A white kid shot three other white people. What does that have to do with racial injustice?
So do I call the Proud Boys for that or undercover cops like Umbrella Man?
Thousands of rioters destroying a town in the name of civil justice sounds like vigilantism to me. But if they’re looting your business then maybe you can hand out LOGO coupons as they’re leaving. Loot One Get One Free.
ISTM, that there has long been an implicit (and probably even explicit but not widely publicized outside the force) policy in some cases, to “let the unrest burn itself out”, perhaps with the authorities thinking that they may not be able to supress it without having an honest-to-goodness battle and they do not want that – though too often, the authorities have made the easy call because the neighborhood that was burning was that of the disadvantaged themselves, so “hey, if they want to burn their own neighborhood shops who are we to stop them.”
Things get complicated when people who have something to lose, and who lived under the presumption that police were supposed to be there to protect them against Those Others, become the ones who experience this practice…
According to the AP:
Of course Fox is trying to drum up subscribers for its streaming service, and they are probably correct in thinking that exclusive coverage of the sainted Mr. Rittenhouse will be a money-making draw.
There’s a big difference between using the phrase “constitutional right” and saying “it is in the constitution.” There’s nothing wrong with saying you simply don’t believe anything is a constitutional right unless it is specifically enumerated. That of course means the following things will be illegal throughout the American South tomorrow: abortion, gay marriage, divorce, adultery, pornography, sodomy, and a number of other things.
The alternative view, and I think this is the mainstream view, is that the enumerated rights in the constitution were added after it was drafted largely in response to a political movement lead by the “Anti-Federalist” faction in the early eras of our country, as part of soothing various political disputes related to ratification of the constitution. There is substantial evidence that the same men who drafted documents espousing a Lockean view of natural rights and innate rights that all governments are obliged to protect, did not actually think enumerations of rights in the Federal constitution was necessary, and instead it was simple politics.
One could of course argue “well maybe so, but in practice, the enumerated rights are the important ones.” Okay, you can say that–but an actual history of Supreme Court jurisprudence around constitutional rights doesn’t easily survive such scrutiny. There are a host of Supreme Court cases enjoining the Federal government from violating rights that you could label “common law rights” or “natural rights” if you wanted, but it’s fairly obvious the historical court considered them “rights we have the power and obligation to protect.” The courts don’t derive from natural or common law–they exist because of Article III, so their power is innately a constitutional construct, and when they leverage that power to enshrine what might have in one era been called “the rights of English-men”, I view that as no different than them ruling on constitutional rights. As I said, the view that only the enumerated rights are constitutional or valid rolls back many rights most people hold quite dear. This would not surprise anyone, even the Founders–because the enumerated rights were never considered the only ones we had.
I think you’re bordering on extreme error with this. The 9th Amendment is vague, and not judicially or precedentially very important. It basically is a statement just reminding people enumerated rights aren’t the only rights that exist. Since the court has never felt compelled only to rule on enumerated rights, and has often taken a tack of establishing precedent for various rights through their historical context, the 9th Amendment just has minimal purpose in litigation and in precedential rulings. But the 8th and 14th, I don’t see how anyone can argue they “mostly vague and non-specific.” The 8th prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and it has been salient in a great many very important Supreme Court rulings.
The Fourteenth Amendment is broad, which is not the same thing as vague. Let’s detail how specific and important this amendment is:
- Enshrines birthright citizenship
- Enshrines that any American citizen is also a citizen of the State in which they reside
- That no State shall enforce any law that infringes on the privileges / immunities of American citizens
- That no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process
- That no State shall deprive any person of the equal protection of the law
While the scope of this is broad, it is not actually that vague, and taken together these restrictions on the power of the States prevent any number of serious abuses of our citizenry by the various States. The 14th Amendment did not “give the Supreme Court a vehicle for interpreting a wide variety of circumstances in whatever way they choose”, what it did open the door to is the Supreme Court taking its authority to evaluate and protect the rights of American citizens at the Federal level, and do likewise at the State level. This has at times meant the specific “incorporation” of enumerated Federal rights onto the State level (through precedential decisions.)
The 14th Amendment certainly opened up a massive scope for the Supreme Court to issue rulings, but it really didn’t change the nature of rulings it could issue–it changed the target upon which it could issue those rulings–namely the States. Since in our original construction of our constitutional government the vast majority of “every day” interactions between citizen and government were governed by the States, this has had profound impacts on American society. But I can’t really see that it has changed whether something is a constitutional right or not. The court has always had the power to protect the rights of citizens, and rights are not defined by words in the constitution alone, or exhaustively. What has changed over time is the court gained the power to protect the rights of its citizens from States instead of just the Federal government, which was the original construction.
I mean it isn’t that strange that they are specific. The specific enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights quite clearly again, related to late 18th century political concerns, and derive from specific concerns about abuses of the British at the end of the colonial era. The thinking of those who wanted those specific protections was–our rights as Englishmen were abused despite them being well established rights, so we want it clear that those rights cannot be simply abused. The English Bill of Rights for example prohibited a great many of the things that the Westminster Parliament did to the colonies in the run up to the war, and the faction who wanted this written down wanted it to be made clear the Congress cannot do that. The 13th and 15th Amendments are specific because they deal with things that don’t have a strong history, at least in the mid-19th century, of being rights enjoyed broadly. There isn’t a historical English right for everyone to vote, the franchise was always restricted in many ways. There was also not a historical English prohibition against slavery. Slavery was outlawed in England by statute, but it wasn’t intrinsically at odds with the traditional practices of England, and none of the colonies took the view in their courts and legal system that slavery was innately wrong or banned, so these specific amendments were to prohibit government action where historically there had been no real prohibition.
Neither is the right to marry, to fuck, to buy property, to sell property, to raise children, to terminate a pregnancy, to use contraception et al. Some of these rights (marriage, economic transaction, child raising etc) are so fundamental I have as little doubt as I can have that the Founding Fathers and basically every jurist of significance in American history would not seriously argue do not exist as some form of fundamental right.
The Supreme Court is a political organ of government, always has been, always will be. It is also a legal organ of government, and even at its worst it usually grounds its rulings in some basis of law. The simple reality is there is a compelling argument that the right to self-defense is at least suggested in the penumbras of the 2nd Amendment, and broader consensus that it’s an innate right in any case. Every State in the union recognizes a right to self-defense at common law. The right to healthcare is more akin to the right to vote–there is not actually historical precedence for it in the modern construction, and it seems much more likely that it would require specific action ala the 15th and 13th Amendments.
I should note that very little involving Rittenhouse has to do with the 2nd Amendment. Rittenhouse’s case was never Federal, and Wisconsin’s own constitution and statutes gave him the right to be where he was, armed, and to exercise self-defense. You don’t even have to look to the Federal constitution in his case.
Here is a very simple construction of the case, that includes only elements that are relevant legally, that people should try to consider if they take issue with this verdict:
- A 17 year-old shot and killed 2 people and wounded a third.
- He claimed self-defense
- Video evidence showed corroborative evidence of all three shot persons attacking the 17-year old prior to him shooting them, one video showed him attempting to flee and the other showed him knocked to the ground and firing at someone on top of him with a weapon
- The prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that the 17-year old didn’t act in self-defense.
It’s really not any more complicated than that. All the people whinging about how this opens the floodgates for the Neo-Nazis to start driving around towns in Humvees executing blacks and leftists on the street with impunity, should consider that there is absolutely no reason to expect a similar result in a case that doesn’t have similar facts. Items number 2, 3 are incredibly important, and would be a serious barrier to the sort of thing some of you are hyperventilating about.
I’ll also note the “fear” that this will lead to more people going out with guns is not a sound one–namely because most of you just seem ignorant armed protests have been happening on very large scale levels since 2017, absolutely nothing has changed from this case.
CNN did a good article on this saying basically what you are saying here…and what it seems to me you’ve been trying to convey in this whole mess of a thread. Basically, it seems that most people who are lawyers or understand the law aren’t that surprised by the verdict. I’m not one of those who really understand the law deeply, but the case itself revolved around self-defense. There was a ton of baggage and garbage brought in, but at its heart, it was about self-defense. It was about the prosecution setting a narrative that wasn’t about self-defense and the defense trying to prove a counter-narrative that showed self-defense. It was really as easy as that, at the heart of this thing.
As you say, this isn’t some sort of license for racists and gun nuts. That is purely manufactured fear that is being pushed by one side. Cases in the future will be tried using the same criteria as this one, and the defense will have to prove self-defense why the prosecution has to prove the opposite.
ETA: FWIW, I think your posts in this thread were excellent, Martin_Hyde. Just wanted to say that.
Dang, son. They should have brought you in to prosecute. It would have been a slam dunk. 
Seriously? Fired into the air? AFAIK, firing warning shots can get you prosecuted anywhere even if they are effective.
It sounds like you went to the same firearm training class as Biden where he learned that firing a shotgun through a door is an acceptable defense technique.
It’s telling that the left has far more critique for those who travel to another city, or horror of horrors CROSSED STATE LINES!!11!!, to defend property than they do for those who travel to another city to engage in arson, looting, and rioting…
Wow. As Snopes points out, you’re missing valuable context in your attempt to smear Biden.
I believe that most of us on the Left have said that anyone who committed arson, or looted, or engaged in any violence should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, irrespective of whether they crossed state lines or not.
The thing is, though, is that the protesters didn’t kill anyone, and the mainstream Left is not glorifying anyone or praising them. Too bad the Right can’t say the same.
There was a very contemporary English case (Somerset v Stewart) which showed that English courts had great doubts as to whether slavery was legal in England. Something the colonists were horrified about.
The prosecution called Rosenbaum a hero right during closing arguments.
Not really sure that I’d call the prosecution “mainstream Left-wing.” But your mileage may vary on that.
For instance, I have yet to see any leftist politicians offer internships to the protesters.
Oh, but we do critique them, because after a proper investigation is done they turn out to be Proud Boys or Boogaloo Boys, and even off-duty cops like Umbrella Man.
It’s just that some people (I won’t name names) conveniently don’t read those posts.
That case had almost no meaningful impact in the colonies in terms of anything, really. Britain abolished slavery in its overseas possessions in the 1830s via statute, that particular case would never have actually had an impact in the 13 American colonies, that just isn’t how the law worked at that time.
England proper had not permitted slavery since the Norman times, the only meaningful thing from this case was transit of slaves through England itself, but that was not all that significant in the grand scheme of things. Britain had a large number of possessions in prime trading areas outside of England that enabled them to fully conduct the slave trade for some 35 years after this case.
This morning on MSNBC someone posited that vigilante groups are using the Rittenhouse process and result as a schematic for future action. They are reverse engineering the process to set up Rittenhouse situations at protests - aggressive acts that are clearly covered as self defense.
That seems to gloss over the key detail, though. Let’s say I’m, y’know, protesting stuff, and some guy wants to act against me in what’s “clearly covered as self defense.” What, exactly, does he do? I’m right here, not attacking him; and he’s right there, and — what?
These folks are all role playing. They are not cops and they are not soldiers. They playing a game. Given the normal distribution of ability, we have to assume that there are some really smart folks among the troglodytes. The idea would be to reverse engineer the Rittenhouse decision. The judges instructions are text book for that process. What is required to murder someone and claim self defense? Then the role players create that scenario.
That’s vague but it is how I understand it.