If confronted by someone seeking to loot, destroy your business, or kill you, would you see your armed self as the best defense, or would you call 911, hoping the police will show up in time, if at all? Or would you be glad that a Kyle Rittenhouse is patrolling your streets like a neighborhood watchman, doing the job the police are unable, or reluctant to do?
Cal Thomas
November 27, 2021
Cal Thomas: The Rittenhouse verdict
[I think a bit more context is necessary to correctly answer these questions. I would be inclined to give the police a couple of free passes until it was clear they weren’t going to do their job. I would then reevaluate the situation.
There could be situations, much later in the timeline, where I would give people a pass for taking the action to the derelict and/or malicious politicians failing to do their job.—Joe]
Just roll back the clock a hundred or so years and ask the same questions. Then add the question “What should be the Libertarian response today given todays constraints?”
I view the police the same way as I viewed artillery and air support when I was in the miltary: I’m calling for it early, often, and loudly; but I’m not going to sit back and let my position be overrun waiting for it to arrive.
I view the police the same way I view insurance adjustors. They are going to come and make a report after everything is over, but they aren’t going to do a damned thing while the disaster is in progress, even if they are on the scene.
SPORKY
Those free passes … I understand the sentiment, but I’d guess they are a lot easier to give when it’s someone else’s life’s work being looted, burned and defiled. Especially today, versus last spring and summer, when we’ve seen how big city PDs have been responding.
Pardon my cynicism. One thing I really dislike about the Left is how their attitudes and actions have led me to harden my heart.
At this point one could claim the police in most jurisdictions have used up all their free passes for the next several years.
After Rittenhouse, doth we not all hold our manhood’s cheap?
The commies are scared shitless and screaming because, if Kyle can get away with it. So can you.
They need you helpless and scared. Not armed and emboldened.
The Rittenhouse trial wasn’t about self-defense, as much as it was about the communist’s ability to continue the long march. Unmolested.
Note the tactics change from open burn, loot, murder, protest. To flash mob thievery?
Both closing the retail businesses that are the backbone of our economy.
We’re being managed to death. Don’t die. And prepare to shoot back.
SPORKY, baby. Shit Pants or Roof Korean, YOLO
A gorgeous smorgasbord of comments, each orbiting the common theme. You’ve got one hell of a readership, Joe.
Police have become, whether willingly or not, armed establishment enforcers responsible – maybe, on a good day – for post-event report writing and basic harassment of the citizenry. Boris (above) expresses dissatisfaction with the left, and rightly so; as one example, I offer Bush 43; an honest historical review presents a below average performer who first gained entry, then won twice, only because both times the Democrat candidate was just so much worse. It’s the Democrats’ job to field reasonable and capable candidates and they’ve screwed the pooch royally on that, choosing instead idiological cripples, permitting a parallel degradation of candidates on the Republican side. MTHead points out the left is afraid because if Kyle can do it, so can we, but the next time it won’t be a “Three Point Kyle Performance” with lots of confirmation of obvious self defense against obvious violent scum, it’ll be empty 30-round mags with lots of bodies on the ground. Even though self defense is exactly what it will be, it’s a much harder sell to claim it when a couple dozen looters and molotov throwers are headed to the morgue, some of them “bright-eyed darling daughters off to join the convent in the fall,” especially with a broad spectrum media fully owned by the enemy and strongly devoted to hiding the truth.
I don’t know how to answer Cal Thomas’s question; Joe counsels patience until a “police performance trend” is revealed, but I suspect whatever timeline is employed there will have to be capable of extreme acceleration because giving the police 3 free molotovs before determining how good they’ll be can be fatal, certainly to businesses and communities, even if not directly to people.
I also think it will become, very briefly, an expansive and completely uncontrolled two-way range the moment organized self defense reveals itself. That will best be dealt with by training, training and more training to hone skills; it’s log been proved that if someone is shooting at you the fastest way to get them to stop is shoot back and score solid hits, and given the indescribable chaos of even 60 seconds of a two-way at 3rd Avenue and Main Street it’s a sure thing some “bright-eyed daughters” – and sons – not directly responsible will suffer the consequences and become front page headline martyrs for it.
The Kyle Rittenhouse situation was something of an aberration; the truth became impossible to hide, aided by stunning incompetence on the part of prosecutors. Rittenhouse’s actions were limited and directed solely at protecting his personal safety, his self defense actions easily separable from, but well supported by, his pro-community activities earlier in the day. That’s not a set of conditions easily met in the chaos of an organized mass riot (and do not doubt for a moment the Kenosha riots, as well as the similar “disturbances” elsewhere, were not organized and organized quite well. We would do well to investigate and analyze that organizational process to develop useful and competent counter to it; dealing with the street-level participants will be necessary, and it will be ugly; cutting the head off the snake would save a tremendous amount of grief on both sides).
I can only counsel planning, training, development of as many reasonable options as feasible and attempting every effort to gain cooperation and committment on the part of authorities. All that, and all the preparation one can muster.
It’s long past time I renewed my membership in the National Landmine Association – I hear some units with “This Side Toward Enemy” calling my name.
That’s satire, for the humor-impaired.
Kurt
What “rules of engagment” the police are operating under is always going to be a factor. In liberal shiteholes they are hogtied and not allowed to actually prevent crime committed by certain groups. In BFE they are less restricted. So IF they show up in a timely manner and IF they are allowed to DO THEIR JOBS by the political assclowns making the rules I say let them deal with the problem…..if they can and will. However…..since the REAL WORLD operates under the “when seconds count the cops are minutes away” rule you had damn well be prepared both physically and mentally to DEFEND YOURSELF. Because cops don’t defend you. They investigate crimes and make arrests…..and not always of the correct people.
Focus on the police is wrong. The problem is the politicians, especially prosecutors. In many cases, the police were ordered to stand down, withdraw or saddled with excessively restrictive rules of engagement. In other cases, they were simply overwhelmed because reinforcements were not sent by politicians. who control those resources.
As for simple street crime, as opposed to riots, every cop knows that any encounter can go south with negative consequences ranging from death to being thrown under the bus by the politicians. Ask yourself whether you would risk that when you know that even when things don’t go south that some leftist prosecutor is going to let the perp go before you finish the paperwork. The rational response is to avoid encounters while hoping for things to get better and/or while you prepare your escape plan.
For us, we need to have an escape plan too. Get out of the cities. Split states to stop big cities from controlling states politically. Start thinking about the National Divorce to escape at the national level.
I don’t disagree with your analysis. But I’m not blaming the police. Police action/inaction may be the best or only indicator available to make decisions on. Actual rules of engagement are not going to be as visible and up to date as police response in real time.
Joe,
people tend to think that the police themselves are a representation of the general public. I doubt that that has ever been completely true, but starting in the 90’s, the type of people that have been applying, and especially those who have been actually accepted into their academies, has really changed.
One big change is they are NOT people of the gun community. The political management ended that in the 90’s, and the number of recruits that have even handled a gun before enrollment approaches zero.
They also mandated a “no smart people allowed” policy in recruitment. The Court allowed this.
Along with the lower average IQ, they stopped banning those who lean toward being “bullies”, and those who tend to have problems interacting with others. These changes are what is driving the poor public interaction the police are now noted for, especially in the bigger/Blue areas. Add in “diversity” hiring mandates, and you have a recipe for trouble.
These days, ANY interaction with them should be considered to be potentially hazardous.
A reminder: The police tend to have only one viewpoint for the public, and that is the victim/perp perspective. When in doubt, you automatically get assigned one of those labels, and generally, the first one to talk to them regarding an incident of any sort gets the better “victim” label, and the other side gets “perpetrator”. Trust me on this, getting that label reversed after the fact, is a herculean endevour. Generally, it takes a higher rank to change that assignment, and good luck! The responding officer will create his report to support his perspective, and it all goes downhill from there.
If a politician told them to jump off a bridge? No?
Then I would have to posit that if the police are that malleable to political whims. They should understand the pickle they positioned themselves in.
Nuremberg forever dispelled the excuse of following orders.
We all have choices. And if ordered to violate people’s rights, or help destroy society.
Then their liable for the destruction.
I’m pretty sure the police call that being an, “accessory”, to criminal behavior. And wouldn’t hesitate to cuff you up and prep walk you for all the world to see.
We’re witnessing two parents that stood by and did nothing while they’re son committed murder. Get prosecuted for it.
After watching the outright murder of Daniel Shaver and Levoy Finnicum?
Choices, we all got’em.