Leftists Question Rittenhouse Verdict
By: John Semmens
MSNBC “MTP Daily” host Chuck Todd expressed dismay that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted in his trial for shooting three people during a riot in Kenosha last year. “I can understand how a teenager like Rittenhouse might feel endangered when a guy tried to club him with a skateboard or pointed a pistol at him,” Todd admitted. “From a narrow perspective, it might be self-defense for him to shoot to save his life. But from a broader perspective, is society better off because he did? What message did the jury's verdict send?”
“If Rittenhouse had withheld his fire the worst that could've happened is that he could've been killed,” Todd reasoned. “But two other people would've lived. Why didn't the jury weigh those odds? By acquitting him has the jury emboldened others to imitate his actions? Did they consider the possible public violence that may follow from those disappointed in the verdict?”
MSNBC commentator Joyce Vance wondered “whether we will be safer after this verdict? Had it gone the other way the message would have been clearer—don't attempt to take personal action to protect property and people from rioters. Rittenhouse put himself in danger by trying to do just that. I mean, if the powers that be—the mayor and the police—are content to let the looting and burning be, then so should everyone else. But I fear that such a common sense approach will not be possible if interlopers are allowed to take whatever action they please without consequence.”
House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) demanded that the DOJ “find some federal crime Rittenhouse can be can be charged with. The asserted archaic individual right of self-defense must yield to the progressive right of the people to collectively pursue social justice. The men Rittenhouse shot were attempting to burn down Kenosha in protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. At the very least, Rittenhouse is guilty of infringing their First Amendment right to air their grievances.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) complained that “Rittenhouse killed two people who had assembled to affirm the value, dignity, and worth of black lives by attempting to chase him down and beat the crap out of him. He should've have taken his beating like a man. Instead, he shot them and asked for mercy on the witness stand. A white supremacist jury heard his plea and let him go free. Now there will be no justice for Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber.”
President Biden professed himself “angry and concerned” about the not guilty verdict while pointing out that “there are still many buildings that weren't burned down last year” and called for “more peaceful protests.”
