Tex gets at a big problem for the Rittenhouse defense in her comment to the post below. In discussions with people who want to see him convicted of something, I run into the same intuition over and over. "He shouldn't have been there," they say, "and he definitely shouldn't have brought a rifle." (Especially, I suspect, a scary rifle like the AR-15 they've been taught to fear.)
There's definitely a longstanding concern, expressed in the Johnny Cash song that heads this post, about young men taking guns to town. It's definitely a risk, given that young men have not fully grown into maturity of judgment and are still driven by hot pride and hormones. The fact is that this particular young man exercised exceptional judgment with his firearm. The facts show that he did not fire first, that he fired fewer shots than his attackers, that they had more guns and assaulted him in multiple ways, yet he constantly retreated from conflict and fired only when absolutely necessary. Yet the intuition, which is a moral feeling, is stronger than the facts.
It is also stronger than the law. The law is that 16 and 17 year-olds may carry rifles and shotguns in that state. A citizen, even a youth, has a legal right to be in public places (the claim that he was violating curfew was unsubstantiated and abandoned by the prosecution). He has a right to travel freely, without being stopped or assaulted or fired upon. Stopping to render aid to the wounded is permitted of citizens even if they are not government employees, and in fact often required by law: in many states, if you come upon an accident you are legally required to render aid and assistance if capable. There is no reason citizen volunteers should not put out fires in the streets even if the fire department has not shown up yet.
Everything he was doing was legal, in other words, but it is felt to have been a provocation that should void his other legal rights -- up to and including his right to defend himself from assault, battery, theft of property such as that rifle, and so forth.
Would he have been harmed if he had been unarmed, without the rifle as provocation? Maybe! Also in those riots an elderly man with a fire extinguisher was beaten by similar thugs just for trying to stop the fires they were starting. Just because he had a fire extinguisher in his hands, was that a provocation that voids his right to self-defense? The older man was trying to prevent arson of a fraternal organization, the Danish Lodge, which was destroyed in the fire after his beating.
Ultimately self-defense is not the right place to hang the defense of Rittenhouse. What he was engaged in was good citizenship. Citizens have a moral right to defend their community from lawless violence, even with rifles, even if they constitute themselves as a militia for the purpose of doing so. Yes, even if the government chooses to abandon its duty to protect the community from such lawless violence -- especially if they do.
That he was defending himself is true, and a legal reason not to prosecute him. The moral feeling that he was doing something wrong is misplaced. He was doing something right. We should all respond so well in the face of danger, of arson, of mobs. We have the moral right and we have the legal right. So did he.
7 comments:
These sentiments are a natural consequence of a peaceful high-trust society. People no longer accept that anarchy and violence must be confronted, sooner or later, and that the police cannot simply handle it as they imagine. The settlers learned that confronting violence and hardship sooner rather than later meant a better chance of survival for themselves. Their lives depended upon accurately understanding active dangers and risk, and dealing with it, rather than later. If one journeys to less-developed countries today, you'll see an active willingness to take action by the average person, more decisiveness, more resolve - for good and bad. The middle class gentry in America hasn't woken up to the fact that their high-trust society is being assailed, and the governor, the mayor, the city council, and the police don't feel pressured to take action - it looks hard.
Ultimately self-defense is not the right place to hang the defense of Rittenhouse.
Actually, it is. The rest of us, Rittenhouse's community, both proximate and extended, certainly should defend him on the basis of his civic and moral duties to be there and to do the things he was attempting to do--render first aid to the injured and protect a bit of property that its owners had asked him to do. However, in court, where law matters, his right of self-defense must be at the forefront of his defense. His attorneys certainly missed a beat by not using his civic and moral duties as an addendum, but the law of self-defense needed to come first.
And so should, ultimately, come the hammering of the prosecutors, including disbarment, for their repeated and blatant disregard for the law as they pressed their...prosecution.
Eric Hines
It's also important to keep in mind that MSNBC already has started its harassment and effort to intimidate the jurors by having/permitting one of its reporters follow the jurors' transportation from the courthouse at the end of the day.
The judge has "ticketed" the reporter and barred MSNBC from the courtroom until the trial concludes, but that's a gavel full of nothing, even though it's all the judge could do, so far.
Eric Hines
And the MSNBC tail was only caught because he ran a red light trying to keep up with bus. Who knows if anyone else might have been successful?
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
George Orwell
Courts have ruled time and time again their ONLY duty is to serve the party's [a government a
agency] public safety interests that “employ” them. Police have zero Constitutional duty to protect YOU.
You're on your own citizen. We only come out afterwards and write a report and take witness statements.
Counting on police forces to protect you is a fools errand, especially if you live in a rural area and the police or sheriff can be several minutes, at the minimum, away.
Out here it’s close to an hour.
Who knows if anyone else might have been successful?
Or how many others were successful, and are being more careful in their stalking now?
Eric Hines
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