10/09/2024

Rittenhouse: The Left Made This Happen

By Rich Rostron
11/16/2021

The Left bears the greatest burden of guilt no matter how the Rittenhouse jury rules. (We now know that Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges).

From the other room, I hear the prosecution's closing arguments in the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial (by the time you read this, the jury will likely have made its decision). If you listened to the case of the prosecution as a stand-alone argument, you might convict Rittenhouse. But, of course, the defense will present a counter argument and, from what I've seen so far, they have a very convincing case for acquittal.

But the greatest burden of guilt lies elsewhere.

Whatever the outcome, a tragedy occurred in Kenosha, WI, Aug. 25, 2020. Two people lost their lives. The life of a young man, whose choices appear to have put him into a position where he played a significant role in the tragedy, will live an altered life no matter the jury's decision. But who really created this tragedy?

You might blame the officer who shot Jacob Blake two days before that. Or you might blame Blake, depending on how that incident is interpreted.

You might blame Derek Chauvin who knelt on George Floyd's neck before Floyd died in Minneapolis May 25, 2020. You might also blame Floyd for consuming so many drugs that he put his life at risk with or without Chauvin's knee on his neck - so many drugs that his erratic behavior invited a confrontation with the police. But I don't see the overall burden of guilt in either of these incidents.

From the time of Floyd's death, a generalization was feverishly pushed by the far-Left organization BLM that America's police officers are running rampant in the streets randomly shooting blacks for no apparent reason. The riots that ensued were labeled by the media as "peaceful protests", no matter that fires were burning in the background of the televised CNN coverage.

The Left claim these protests are justified. They claim that America is a racist nation and, therefore, if people burn and loot, attack police and other citizens, it's okay; they've earned the right.

Never mind that the statistics don't support the claims of police randomly shooting blacks in the back beyond rare incidences. Never mind that Left-led social welfare programs have destroyed minority family units and left young black men looking to the streets for crucial father figures. Never mind that this environment has created virtual warzones in our inner cities and long before Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck.

The reality is that the Democrats and media have pretended that they have no control in the legitimate means of airing grievances in America. They claim not only that there is nothing they could do to change the trajectory of life in inner cities, and that they somehow had nothing to do with the problem in the first place. The Left support these riots because these particular riots created public pressure they intended to use and are continuing to use for political leverage.

We all say there are vast problems in our inner cities. But selective support of riots by political operatives is not the answer. And while the Left may get its leverage, they also create the tinderboxes where young men, such as Kyle Rittenhouse, are led to make questionable choices that result in tragedies like this one.