The jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty. But where does the 18-year-old go to have a life? In today’s death threat atmosphere, he can’t remain in or around Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The current occupant of the White House has already declared him a “white supremacist,” sight—and just about everything else—unseen.
“Today’s verdict is a stain on the soul of America, & sends a dangerous message about who & what values our justice system was designed to protect.
“We must stand unified in rejecting supremacist vigilantism & with one voice say: this is not who we are.”
No. Who we are is a governor who locks thousands in old-age homes to die of COVID-19, but never mind. The soon-to-be-former mayor of New York City had already beaten him to the Twitter punch:
“This verdict is disgusting and it sends a horrible message to this country.
“Where is the justice in this?
“We can’t let this go. We need stronger laws to stop violent extremism from within our own nation.
“Now is the time.”
Lovely, isn’t it? Reminds you of Whitman, or is it Wordsworth?
Quick advice for Rittenhouse on relocating: Stay out of New York!
Unfortunately, as we know, there may be no place for him to go in today’s world.
These people aren’t spewing their outrage alone; it’s all over the internet and television. This trial has been more lied about than ... than ... well, no good analogy comes to mind because just about everything is lied about these days.
In the case of Rittenhouse, some of the more obvious lies were that he wasn’t legally entitled to have a gun at 17 (he was) and that he had crossed state lines to get into trouble (his father lived in Kenosha).
Normally, the case wouldn’t have been tried at all. It was obvious self-defense. We do, last I heard, have the right of self-defense and the right to bear arms, although much of the craziness around this trial seems aimed at taking those rights away.
But the biggest lie of all was and is about race. Rittenhouse has been called a “white supremacist” more times than Joe Biden has said “C’mon, man.” This even though all combatants in the trial incident were white. As clearly shown on videotape, a young white man was defending himself against extremely violent white attackers.
Yet it’s become another version of the old story: Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? Or more ominously and, alas, more accurately, as Joseph Goebbels once put it, “A lie told once is just a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.”
Unfortunately, we are well past a thousand when it comes to false accusations of racism in our country, maybe closer to a million.
If racism were a god, the Democrats would pray to it and the media would write its bible.
Just kidding, of course. Many of us, myself included, wish Rittenhouse the best.
Good luck, Kyle, and godspeed. We’re pulling for you. Some of us are even crying from happiness that you were cleared. But don’t tell Joy Reid.
