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The last line is just your opinion, and clearly Rittenhouse disagreed. If it's not illegal for me to be somewhere, then I have the right to be there, and I can

The last line is just your opinion, and clearly Rittenhouse disagreed. If it's not illegal for me to be somewhere, then I have the right to be there, and I can choose to exercise that right.

esyir 5y ago
Something I've found interesting is that the arguments deployed against Rittenhouse are pretty analogous to victim-blaming in rape cases. - Rittenhouse did something legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy. - An external agent intervenes, causing the incident - "Well, he shouldn't have been there to begin with" vs "Well, she knew that was a bad part of town" Main differences there would be that he defended himself successfully, so to some, victim and aggressor get flipped.
- d1sxeyes 5y ago
  This is a really interesting point, and I've thought about this a little bit to try and understand why I think these are not analogous. I would probably think that a potential rape victim who successfully defended him or herself was justified in doing so. But there is a scale. You can't go and stand on the sidelines at an orgy, then shoot anyone who looks at you funny. You can't go and shoot someone who offers to buy you a drink on the off-chance they might slip a roofie in it. You can't just turn around and shoot someone who is walking behind you in case they might be a rapist. On the other hand, if you shoot a guy who tries to drag you into his car, that's pretty clearly a sensible defence. There are grey areas here too. What if a guy runs up behind you and you spin around and shoot, and it turns out you'd left your phone at the bar, and he was trying to catch up and give it to you. > 'legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy' This does describe both 'drinking a lot' and 'going with a gun to a riot', but I don't think it does justice to the differences between the behaviours. Drinking too much, wearing short skirts, etc. does not imply any kind of consideration of consequences. Bringing a gun to a riot DOES. It shows that Rittenhouse was aware of the increased likelihood of violence, and had already decided that he was prepared to respond with deadly force. Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
  - esyir 5y ago
    >But there is a scale. ... Agreed. You're in luck here, as I've actually just rewatched the Fox clip of Grosskreutz's court appearance just before I saw this, and cross referenced it with the NYT visual investigation just to account for selective clipping. In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate. As to why I believe so, lets go over what happened post Rosenbaum. In the initial confrontation, Rittenhouse retreats, trips and falls to the ground. Huber hits Rittenhouse with a skateboard and gets shot in the chest. Grosskreutz then advances with his gun, then gets shot as well. Why do I consider this proportionate? First: Rittenhouse made an attempt to retreat. Only after the first physical attack (skateboard) and an attempted disarming, did Rittenhouse fire. After which, as per Grosskreutz's own admission, Rittenhouse did not fire when he backed off with his arms raised. Only after he ~returned to a firing position~ lowered his firearm and advanced did Rittenhouse fire on him as well. As he was armed and advancing with a firearm, I'd consider that a proportional response. >Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter? Apologies, I'm not too sure of the context before that as I've only personally seen the bit where Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse. However, if Huber and Grosskreutz did believe that they had an active shooter, they might ALSO be justified. Both sides here may have a sufficient justification in this case. However, in my opinion, and this is contingent on the accuracy of the NYT's report and the above assumption of "active shooter", the only ones who weren't justified, and are thus the root cause, are Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse, and whoever that idiot shooting a pistol into the sky while Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse was. There's of course more to this, but I'll leave it open for response. Also, thanks for keeping it civil, it's much appreciated when discussing this sort of controversial topic.
    - d1sxeyes 5y ago
      > thanks for keeping it civil Same! Just briefly on this: > Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse I don't think it's been clearly established why Rosenbaum attacked Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse's testimony on this sounds hollow and unlikely, and the narrative that Rosenbaum was unhinged after getting out of hospital doesn't quite tally with the fact that there were people with him - he wasn't a lone actor here. It seems incredibly unlikely that there wasn't some sort of verbal provocation from Rittenhouse's side. As I mentioned in another comment, the drone footage shows Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still 20 feet away from him. To my mind, it's far from certain that this was the first time Rittenhouse pointed his gun at Rosenbaum, but we'll never know. Now to my main point: > In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate. If I think to how I personally would have acted in Rittenhouse's position from the moment Rosenbaum threw the bag at him, I think I would probably also have been in a state of adrenaline-fueled panic, and I would have probably made very similar choices. I don't really have any arguments that Rittenhouse only fired his gun at people he (reasonably, whether rightly or wrongly) believed were attacking him. I do think it's a stretch to think that they were all trying to kill him, particularly Huber (is this further evidence to support my hypothesis above that maybe Rittenhouse escalated the lesser threats of being disarmed or of being detained to threats of deadly force? Hard to say). To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. He chose to go to a location where he was expecting people to get injured, brought a gun with him, and associated himself with a band of people who believed that they were some kind of private security force. No-one died that night (or any other night of the unrest) apart from the people Rittenhouse killed, there were no other reported injuries from gunshots, no mob attacks[0], which makes it seem relatively unlikely that anyone would have died if Rittenhouse had not been there, or had not brought his AR-15. Whatever the ins and outs and the specifics of the case might be, I still think that Facebook were right to err on the side of caution here - technically he may not have committed a crime, but he still killed people, and although the doctrine of 'innocent until proven guilty' holds, his 'innocence' hung on an affirmative defence, which sort of swings it the other way to a certain extent. [0]: I gather there were some minor injuries to a firefighter and a police officer, but couldn't find details on the circumstances.

The last line is just your opinion, and clearly Rittenhouse disagreed. If it's not illegal for me to be somewhere, then I have the right to be there, and I can choose to exercise that right.

esyir 5y ago

Something I've found interesting is that the arguments deployed against Rittenhouse are pretty analogous to victim-blaming in rape cases. - Rittenhouse did something legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy. - An external agent intervenes, causing the incident - "Well, he shouldn't have been there to begin with" vs "Well, she knew that was a bad part of town" Main differences there would be that he defended himself successfully, so to some, victim and aggressor get flipped.

d1sxeyes 5y ago
This is a really interesting point, and I've thought about this a little bit to try and understand why I think these are not analogous. I would probably think that a potential rape victim who successfully defended him or herself was justified in doing so. But there is a scale. You can't go and stand on the sidelines at an orgy, then shoot anyone who looks at you funny. You can't go and shoot someone who offers to buy you a drink on the off-chance they might slip a roofie in it. You can't just turn around and shoot someone who is walking behind you in case they might be a rapist. On the other hand, if you shoot a guy who tries to drag you into his car, that's pretty clearly a sensible defence. There are grey areas here too. What if a guy runs up behind you and you spin around and shoot, and it turns out you'd left your phone at the bar, and he was trying to catch up and give it to you. > 'legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy' This does describe both 'drinking a lot' and 'going with a gun to a riot', but I don't think it does justice to the differences between the behaviours. Drinking too much, wearing short skirts, etc. does not imply any kind of consideration of consequences. Bringing a gun to a riot DOES. It shows that Rittenhouse was aware of the increased likelihood of violence, and had already decided that he was prepared to respond with deadly force. Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
- esyir 5y ago
  >But there is a scale. ... Agreed. You're in luck here, as I've actually just rewatched the Fox clip of Grosskreutz's court appearance just before I saw this, and cross referenced it with the NYT visual investigation just to account for selective clipping. In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate. As to why I believe so, lets go over what happened post Rosenbaum. In the initial confrontation, Rittenhouse retreats, trips and falls to the ground. Huber hits Rittenhouse with a skateboard and gets shot in the chest. Grosskreutz then advances with his gun, then gets shot as well. Why do I consider this proportionate? First: Rittenhouse made an attempt to retreat. Only after the first physical attack (skateboard) and an attempted disarming, did Rittenhouse fire. After which, as per Grosskreutz's own admission, Rittenhouse did not fire when he backed off with his arms raised. Only after he ~returned to a firing position~ lowered his firearm and advanced did Rittenhouse fire on him as well. As he was armed and advancing with a firearm, I'd consider that a proportional response. >Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter? Apologies, I'm not too sure of the context before that as I've only personally seen the bit where Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse. However, if Huber and Grosskreutz did believe that they had an active shooter, they might ALSO be justified. Both sides here may have a sufficient justification in this case. However, in my opinion, and this is contingent on the accuracy of the NYT's report and the above assumption of "active shooter", the only ones who weren't justified, and are thus the root cause, are Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse, and whoever that idiot shooting a pistol into the sky while Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse was. There's of course more to this, but I'll leave it open for response. Also, thanks for keeping it civil, it's much appreciated when discussing this sort of controversial topic.
  - d1sxeyes 5y ago
    > thanks for keeping it civil Same! Just briefly on this: > Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse I don't think it's been clearly established why Rosenbaum attacked Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse's testimony on this sounds hollow and unlikely, and the narrative that Rosenbaum was unhinged after getting out of hospital doesn't quite tally with the fact that there were people with him - he wasn't a lone actor here. It seems incredibly unlikely that there wasn't some sort of verbal provocation from Rittenhouse's side. As I mentioned in another comment, the drone footage shows Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still 20 feet away from him. To my mind, it's far from certain that this was the first time Rittenhouse pointed his gun at Rosenbaum, but we'll never know. Now to my main point: > In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate. If I think to how I personally would have acted in Rittenhouse's position from the moment Rosenbaum threw the bag at him, I think I would probably also have been in a state of adrenaline-fueled panic, and I would have probably made very similar choices. I don't really have any arguments that Rittenhouse only fired his gun at people he (reasonably, whether rightly or wrongly) believed were attacking him. I do think it's a stretch to think that they were all trying to kill him, particularly Huber (is this further evidence to support my hypothesis above that maybe Rittenhouse escalated the lesser threats of being disarmed or of being detained to threats of deadly force? Hard to say). To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. He chose to go to a location where he was expecting people to get injured, brought a gun with him, and associated himself with a band of people who believed that they were some kind of private security force. No-one died that night (or any other night of the unrest) apart from the people Rittenhouse killed, there were no other reported injuries from gunshots, no mob attacks[0], which makes it seem relatively unlikely that anyone would have died if Rittenhouse had not been there, or had not brought his AR-15. Whatever the ins and outs and the specifics of the case might be, I still think that Facebook were right to err on the side of caution here - technically he may not have committed a crime, but he still killed people, and although the doctrine of 'innocent until proven guilty' holds, his 'innocence' hung on an affirmative defence, which sort of swings it the other way to a certain extent. [0]: I gather there were some minor injuries to a firefighter and a police officer, but couldn't find details on the circumstances.