Lost in the propaganda surrounding Kyle Rittenhouse is something that would’ve put his August 25, 2020 actions in greater perspective:
Contrary to what mainstream media would have us believe, the teen wasn’t a lone wolf “vigilante” who took the unheard of measure of arming himself in the midst of Kenosha “protesters.” Rather, he was one of “countless men standing with baseball bats, handguns, semi-automatic rifles, and shotguns in front of their businesses and homes,” writes the Federalist’s Evita Duffy. She ought to know, too.
She was there.
“In fact, my now-fiancé, who accompanied me while I was reporting, was also armed,” Duffy added. “You had to be.” (After all, many of the rioters sure were.)
What’s more, any able-bodied man over 16 years old had not just a right but, she unabashedly stated yesterday, “a moral obligation to defend Kenosha against vandals, looters, and arsonists attacking while police stood down.”
What Duffy supports is nothing new; it isn’t even just something that wholly accords with American historical norms. It is, in fact, the default reaction anytime government cannot or will not ensure domestic tranquility. Since “Necessity is the mother of invention,” citizens bedeviled by unrestrained criminals will become de facto law enforcement and do the job the government won’t do.
Consider the “vigilance committees” of the old West. “Vigilante” now has a negative connotation, but the word reflects the Spanish term vigilante (which itself comes from the Latin vigilantem), which literally means “watchman.”
A good example is the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance in 1851 (birthed even though Chesa Boudin was then still part of a dystopian future). It was created because, informs Encyclopedia.com, “city government had failed to curb gangs of outlaws … who preyed upon the inhabitants of the city and were suspected of having set a series of fires that had destroyed much of the city.”
Sound familiar?
Note, “Fire and looting consumed uptown and downtown Kenosha,” wrote Duffy last August about the riots, before citing a local leader who lamented that “the city was no longer the ‘Kenosha we know.’” She also quoted a longtime resident who said the municipality felt like a “war zone.”
The end result was “$50 million in property damage that affected 100 businesses, including 40 that were put out of business for good,” Duffy related yesterday.
This was all over the non-fatal shooting of a criminal, Jacob Blake, who was being arrested for violating a restraining order after an alleged sexual assault; Blake then fought with the police while armed with a knife, prompting the shooting.
And fellow thugs responded. Duffy points out that by “the second night of rioting, streams of out-of-state professional Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters had flooded into the city.”
Note that all four Rittenhouse attackers, three of whom were shot, had criminal records; one, Joseph Rosenbaum, was legitimately mentally ill (diagnosed as bipolar) and, as I wrote yesterday, might have actually committed suicide-by-Rittenhouse.
But in light of the “rent-a-mob,” consider a flashback: In 2016, Project Veritas caught a Democrat operative named Scott Foval on hidden video admitting that he and fellow plotters were actively involved in inciting violence at Donald Trump events. Foval even had a term for this — “conflict engagement” — and boldly proclaimed, “We’re starting anarchy here.”
Moreover, he also stated, “We have mentally ill people that we pay to do s**t, make no mistake.”
Please read that last line again. I’m not implying that bipolar Rosenbaum was recruited and paid, but the rent-a-mob parallels are unmistakable. Remember, too, that the professional agitation wouldn’t have ended in 2016 or been limited to Trump events. In fact, the outside agitators that rolled into Kenosha and other targeted cities were the result of organization. They didn’t spontaneously generate any more than Kenosha businesses spontaneously combusted. They’re part of an ongoing revolutionary movement.
Yet this is what mainstream media, the Democrat party, and other ne’er-do-wells said Rittenhouse, and by implication others, had no right to defend themselves and their property against. Why, Rittenhouse prosecutor James Kraus even said “Everybody takes a beating sometimes,” a corollary of which must be that every city takes a burning sometimes. It’s a rite of passage — like pimples.
This thinking went right to the top, too. Duffy writes that after 24 hours of requests for aid, Wisconsin governor Tony “Evers had still sent fewer troops to Kenosha than he did to Milwaukee during the NBA finals. Local law enforcement was quickly overwhelmed.”
“Evers watched thugs and arsonists destroy businesses and terrorize Kenoshans for another 48 hours before he reluctantly agreed to accept help from President Trump and the federal government,” Duffy later added.
Truly outrageous is that while 19th-century, vigilance-committee-era governments’ impotence might have been understandable — they were small and likely poorly funded — governments today fleece billions from the citizenry. Yet if they can’t even perform basic functions such as stopping crime (and securing borders), people may start wondering why they’re paying taxes.
What’s more, many have pointed out that the Rittenhouse case was actually self-defense on trial. And what could be the message when the powers-that-be refuse to stop rioting criminals, but also aim to stop brave citizens from stopping those rioting criminals? One could get the idea that they want anarchy, which ensures that people will become fearful and beg for order. Then the revolutionaries can restore that order the way they want — and with whom they want.
They do have a model, after all. There isn’t much looting, arson, or rioting in China.
