It has become all the rage. That is, to partially defend Kyle’s actions as probable self defense, but then to raise the following stipulations. First up, Leon Wolf writing at The Blaze.
Kyle Rittenhouse should not have been patrolling the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, Tuesday night. Whatever failures might have existed on the part of state and local government (and there appear to have been many), the idea of a 17-year-old with a loaded rifle being dropped into that powder keg can only happen when some horribly bad judgment has occurred.
We’ll get to that in a minute. Next up, Steven Hayward writing at Powerline.
Let’s stipulate starting out that Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, who has been arrested and charged with murder for shooting two people during the Kenosha riots two nights ago, should not have been present at the scene with a semi-auto rifle. That’s no place for a 17-year-old, even if he is a regular at the gun range. And resorting to vigilantism is a sure path to a breakdown in the rule of law and perhaps even open civil war.
Steven is massively naive. He raises two points – his age, and the resort to “vigilantism.” Let’s hold in abatement the issue of age for a moment. As for vigilantism, surely he isn’t thinking clearly or perhaps hasn’t admitted the truth to himself.
We’ve discussed this many times before, but the police are committed to their salary and benefits. They are under absolutely no legal obligation to defend life or property, or provide protection or safety for anyone. We know this from Castle Rock v. Gonzales and Warren v. D.C. They could wait until a murder has been fully and completely committed, while watching and eating doughnuts, and as long as they effect the arrest after the fact, most of them will have fully followed their department protocol.
The police are under the full control of the politicians, and the politicians are mostly Marxists. Thus, holding the police back redounds to the destruction of property, unsafe environment for residents, and even the loss of family wealth when entire businesses have been burned to the ground. Many families are not in a position to take a loss like that, regardless of the money Steven makes.
When left with no alternative, it’s obscene for Hayward to advocate the unrighteousness of defense of life and property. Furthermore, to imply that the “breakdown in the rule of law” is the fault of hopeless and hapless residents lacks compassion, understanding, and good analysis. And to say that this is what may lead to civil war is more ludicrous still. Hayward must surely know that we are in an escalating civil war as we speak. If he doesn’t, I would never hire him as my attorney. He lacks even the basic skills to understand the current milieu or the signs of the times.
As for Leon Wolf, his appeal to the youthful age as a reason that Kyle shouldn’t have been there is equally ridiculous and even bigoted. We send 18 year old men to fight our wars for us, and with approval, 17 year old men can do the same.
Let’s go one step further. In the battle of King’s Mountain, the British forces were essentially all loyalist fighters with the exception of the commander. This was to be General Cornwallis’ going-forward strategy for winning the campaign in the South.
Upon learning of the coming destruction, the “over-mountain men” left their homes in the area and also neighboring states to travel overnight, many nights, on horseback, to gather and fight the loyalists.
At the time of the battle, crops were being harvested and families couldn’t send the fathers. Men had to be in the fields in order to prepare for the coming winter. They did the only thing they could do, and entire families gathered in streets and sang hymns to their young fighters as they sent their sons riding off to war.
They won a decisive victory, destroying Cornwallis’ strategic plan. What most people do not know about the “over-mountain men” is that the vast majority of them were under the age of 18. You too can learn this if you study history, or perhaps come to the King’s Mountain military park and tour it, read the placards, and study the area.
But rather than hold older men accountable for their actions, like politicians and police, pundits are satisfied with turning on Kyle for being young and deciding to make a stand.
Back to Mr. Wolf. The thing that has gone wrong in America for Kyle Rittenhouse to have to do this is that men are no longer men, that they have allowed a Marxist revolution to steal the country, and that no one has the stomach left for having and keeping liberty. What has happened to the effete, cloistered, foppish, dainty men in America? Good Lord.
