Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.
Rittenhouse was invited by the college’s Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouse’s presence.
The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, he shot and killed two men—Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz—at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
He said the three shootings, carried out with a semi-automatic AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.
Even if you don’t think it was murder, it’s repulsive that he is trying to make a career out of killing two people.
I don’t think he gets many other job offers
Racist murderer? Does that not sound like American cop material to you?
just watch how many will refute being “racist” or a “murderer”
not both; because that would be messed up
I’ll have a go! He may well be racist but he killed white people, and was legally found to have acted in self-defence. So all we can really say is he’s a killer. I’m not planning on being friends with the guy, but I do like a little precision in my speech.
He’s a mascot for the GOP - I doubt he’d have that hard a time getting a job at Fox or some other misinformation distributor.
Who the fuck would listen to him? He’s got all the charisma you’d expect a snot-nosed faux-crying-at-trial murderous teenager would have. Playing the “victim” of the “woke leftist mob” only gets you 15 minutes- just ask that dipshit AR-wielding ambulance chaser and his mustard-covered wife in Missouri how famous they are these days.
Isn’t that like every rightwing talking head under the age of 40? The red team eats that shit up.
Makes it all the more impressive that he ain’t got what it’s takes to be an entertainer for the right
Maybe he should get the tucker carlson hairdo. That might help his chances.
To be a fox news anchor, you have to have a personality. I mean, it can be one where you scream and yell, but you can’t walk off the stage—because the show must go on. He’s annoying, even to his own, and a liability.
Until they have no use for you and then it’s back to the streets
I can’t help but think if he ever was offered a job even if it was back end not front of shop that they would ask him to not tell anyone that he worked there.
TPUSA is running the show, not Rittenhouse. They recruited him like an intelligence asset by showering him with praise and “favors” in a time where he was (deservedly) receiving national ire.
People need to understand that the American right has a pervasive violent ideation. His actions are repulsive to you, but they are normal, necessary, and a sign of strength to the gun-owning right. Many, many Americans love what he did.
These people Want. To. Kill. You.
The guy who stalked and shot treyvon Martin sold the gun at auction
I think the debate is nuanced so I’m not trying to say it’s absolutely equatable, I’m more trying to feel out your actual position.
If a woman was being abused by her husband, stood up to him and killed him in self defense…if domestic abuse/survivor groups invited her to speak, would it be also repulsive?
Or say that woman armed herself as a child(17 yr old) and walked into a tense situation of strangers untrained and ready to shoot someone… and then ends up shooting someone. Might be a better comparison.
Perfect example. She shoots him with a gun she bought and then brought back home. To the people who think he’s a victim, you’re the one saying “well, she should have left him and certainly not brought the gun into the house!”
But I understand that the question will be avoided at all costs, because that’s the only way to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
It’s actually a pretty terrible example. A person has a right to be safe in their own home. Kyle had no reason to cross state lines with an illegally acquired rifle.
They actually had more reason than the rest of the people he shot, because they at least worked on that town.
Also the rifle never made it across state lines, it was always there at dominick black’s home.
Cool, no one had any reason to be there. That doesn’t make it ok for some dipshit to shoot them.
The gun that his friend bought for him because he couldn’t buy it himself, and he never had it at his own house? There’s so much convoluted bullshit wrapped around trying to justify his ownership of that gun…
Yes it does, it was either let him be attacked by rosenbaum or the crowd (which the crowd actually began hitting him anyway lol) or defend yourself.
This isn’t even a stand your ground case because rittenhouse tried to flee in every case lol.
You said that he crossed state lines with the rifle.
State lines means nothing when it’s a city on the border, and the illegal firearm charge was thrown out for, yk, not being true
“Laws don’t matter as long as some shit bag gets to shoot liberals.”
Fuck off.
That’s not what I said, but iirc he didn’t cross the gun with state lines- I may be misremembering though.
Please read the rules if you care so much about laws.
Lol, fuck off, rules on Lemmy aren’t laws and you know it
You’re avoiding the question. Would it be repulsive for abuse survivors to invite her to talk?
Maybe people are avoiding it because it has fuck all to do with Rittenhouse.
Then just move on if you don’t see the point. The fact that everyone who has responded has blatantly misrepresented my point or asked a question back without answering mine tells me a lot about how the avoidance isn’t because it supposedly has nothing to do with the topic.
If you take a shit on someone’s dinner plate and call it chocolate cake, we’re not obliged to eat it, and in fact may be very upset and tell you to GTFO.
Because it’s an irrelevant strawman.
Hang on - in your analogy, the 17 year old kid is the battered wife and the black strangers - miles away and across state lines - are his abusers? Suggesting the kid was somehow a victim here? Like he spent his whole life being tortured by his abusive spouse (black strangers)?
da fuq?
I’m feeling out the position. These people think he legitimately acted in self defense. Just like we might all believe she acted in self defense. My position isn’t about equating these two things, I even explicitly said so. It’s about whether its “repulsive” to invite someone because they acted in self defense.
Not OP but then yeah, it’d be repulsive to invite her to events as a hero. Maybe if it were an abuse awareness thing or a support group it’d be different. But if it were in the same way Rittenhouse was/is celebrated, that’d be fucked.
Because it’s transparently obvious that you want folks to go “of course that wouldn’t be repulsive” so you can go “AH HA!” when in reality this tortured attempt to equate the two has no value aside from disingenuous rhetorical plays as you are attempting.
Remember this all comes from someone saying that even if you don’t think he’s guilty of murder, it should still be repulsive that he’s being invited to and going to talks, because he killed some people.
I’m trying to get people to realize that if you think he’s innocent, you wouldn’t find this repulsive. there is nothing disingenuous about that.
What is disingenuous is misrepresenting my position in an attempt to avoid facing this contradiction, which is what you are accusing them all of doing.
Plonk.
I’ll answer it by pointing out that you’re building a straw man. I would call you a goat fellating syphilis factory but I’m pretty sure that both goats and syphilis would hate to be inside you.
There is a clear difference between putting yourself in a situation by crossing state lines over some shit that has nothing to do with you and having to live with an abuser. She has to go home to a person. He could have stayed his ass home knowing what was happening and would have been just fucking fine. He was looking to kill, she’s trying to live. If she’s making a living on it, it’s making a living on surviving, not going to look for trouble. But you can’t see that, you slimy donkey fucking inbred.
I get that people like you argue in bad faith. I really don’t care and this response isn’t for you. In fact I’m blocking you after I make this because I have no interest in listening to a sniveling shit pile try to lawyer his way into making crossing state lines hoping to kill someone ok. I’m writing this so anyone confused about what kind of person you are can read and see that you’re looking to find a way to kill.
Go fuck yourself instead of forcing yourself on your sister-cousin again. I hope that last brain cell you’re clinging to falls out and knocks out that last tooth that’s holding on by a thread on its way out.
I love how you claim you are going to answer the question, and then simply insult me while not answering the question… And the telling me you’re blocking me.
You’re doing me a favor. Thanks.
judging by the votes, you are deluded
I feel bad for people who think that popularity is the same as correctness. You are basically doing the equivalent of “wow, this influencer has a lots of followers. They can’t be wrong!” Lol
you say this like you’re not the one doing mental gymnastics to justify your fucked up position.
You seem to be JAQing off here, but your straw man is pretty weak.
Let’s say instead the abused woman is safely away from her husband and he can’t harm her any more. Then she illegally obtains a firearm, drives 2 hours to the husband’s place of work, starts a fight with him, and when he starts to get violent with her she the shoots him.
Do you think this woman is justified in the shooting?
Hey - I’m past asking questions, I’m literally just masturbating.
But Rittenhouse neither illegally obtained the firearm nor drove two hours? And Rittenhouse had just as much a right to be there as the protestors
He also wasn’t married to an abusive man. What’s your point?
Well why mention that for the analogy then?
Why would I answer your unrelated question if you are unwilling to answer mine? Whether I think anyone is justified is not really the point of the analogy.
With Rittenhouse it’s more like a woman was being abused by her husband, she tried to hit him back him in self defense, but then he killed her and then made a career out of giving talks about how brave he was for defending himself.