The Great Disconnect 3 - The Price of Life

As America trods the horrifying but ever-more-clear path towards civil war or a national breakup, it's sadly unsurprising that the Two Americas hold different views.  What's shocking is how deep and profound those differences are on just about every issue, so much so that we can hardly even discuss them since we don't even agree on what the words mean.

In earlier articles in this series, we showed how we can't agree on the meaning of slavery or who has a right to the work performed by an individual.  We also saw how we disagree on what a democracy or a republic is, thus our opinions of what constitutes defending or destroying one are diametrically opposed.  We can't even agree on what it means to run a free and fair election, thus, we cannot both accept the validity of a victory by the other side.

But not only do we disagree on the fruits of one's labor, or how we decide how to live, we don't even agree on the meaning, importance, or value of life itself.

Aliening Our Inalienable Rights

Our Constitution requires the government to recognize rights that our Founders defined as being inherent in humanity as created by God.

Today's leftists don't really believe in God, at least not one who has the authority to define humanity and rights however He sees fit.   What we see from the modern Left when they acquire power is a belief that only government is able to force everyone to recognize whatever rights they define.

Our Constitution was explicitly designed with great care for the specific purpose of sharply limiting what government is permitted to do; Democrats desire that the government do everything anyone on their side desires, without limit of any kind.

In particular, the Constitution protects the rights of minorities from the "tyranny of the majority;" Democrats rail against minorities for getting in the way of "our democracy," by which they mean that they ought to be able to do whatever they want to do as long as they can buy or fake enough votes to reach 50%+1.

This conflict cannot be compromised.  "Democracy" is not a destination, it is a process.  A democracy can produce liberal or conservative policies, but what's important is that an agreed-upon, transparent decision-making process be followed so that both sides can accept the outcome.

By howling that certain defendants ought to be convicted regardless of evidence presented in court, to the point that jurors fear for their lives if they acquit unpopular defendants, Democrats are undermining and destroying our longstanding processes.

Similarly, by claiming that having just-over-half of Congress means they should be able to do anything they please, flies in the face of two centuries of our governmental practices.  It is itself a major change in the rules, and a destabilizing one; one which the Founders, quite familiar with the fact that a Parliamentary system like England's works in exactly that way, chose on purpose to reject it in favor of something far less agile but correspondingly more stable.

Democrats and our elite institutions, which they've controlled for some years now, drip with disdain and contempt for traditional American beliefs that differ from their own.  That makes it easier for them to feel virtuous while subverting our traditional ways of seeking "truth, justice, and the American way."  As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, "In order for men to commit great evil, they must first be convinced that they are doing good."

The Second, To Defend The First

Knowing the tendency of power-mad individuals to do evil while pretending to do good, our Founders gave us the Second Amendment precisely so we could push back against the forces of evil collectively or individually when the times required it.  This has worked well: to cite just one well-known example, a major reason the Japanese never considered invading America during WWII was that, as Admiral Yamamoto put it, "There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

Our ruling elites are at least as well informed as Admiral Yamamoto, but they have more power than he.  Knowing that our military swear an oath to defend the Constitution, the Obama administration started buying guns for federal agencies whose need for military-style armaments is not completely obvious but who swear no such oath.  Open the Books published "The Militarization of The U.S. Executive Agencies" which tells us:

... the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) owns 600 guns.

There are 458 'Special Office of Inspector General Agents' within Health and Human Services (HHS) armed with sophisticated weaponry and trained by military Special Forces contractors.

The special agents at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are equipped with machine guns and AR15s. Even the Smithsonian Institution now employs 620-armed 'special agents,' up from zero officers (2008).

But these security forces pale in comparison to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS owns 259,891 guns (not including the Transportation Security Administration which doesn't offer disclosure).

Why does the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) need 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition? Why did HHS purchase four million rounds over the last eight years and stockpile five submachine guns? And what about the 800,000 rounds purchased by the Social Security Administration (SSA)?

Conservatives argue that it is hypocritical for political leaders to criticize private gun-ownership while simultaneously equipping non-military agencies with hollow-point bullets and military style equipment.

While arming federal employees who might be more loyal to the government gravy train than to us, the liberals are also going after civilian-owned guns as opportunity presents itself.

We saw how the McCloskeys, a St. Louis couple,  pointed guns at rioters who had broken down their locked gate and swarmed into their privately-owned and clearly marked gated community.  They brandished their firearms to urge the mob not to damage their home.  St Louis' top prosecutor said their actions had risked creating violence at an otherwise "peaceful protest."

As we see it, the right to self-defense is fundamental, right up there with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but today's liberals don't think anyone should be permitted to use violence to defend themselves regardless of the perceived threat.

The Truth Revealed in Open Court

The difference between our view and the views of those who follow the liberal narrative are highlighted by the case of Kyle Rittenhouse whom the media consistently and falsely describe as a white supremacist who grabbed a gun and went to Kenosha to kill.  While he didn't get to kill Blacks, say the media, he succeeded in killing two Black allies and wounding a third; thus, without benefit of any sort of trial, liberals believe that he should be jailed forever.  If they weren't so committed to the idea that the government should never impose capital punishment, they'd be howling for that.

In complete contrast, conservatives generally regard Kyle as a civic-minded, responsible patriot with a history of helping his community as an EMT and fireman in training.  He scrubbed hate graffiti earlier that day from a local school and volunteered to protect a business during the riotous night of August 25th in Kenosha.  Conservatives believe that putting him on trial in a case of obvious self-defense is prosecutorial abuse and an attempt to water down our fundamental right of self-defense by making people afraid to exercise it.

The Washington Examiner summed up our perspective pretty well:

In the case against Kyle Rittenhouse, there is one guilty party that will never be prosecuted, never put on trial, never held accountable for their role in the shootings that could land Rittenhouse in jail. That party is every single person who spent the summer of 2020 excusing and even justifying the violent riots that led Rittenhouse to Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the first place.

... Democratic government leaders who were charged with protecting their communities and citizens abandoned this duty for fear that the political consequences would be worse if they took a stand against rioting than if they did nothing at all.

... Enter Kyle Rittenhouse and the dozens of other citizens who felt they needed to take the defense of the city into their own hands.

... There should have been an overwhelming, forceful response from the state and federal governments that left no doubt in anyone's minds that chaotic violence would not be tolerated.

If that had happened, would Rittenhouse even be on trial today?

The fact is, the left doesn't particularly care about Kyle Rittenhouse the person; he is merely a symbol standing in their way.  Today's ruling Democrats see "the law" as just another tool to beat up their opponents with legal briefs, much as they encourage Antifa to beat up their opponents with baseball bats.  The New York Post reported:

Gotham's own Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, one of the most powerful members of the House of Representatives, tweeted that Rittenhouse should be locked up and the key thrown away. This was after days of testimony that even legal experts on the left said were likely to lead to an acquittal.

For these folks, the facts of the case don't matter. The rule of law doesn't matter. All that matters is that they think the victims were fighting racism, the shooter is white and a racist and of course the racist must be punished. It's a worldview with all the nuance of a cinder block.

Andrew Sullivan of Substack explained why so many are so ready to condemn Mr. Rittenhouse:

The impression many got from much of the media was that a far-right vigilante, in the middle of race riots, had gone looking for trouble far from home and injured one man, and killed two, in a shooting spree.

But notice how the narrative - embedded in a deeper one that the Blake shooting was just as clear-cut as the Floyd murder, that thousands of black men were being gunned down by cops every year, and that "white supremacy" was rampant in every cranny of America - effectively excluded the possibility that Rittenhouse was a naive, dangerous fool in the midst of indefensible mayhem, who, in the end, shot assailants in self-defense. And so when, this week, one of Rittenhouse's pursuers, Gaige Grosskreutz, admitted on the stand that Rittenhouse shot him only after Grosskreutz pointed his pistol directly at Rittenhouse's head a few feet away, it came as a shock. [emphasis in the original]

National Lies with Dire Consequences

MSM coverage of the matter has been so misleading that many people who watched the trial were surprised to find that the three people whom Kyle shot were white.  NBC News published "Kyle Rittenhouse sobbing shows what's wrong with America" which lists the same areas of disagreement we mentioned from the opposite perspective.  We've quoted it at length to show the vast chasm between their worldview and ours.

He's charged with reckless homicide, intentional homicide and attempted intentional homicide for shooting three people (killing two of them) who were protesting the police shooting of yet another Black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last summer.

If Rittenhouse is convicted, he will likely stop being a right-wing mascot and become a right-wing martyr. If he isn't convicted, he will set a precedent for others like him to pick up guns they shouldn't have and thrust themselves into the middle of unrest they should avoid - confident in knowing that prison won't be in their future.  [emphasis added]

... He was so nonviolent that police officers greeted him and those like him like fellow guardians of the community before he killed anyone.

... Those protesters made him shoot them. It was their fault, and only theirs, not Rittenhouse's. He was trying to do good, to protect this dying nation.  [emphasis added]

And that's the same nonsense claim people have been using throughout the U.S.  [emphasis added]

Predominantly white voters were trying to defend their freedom, so they flocked to an open bigot like Donald Trump and stormed the U.S. Capitol. Angry parents, most of them white, are storming school board meetings demanding an end to critical race theory lessons to protect white children from feeling "guilt" about America's violent racist history and how it has created the foundation of inequity we still see today. Politicians and local officials - again, many of them white - have stoked this by framing the teaching of race and books that explore its context as something constituents should defend their communities from.

The truth is that too many white Americans probably see themselves in Rittenhouse - afraid of anyone, whether white or of color, who wants to live in a more equitable country - even if some don't want to say so out loud.

So many things have pointed to their being "scared" as Rittenhouse was described to have been during the protest and in the aftermath of the shooting. Frightened of losing the country their hardworking salt-of-the-Earth parents and grandparents built. Of becoming a minority among minorities. Of being displaced as the de facto right way to be a real patriotic American, of being able to define just what that means. But it wasn't just fear that convinced Rittenhouse that he had a right - a responsibility, even - to take a gun into the middle of unrest that didn't directly affect him. It was an entitlement, as well. An entitlement to make and uphold the rules, to make America great again.

... If he is freed, the status quo of America's flawed criminal justice system, in which white offenders are less likely to be convicted, can remain just a little bit longer, the inevitable merely delayed, if not denied. If he's imprisoned, those sympathetic to his plight have even more reason to use him as an example of how their way of life could be threatened if they don't fight, and hard. His supporters have basically guaranteed those outcomes.

... If you care about saving this democracy from the Kyle Rittenhouses of the world, you shouldn't look to a judge and a jury. Because a "guilty" or "not guilty" verdict in a lone case can't fix what ails us.

How do we disagree with everything stated above, aside from the blatant lies already discussed earlier?  Let us count the ways:

"Guns they shouldn't have"

Most lefties believe that only certified government employees should have guns.  Our ruling elites are well aware that the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting or recreation, it is intended as a last resort against oppressive government or to give citizens the means to maintain order when the government is either unable or unwilling to do so.

The citizens of New Orleans suffered looting and assault when Hurricane Katrina made it impossible for the police to keep order. When Nashville, Tennessee was flooded a few months later, there was virtually no looting because citizens stepped into the gap and protected themselves.  Self-protection saved the city a great deal of damage, so much so that their disaster has been all but forgotten by the nation if it was even noticed in the first place.

"They should avoid..."

Lefties believe that people should stay away from problem situations and let government experts handle it.  They forget that natural disasters or government dithering routinely render government ineffective, as we saw at Kenosha during the riots, in New Orleans during Katrina, in the fires in California, and basically everywhere else Bad Things happen.

Showing up when you're needed and doing what has to be done is a traditional American virtue that once was expected of all citizens, not just those cashing a government paycheck.  "If you want peace, prepare for war" is one of the oldest lessons of history, and it's been taught over and over on the small scale as well as the large.

"People versus power" shows what responsible Americans can do during a disaster when government gets out of the way.  Liberals hate competent, effective citizens because they're difficult to boss around.  They feel that all relief should flow from government, no matter how incompetent or costly we know it to be.

"It was their fault, and only theirs"

We actually agree with this, but the lefty is being sarcastic.  From the very beginning, most of the video and comments we saw made a very good case for self-defense.  As far as we could tell, and objective people who watched the trial agree, the three people who were shot had it coming at the time they were shot.  We wouldn't necessarily go so far as to apply the legendary Texas murder-trial defense of "He needed killing", but, well, this world is no poorer for not having in it Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, both convicted felons - as was Gaige "Lefty" Grosskreutz, the third recipient of a bullet fired by Mr.Rittenhouse after he pointed his own gun at him.

"Nonsense claim"

Lefties believe that since ordinary citizens shouldn't have guns, anything bad that happens is the fault of the gun, and thus that guns should be taken away from everyone - except, of course, from criminals who don't care about gun control laws anyway.  Being a convicted felon, Gaige "Lefty" Grosskreutz was barred from possessing the gun he pointed atMr. Rittenhouse, but nobody cares about that, least of all the otherwise fully-occupied Wisconsin prosecutor who dropped all charges against him shortly before the trial started.

To the left, any thought of legitimate personal self-defense is anathema - if there is a right to self-defense, people must be permitted the means of self-defense, and lefties can't handle the thought of an armed citizenry who might be moved to resist their diktats.

"Demanding an end to critical race theory lessons"

The claim that white parents oppose CRT because it makes white kids feel bad, is nonsense on stilts - as is easily proven by the fact that opposition is not limited to white parents.  Many black parents are deeply opposed to having their children told that the system is so rigged against them that they can't succeed unless they vote for Democrats who will help them.  It might also cross their minds that teaching white children that they are inevitably doomed to hate blacks might be a Bad Idea considering how many more of them there are.

It was no surprise that liberals trashed Winsome Sears, the black former Marine who was the first black and the first woman to win statewide office in Virginia.  Mrs. Sears tells everyone that America is the land of opportunity, but only if you work hard and keep at it.

Liberals say that "land of opportunity," "hard work," and "persistence" are tools of white supremacy, so Mrs. Sears is a white supremacist in black clothing.  Anyone whose life story gives the lie to Democrat claims that blacks can't succeed without white liberal help is a mortal threat to their power and is treated accordingly.

"An entitlement to make and uphold the rules"

Finally we the basic chasm of disconnect: lefties believe that since government makes the rules, only government has the right to enforce and uphold them.  That's nonsense - how many rioters would have to die due to armed citizens before rioting would end?  If the government had done its job, read the riot act, and shot a few of the early thugs who threw things at the police, we'd have saved billions in damage and many lives.

Getting involved is not an entitlement - it's a responsibility, an obligation, a duty.  The American way is for people to see what needs to be done and do it instead of waiting for someone else to come along.  Duty is going out of style, but some people still step up in time of need.

Indeed, traditional American virtues may not be entirely dead.  "Defund the police" concerned enough voters that the Republicans picked up seats in the House of Representatives in 2020, and opposition to CRT helped a Republican become governor of Virginia when that state was widely thought to be long lost to the Left.

"Their way of life could be threatened if they don't fight, and hard"

On this point, NBC News has, perhaps inadvertently, stated the pure, unvarnished truth.  If the events and calamities of the past half-decade have taught us anything, it is our way of life is mortally threatened.  What's more, these recurring crises have highlighted that America and Americanism has been under assault from the inside for decades.  There was a time when voting could have fixed the problem, but enough states have institutionalized Democrat vote-rigging that it will be hard to fix the problem solely via the ballot box.

We were gratified to see that we aren't alone in realizing what's at stake.  "Kyle Rittenhouse case: Gun-toting lawyers Mark, Patricia McCloskey show support at trial" described the McCloskey's visit to the courthouse around the time the Rittenhouse case was turned over to the jury.

The gun-toting St. Louis couple who pointed their weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home last year have traveled here to support Kyle Rittenhouse as well as their Second Amendment rights.

"We're just here to support Kyle and hope that the jury comes out with an acquittal on all counts and you know to support peoples rights to defend themselves," Mark McCloskey, 64, told The Post outside the courthouse Tuesday, as the jury began deliberations in the teen's murder trial.

Townhall quoted Tucker Carlson's explanation of what's at stake:

But it's the second part of the prosecutors lie that tells you the most about how these people think. Here's the quote: 'You lose the right to self-defense when you're the one that brought the gun.' Really, Mr. Binger? So no one with a concealed carry permit is allowed to defend himself? Whats the point of having a gun if you can't save your own life with it?

Well, that's exactly what they're telling you. They're telling you you don't have that right. You have no right to resist. That's the whole point of this whole proceeding, so the next time BLM sweeps into your town, your neighborhood, your house to burn and loot and brandish weapons, you had better not try to protect yourself or your family. Try to protect yourself or your family and we will charge you with murder, and while we're at it we'll have the national media call you racist.

The BBC summed up the verdict:

The facts of that night have never been up for debate - Kyle Rittenhouse killed two men and injured a third.

Instead the jury had to work out why he did it. He was being chased by a group of people when he fired the fatal shots. Was he acting in self-defence or was he a dangerous vigilante provoking an already volatile situation in a city he did not belong to?

It's obvious to those who watched the trial that Joseph Rosenbaum, the first person shot, threatened Kyle, pursued him, threw something at him, and tried to grab his gun.  The BBC notes that those who depend on the MSM for "facts" have a different view:

Many groups who want tighter gun control say it was the latter.

To which we reply, if the Democrats who ruled Kenosha at the time of the riots had done their sworn duty of keeping the "mostly peaceful" protests entirely peaceful, the situation wouldn't have been volatile and Mr. Rittenhouse wouldn't have been there at all.  As the New York Post put it, "If we are to discourage other citizens from assuming a Rittenhouse-style, armed-guard role in order to occupy the public-safety vacuum, we must always allow our police to do their jobs."

Having denied us the ballot box through censorship and vote fraud and trying to deny us the jury box through jury tampering and lying publicity, Democrats seek to deny us the bullet box by any means possible so they can reign supreme.  Our way of life is at stake - the leftists intend to destroy every aspect of our way of life that they can.

We see this in the utterly unhinged cries of "racism" when the "not guilty" verdict was announced.  A white guy shoots 3 other whites guys, killing two of them.  Where's the racism in that?  Sean Davis of the Federalist tweeted out a perfect analysis of what really happened here: "Having failed to eradicate the Second Amendment, which affirms on paper our God-given right to self-defense, the Left is using the Rittenhouse case to nuke the Second Amendment in practice. They do not want a world where you have the right to fight back against their violence." 

On this one point, perhaps the Left and the Right agree.  For sure, the lives of felonious thugs like Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber were most definitely threatened by the American manliness of Kyle Rittenhouse, just as his life was mortally threatened by their Democrat-sponsored and celebrated violence.  It is most definitely a goal of the conservative right to destroy their way of life - Molotov cocktails, brick-throwing, death threats, pedophilia, and the rest of their rap sheet - just as it is theirs ours.

It might seem that there's no starker difference in perspective than one's ability to fight to preserve one's own life from aggressive psychopaths - but, unfortunately, there are even more profound disconnects between the modern Left and the traditional Right.  We'll continue working our way down the list as this series moves onward.