’s be real, here. If those guys were intending to commit a violent crime, and were literally in the parking lot of the establishment they were going to commit a crime at, do you really think a call to 911 would have resulted in anyone on the scene any earlier than long after the crime had been committed?

It didn’t justify his action, obviously, but come on. This isn’t Night City 1.0 where cops magically materialize on scene the moment something suspicious happens, lol