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Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

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Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#391

Post by d1sxeyes »

blindmute wrote: post #358
d1sxeyes wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an overly reductive expression of my opinion, which is perhaps why you're struggling to follow. I think it is incredibly likely that if Rittenhouse did not have a gun, then the two people he killed would still be alive, and I find it unlikely that Rittenhouse would be dead today. You are correct that I don't believe that these specific circumstances that led to these deaths should be legal. I don't bel…

> My opinion is that he had a gun he shouldn't have had, was in a place he shouldn't have been, causing trouble he shouldn't have been involved in, and killed two people who shouldn't have died. He had a gun he had a right to have, in a place he had a right to be, at a protest that he had a right to be involved in as much as the protesters, and killed two people rightfully in self defense. What's the problem here? If…

> I would recommend they don't chase down an armed man and imminently threaten his life

I think Rittenhouse had reason to fear for his life, but I don't agree with the statement that they were imminently threatening his life as a fact.

It may be true that Rosenbaum had threatened Rittenhouse's life. But neither Huber nor Grosskreutz had done so.

You may ask whether Grosskreutz pointing his gun at Rittenhouse constitutes threatening his life, and the answer to that is... maybe? But if the fact alone of pointing a gun at someone is threatening someone's life, then we have to rewind and look at whether Rosenbaum had reason to fear for his life.

We have video evidence of Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still at least 20 feet away.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#392

Post by esyir »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #389
esyir wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

>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.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#394

Post by hajile »

muzz wrote: post #385
hajile wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police pepper sprayed him when he got close. He called his friend who owned the gun. No need to call the police when they were less than a block away. I'd also imagine that 911 was swamped given how so much of the city was being destroyed.

So in America, the police just kinda stand by while "so much of the city was being destroyed" and two people are killed. Wow.

The situation is more involved than that.

The protests were about perceived police brutality.

Cop's view:

A guy had a knife in the seat that they'd seen previously. He was wanted for raping his a woman and was in the process of stealing her van and kidnapping her kids. Even if there were no knife, you don't allow the rapist to get into the deadly weapon and take kids as hostages.

To them, the riots were unjust and a lot of them probably wanted to stop the city burning, but they were told to cordon off the area and basically forbidden from doing anything. At the same time, if they had to use force against a violent rioter, it would be all over the press and that officer would probably be fired. This leaves the armed citizens as the only line of defense (and a line without the police politics). This seems like the reason why they praise them in their interactions.

Politician's view:

The city is run by one family of Democrat politicians. Their party officially supported the riots with the now current Vise-President actually raising funds for the rioters. Going against the mob would not only go against the party, but it would cause the mob to show up at their houses (this happened in other cities) and might even throw their family's dynasty out of power. They didn't care about the part that was burning because it was the poorer parts of the city.

Citizen's view:

The politicians ordered the police to abandon them. They had signs like "we have little children here" in an attempt to keep their families safe (it seems that even having BLM support signs wasn't enough). The businesses were generally either not insured or under-insured. Lots of people worked at those places and were looking at not having a job. Everyone's cars were being demolished or burned. For many of them, everything they spent their entire life working on was ruined in a few hours.

Amed Citizen's view:

We've been hiding in fear for two days now as the police do nothing. If they won't, we will. Today, we're putting a stop to this.

Rioter's view:

I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds. Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!”

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#395

Post by thatguy0900 »

rayiner wrote: post #316
d1sxeyes wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that Rittenhouse would be justified to believe that, yes. Although I would say that the way Huber hit Rittenhouse with the skateboard doesn't really seem as though it's intended to kill or seriously injure, it seems more like he's using it to try to push the assault rifle away from him. We'll never know, unfortunately.

“Assault rifle” lol.

"fully semi-automatic military style weapon"

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#396

Post by hajile »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #389
esyir wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

> 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?

Grosskreutz stated outright during the trial that he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone. Despite this, there is video of him pulling his gun while he was chasing Rittenhouse down. Maybe this was just mob mentality Maybe this is because he was associated with violent revolutionary groups to the point that he was invited to speak at their rallies.

If going to a riot with a gun is stupid, chasing a guy with a gun is at least as stupid. The fact that he was running toward where EVERYONE knew the police were lined up makes this even more strange. Why risk your life when you can corral the shooter into the police?

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#397

Post by d1sxeyes »

esyir wrote: post #392
d1sxeyes wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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, Ritte…

> 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.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#398

Post by d1sxeyes »

hajile wrote: post #396
d1sxeyes wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? Grosskreutz stated outright during the trial that he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone. Despite this, there is video of him pulling his gun while he was chasing Rittenhouse down. Maybe this was just mob mentality Maybe th…

> Grosskreutz stated outright during the trial that he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone

Could you share a link? I could only find part of his testimony where he says that he thought Rittenhouse was an active shooter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv21bE9PWtE&t=3958s

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#399

Post by esyir »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #397
esyir wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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, Ritte…

> 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.

At that time tempers were already flaring nationwide and I find both the above, as well as it's inverse, plausible. Most likely, both sides were clashing, as is oft the case in situations as volatile as this.

Returning to the NYT's video of Rosenbaum, there's a few things to note. One, that he was potentially mentally ill (relevant?), and two, he was directly antagonizing the "militia", sufficiently so that the other protestors felt it necessary to stop him [1].

In the later part, of the same video (note that there's a cut though), Rosenbaum seemingly suddenly pursues[2] and continues chasing. Only after he gets quite close (in my opinion; 18:04 or so), do we hear the first shots. There could be a hypothetical in between to fill in the gap, but given the available evidence that I'd observed, I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.

>To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. ...

So, I think that while I'd agree with you that yes, the problem started long before the first shot, I would think that it's better to evaluate it at point of firing. Otherwise we'd be chasing this rabbit hole till the end of time.

The protestors and rioters shouldn't have been there earlier as curfews were in place, and the police should have been enforcing law. The side arguments of open carry vs gun ownership and the inherent lethality increase a gun brings to any conflict, all the way to "gun rights". These arguments however are all applicable to the situation but are far more general, and I feel, a too tempting distraction.

I thus divide these into two different questions (or more, if necessary) so they can be addressed piecemeal. 1: At the time of firing, was Rittenhouse justified. 2: All the other bits and bobs about the context of the situation and who should have been there.

For the first, I've continued to make my case above, while for the second (rest?), this comment is long enough as it is, and I'll leave it open for now if you want to pick that one up.

> This one is a bit more dear an issue to me, being a question of speech rights. But it's also one of those which I haven't come to anything solid. However, picturing myself in that situation, I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked.

EDIT:

Oops, I missed your line on Rittenhouse's belief in his immediate danger. I think we've already come to the same conclusion in a different thread in which the government, and it's dereliction of it's duty to maintain order is probably the one who should be most at fault (correct me if I've misplaced your position).

[1] https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=846 [2] https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=1056

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