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 collegeā€™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 Rittenhouseā€™s presence.

The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, heĀ shot and killed two menā€”Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutzā€”at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He said theĀ three shootings, carried out with a semi-automaticĀ AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. TheĀ Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held afterĀ Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.

  • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    Ā·
    9 months ago

    Hereā€™s mine.

    Travelling interstate to put yourself in a position to shoot 3 people, killing two of them is incredibly stupid at best. Proceeding from that to a job for a transparently dishonest media org that has hired you primarily to celebrate your killings demonstrates a total lack of remorse, and incites similar politically motivated killings in what amounts to pretty clear-cut stochastic terrorism. If we take him at his word, heā€™s done no research into the media company that hired him, and has been on stage at events where openly racist nonsense has been celebrated without him noticing - if this is true, heā€™s deficient enough that he should be in assisted living. The reasonable conclusion is that heā€™s some degree of comfortable with the racism.

    So we have a remorseless killer, stochastic terrorist, propagandist (or useful idiot) that doesnā€™t care about or actively embraces racism.

    • aidan@lemmy.worldM
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      Ā·
      9 months ago

      Proceeding from that to a job for a transparently dishonest media org that has hired you primarily to celebrate your killings demonstrates a total lack of remorse,

      It has been several years, and he did cry a lot when it happened, but Iā€™m not sure remorse is necessary if it was in self-defense. Iā€™m also not sure what other opportunities he has.

      If we take him at his word, heā€™s done no research into the media company that hired him

      Nobody tries to find problems with the hand that feeds them. Honestly, with everything said about people like Dennis Prager and TPUSA, from his perspective he can just think ā€œleftists hate and lie about them like they hated and lied about meā€.

      • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        Ā·
        9 months ago

        It has been several years, and he did cry a lot when it happened

        Heā€™s not new to the circuit, and he cried when it looked like he might wind up in prison. None of this is remorse.

        Iā€™m not sure remorse is necessary if it was in self-defense.

        True - though Iā€™d say it seems common. Either way, crossing state lines to procure a firearm to take to that protest to create the pretext to shoot people was not self-defence. Thatā€™s premeditated.

        Iā€™m also not sure what other opportunities he has.

        I wonā€™t be losing any sleep over someone having some extra difficulty finding employment after getting away with what he did. Thereā€™s no shortage of people that support him - finding a job that doesnā€™t involve bragging about killing 2 people isnā€™t a big ask.

        Nobody tries to find problems with the hand that feeds them.

        This simply isnā€™t true. Iā€™ve turned down lucrative job offers (e.g. 70%+ more than what I was on at the time plus significant chunks of equity and benefits) because I had concerns about the ethics of the prospective employers. Iā€™ve also spoken out about issues with my employers that have cost me multiple jobs (and chasing me out rather than listening buried at least one of those businesses). I donā€™t hold others to standards I donā€™t uphold myself.

        Honestly, with everything said about people like Dennis Prager and TPUSA, from his perspective he can just think ā€œleftists hate and lie about them like they hated and lied about meā€.

        Iā€™m not going to make excuses for him dismissing the endless, quantified criticism of a transparently dishonest, racist propaganda outfit and the parade of absolute scumbags he chose to work alongside.