Pay attention because there will be a quiz!

 

What on earth have we come to? (apologies to Josh Marshall, what he says is so damning and important.)

 

Thinking about Rittenhouse and Right Wing Murder Safaris

But the Rittenhouse case shows how that is not really true. Permissive self-defense laws allow a Rittenhouse to have his aggression double as self-defense. You intentionally go into a chaotic situation. You travel across state lines, highly and visibly armed, allegedly to ‘protect’ people who haven’t asked for your protection. Then you feel threatened, which seems likely to happen in a chaotic place when you show up, chest puffed out with a military style weapon. Your perception of danger entitles you to murderous violence, which you arrived locked and loaded to pursue in the first place. In Rittenhouse’s case part of his perception of threat came when people freaked out after he’d shot and killed the first person. And of course only other people get hurt or killed because you’ve got the over-the-top firepower and they don’t.

If you operate within the chain of reasoning here you see the perverse connections. Self-defense laws exist because we as a society believe you are entitled to defend yourself with what would ordinarily be criminal violence if you face imminent, grave bodily harm or death. If someone breaks into your home and is threatening to kill you you have the right to kill them first. But if you created the dangerous or deadly situation the calculus changes. Or at least it should. Rittenhouse likely broke some laws being there with the gun in the first place. He was under 18 for instance. But the basic argument here is that Rittenhouse wasn’t doing anything wrong by just carrying around an AR-15. Wisconsin’s an open carry state. The inherent aggression and menace of carrying around high caliber weapons, which we’re told is only a problem for squeamish libs, becomes a path for the person carrying the fire arm to themselves feel threatened and decide they need to use the gun.

The aggression carries the seeds of justification within it. You show up looking for trouble on yet another of these right wing murder safaris like Rittenhouse, with his mother chaperoning, was taking part in. You’re looking for trouble and when you find it that’s your justification for taking the next step. That’s not how self-defense is supposed to work. But we can see in this case how the interplay of open carry and permissive self-defense statutes do just that.

The Never-Ending News by Tom Tomorrow

 Click to see the comic.

And yet, here we are again. And again. And again.

 

Copied from Reddit

Posted by

u/Chuck_De_Nomolos

5 days ago

A post my wife made to her Twitter account. #blacklivesmatter

I am white & female, here is what I know:

If I were suspected of using counterfeit money, chances are I would be asked to leave the store, but in the case that the police were called, I would NOT be thrown to the ground and mounted with knees in my neck. I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. #GeorgeFloyd #ISTILLcantbreathe #blackwhileshopping

If I were jogging and decided to look around a new construction, I would NOT be chased down by self deputized neighborhood watchmen and shot. I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. #AhmaudArbery #blackwhilejogging

If a friend who was under investigation sent a package to my house, would the police have entered my home in the middle of the night unannounced with full force and engaged my boyfriend in a firefight that killed me where I lie in my bed? No. It is likely they would have decided to question to me first, and I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. #BreonnaTaylor #blackwhilesleeping

If I was playing video games with my nephew, and left my door open for some fresh air and a neighbor called the police to come CHECK ON ME, the police would not have shot me through my window and lied about seeing a weapon on me. I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. #AtatianaJefferson #blackwhileathome

If I were pulled over with my significant other and young child in the car and disclosed to the officer that I had my legal weapon in the vehicle, I would NOT be shot while reaching for my license in front of my child and spouse. I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. #PhilandroCastile #blackwhiledriving #blackwhilecomplying

If I were accused of selling cigarettes on the sidewalk and there was an escalation leading to my arrest, I would not have been tackled by 5 officers. I would not have been choked to death while repeating that I could not breathe while one officer refused to stop choking me and another pressed my face into the pavement. I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. #ICANTBREATH #EricGarner #blackwhilestanding

If I was an active duty Marine Sergeant who was just in a car crash with my two daughters, and failed to show my hands to officers while showing a “mean” expression I would NOT have been shot and killed in front of my daughters. In fact, I would have probably received the fastest ambulance response available for myself and my daughters. Regardless, I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. #ManuelLogginsJr #blackwhileinneed

If my family and I were in search of food and shelter after one of the nations most horrific natural disasters, I would NOT have been shot in the back and killed next while the remaining 5 members of my family were wounded in the gunfire, and one other killed. I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. #RonaldMaddison #JamesBrisette #blackwhilesurviving

If I was suspected of a crime, and when stopped and asked for identification by police I reached for my wallet, I would not have been shot 19 times as an unarmed person. I WOULD STILL BE ALIVE #AmadouDiallo #blackwhilewalking #blackwhilecomplying

This is not just about good cops and bad cops and poor judgement. Because there are things that lead UP to this.

If I were birdwatching in a public park, and a woman came around the corner with her dog off leash, then refuse to leash him when I asked her to, would she have weaponized calling the police as a means to intimidate me? Would she then have falsely claimed on that call that I was threatening her life and safety? No, she would not have. #ChristianCooper #BlackWhileBirdwatching

Oh, you’re tired of reading? I am TIRED of people of color being senselessly murdered and then vilified afterwards .

I will NEVER know what it is to walk in the shoes of any person of color. But I do know that it is my job to stand beside EVERY person of color and become an activist that helps dismantle the system that has been set up to empower me and people who look like me to get away with acts of hate every single day.

whiteprivilegeisreal

blacklivesmatter

ISTILLcantbreathe

SayTheirNames

NoMoreSilence

LoveNotHate 

Trump can't see the problem

The Saudis gave Trump money and saved him from bankruptcy.  TWICE.

And the Russian mob has given Trump money.

The CIA says Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's assassination. 

Trump sides with the Saudis.

So, murdering families who have walked for days to ask legally for asylum is a good thing?

Update 11/4:  Read Bryan's take on this totally political stunt

Exactly.

Gun lovers don't get to mourn with me.

And:

Dear NRA and pro-gun advocates

Shooting first

Answering questions later.  Because that works so well.

A powerful speech to three racist murderers

By an African-American judge.

Here's an astonishing speech by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, one of just two African-Americans to have ever served as federal judges in Mississippi. He read it to three young white men before sentencing them for the death of a 48-year-old black man named James Craig Anderson in a parking lot in Jackson, Miss., one night in 2011. They were part of a group that beat Anderson and then killed him by running over his body with a truck, yelling "white power" as they drove off. The speech is long; Reeves asked the young men to sit down while he read it aloud in the courtroom. And it's breathtaking, in both the moral force of its arguments and the palpable sadness with which they are delivered. We have decided to publish the speech, which we got from the blog Breach of Peace, in its entirety below. A warning to readers: He uses the word "nigger" 11 times.

Exactly.

Bits and bobs

If Norman Rockwell were painting today.

11 Ways to Solve Rape Better than Nail Polish

You Can Now Access All Of Richard Feynman's Physics Lectures For Free

Dry weather helps see more of Stonehenge's past.

Tom Tomorrow.

That's me when...

Fake cell phone towers!

When a Child Kills.

Hacking nude photos.

Women helping change history.

Sexual Objectification: What It Is, Why It's Damaging, And How We Change It

Lots of rules for women.

Have a cat burrito.

Starting off the new year by shooting ourselves in the foot?

Warren is outraged AIG is thinking about suing the government... which means the very people who saved their sorry ass.

KBR wants us to pay for their negligence.

Australia is on fire.  And the world is overheating...

And then there's this: Gun-toting soccer mom found shot dead and another school shooting in California and YouTube gun activist Keith Ratliff  is found shot dead and NRA Vows To Stop Tucson From Destroying Guns and NRA: White House Meeting 'Had Nothing To Do With Keeping Our Children Safe' and  Tactical Response CEO Threatens To 'Start Killing People' Over Possible Obama Gun Measure  (and an update where he tries to clarify things) and Steven Colbert agrees with the NRA (*cough*) and NTodd notes the historical silliness and Alex Jones goes off about guns talking with Piers Morgan.

(updated)

Who hasn't felt like doing this on occasion....

(fixed link thanks to Ali in comments)

The next step is supposed to be a free-for-all killing spree, right?

Isn't that what all hate speech leads to in the end?

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican boy after a group trying to illegally enter Texas threw rocks at officers near downtown El Paso, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.

The shooting, which happened Monday evening beneath a railroad bridge linking the two nations, drew sharp criticism from Mexico, where President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday that his goverment "will use all resources available to protect the rights of Mexican migrants."

The government "reiterates its rejection to the disproportionate use of force on the part on U.S. authorities on the border with Mexico," the president added in a statement.

It was the second death of a Mexican at the hands of Border Patrol officers in less than two weeks, and the case threatened to swell into a full-blown international incident when U.S. and Mexican officials traded suggestions of misconduct.

One way to deal with our nation's obesity problem

Threaten them with Peruvian gangs:

Peruvian gang allegedly killed for human fat for cosmetics

What was that statistic?

When you have easy access to guns, you're in more danger of your own guns being used against you than not?

LEBANON, Pa. -- Police in Pennsylvania Dutch country plan to release additional details about a suburban mother who last year shocked other parents by openly carrying a loaded handgun at her daughter's youth soccer game and this week was found shot dead with her husband in an apparent murder-suicide.

Meleanie Hain and Scott Hain were found dead Wednesday inside their home in Lebanon, a small city 80 miles west of Philadelphia. Their three children were unharmed.

When you give men the right to murder

You get men who do.



Jeremy Scahill:

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

Once you set up a private army that can assassinate at will... how do you control it? How do you rein in the powers you have given the Praetorian Guard without letting them control you?

Which is why we have been yelling about Blackwater from its inception. Thank you, Bush and Cheney.

Good to see his poisonous thoughts didn't infect his son

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The son of the man accused of killing a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said Sunday that his father had long burdened his family with his white supremacist views and that he wishes his father would have died in the shooting instead.

James von Brunn, 88, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Stephen T. Johns, who was black.

"I cannot express enough how deeply sorry I am it was Mr. Johns, and not my father who lost (his) life," Erik von Brunn, 32, said in a statement to ABC News. "It was unjustified and unfair that he died, and while my condolences could never begin to offer appeasement, they, along with my remorse is all I have to give."

Authorities say von Brunn shot the guard in the chest with a vintage rifle after Johns opened the door for him. Von Brunn was shot in the face by guards and is expected to survive. A hearing is set for Monday in a D.C. federal court for a magistrate judge to hear about von Brunn's health.

"His views consumed him, and in doing so, not only destroyed his life, but destroyed our family and ruined our lives as well," Erik von Brunn's statement said.