I know plenty of kids his age. I was going on 4chan and other stupid sites at his age. (Not holding the same views, it was just somewhere to troll back then). I do not feel bad for incels and hate mongering/racist kids who “got radicalized” online.
I do not feel sad for him at all. Being a middle upper class white kid and becoming a murderer because of memes draws absolutely zero sympathy from me.
I feel absolutely nothing but negative feelings towards Rittenhouse, Turner and other kids who were born on third base but decided to ruin the lives of others. I feel sympathy for their victims, who we don’t mention enough.
Lol what the fuck point do you think you’re making? The criminal justice system is incredibly racist. Rittenhouse won’t spend any meaningful amount of time behind bars for crossing state lines to LARP as a militia member and commit murder. If he was black and shot a MAGA protester, he would have been lynched on the spot.
Compassion for Rittenhouse seems quite the hill to die on. Here’s what will happen. He’ll get acquitted. He’ll show no remorse. Then he’ll make millions and headline the next CPAC.
I’ve referred to this story before ITF, and I’ll share again because it had a big impact on how I viewed things.
There was a young man in San Diego who was recruited into a gang. At age 14 he murdered a pizza delivery driver. Afterwards, the father of the victim set up a non-profit geared towards helping other at-risk youth. The victim’s father also reached out to the murderer’s father, asking him to join the project. His reason for doing so was that in his view, “there was a victim at both ends of the gun that day.”
Sometimes, I think it would be better to charge someone with unlawful killing and decide whether it is manslaughter, murder, or something else during the sentencing phase.
I just dont think its a good comparison to contrast the lives of those who are poor and whose friends are in gangs vs Turner/Rittenhouse, who are upper middle class and surrounded by successful people who are not committing violent crimes.
I can’t imagine the lives of the former. I know what the latter is like! It’s easy as shit!
Something that came up during the campaign made me think a lot about how forgiveness affects people. This discussion is touching on it a bit, but the act of forgiving is almost more to the benefit of the forgiver, than the one being forgiven. There is a weight that is lifted off you when you forgive those who have done you harm…and it is a very rare thing to find someone who can do it as openly as in this example.
The thing that came up that really drove it home for me was that Ammar met with Ehud Barak, and spoke to him for a while about his past, his family, and forgiveness (not forgetting. He’ll never forget). This caused great outrage among a portion of the Palestinian and Arabic population who were paying attention (most of whom didn’t live in the district, anyway). Besides being terrible to Palestinians in general, Barak ostensibly ordered the executions of Ammar’s grandparents.
Reading the angry, bloodthirsty, vengeful tweets from people who were never personally affected was a dramatic contrast with Ammar’s personal thoughts, which were not necessarily complimentary toward Barak, but definitely understanding that the conversation and the ability to forgive Barak’s actions toward his family were of great personal worth.
I think it takes a very special kind of person to be able to do that. I’m always so inspired by the families of victims who forgive the criminals who took something from them (life, property, freedom, whatever) because it is such a hard and lonely road to take. I wish more people were like this, and I wonder how we can steer our justice system to being guided by this principle.
I think its a good idea to bring at least some empathy to the table when it comes to the incels. There’s plenty of evidence that their lives are just absolutely miserable. However, like you I do think it’s important not to write off the consequences as inevitable. There are plenty lof paths for disgruntled or even mentally ill young white men that don’t end in violence.
