Thoughts on Kenosha

Two days ago, my son posted his own take on the events which took place in Kenosha, Wisconsin on 25Aug2020.

For future context, the riots and shooting which resulted from another event from two days prior – the police shooting of Jacob Blake… which might be loosely associated with the unrest that has plagued many cities this year since the death of George Floyd on 25May2020… which caused a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement created as a result of the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman for the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin…

Yeah. Writing that is one of the reasons why I dislike discussing current events…

Yet, here we are… and this current cycle of potentially progressive retaliation is somewhat familiar:

My initial response to his question “The problem here is the question of what happened between him protecting the business and him [Kyle Rittenhouse] getting chased . . . So does anyone know what happened in that few minutes of a break between the footage?”:

At this time, no.

From the first video to the final portion, he traveled 882 feet and there has been very interesting breakdowns of the time stamps associated with all of the cell phone footage available… but there is lost time for the event.

Was the kid wrong?

Sure, actually. The context of the situation – his residency versus the event, age, motivation for open carrying, leaving a defensive position, getting separated from his group… all of it was tactically and ethically questionable.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find the idea of carrying AND going to a protest to be a generally bad idea.

Tactically, if the intent is defense, it would make more sense to defend from a fixed position. As soon as you start “idiot patrolling,” you put yourself in a lousy position where the attackers can use mobility and camouflage (of intent as well as blending in) to their advantage.

Were the victims wrong?

Sure. You don’t charge someone open carrying unless you are completely willing to accept the violence that they are clearly capable of. In some cases, it is necessary to protect others (the “run, hide, fight” approach to school shooters comes to mind).

Here’s my take on this whole thing:

I have written about conflict and my own experiences with war as well as my own ideas on motivation. The thing I don’t think a lot of people are taking into consideration is the fact that the laws are only as good as the people they regulate… and the behavior they dictate – even in extreme situations.

At the moment, I don’t see a way to back things down.
The local government cracks down: people are pissed (protesters/rioters).
The government backs down: people are pissed (the average and relatively quiet majority).
The shouting is getting louder, and it is becoming almost impossible to hear each other.
The available information coming from the various sides are either solidifying the justifications of their audience or creating an AMAZING level of distrust in the sources that makes it all nearly impossible to navigate without wanting to flip tables in disgust.

This nonsense is going to get out of control – there’s no denying it.
I’ve racked my brain try to figure out how we recover from this point. Even if the media just stopped, I don’t see a quick solution for all of this outrage. It would help – a complete cessation of the news fueling the fire would starve the momentum. However, for that to happen would mean gross violations of the first amendment… And that’s something I don’t think anyone wants to consider.

Me personally?

I think there should be some accountability somehow for the media when they don’t report the whole story, or they report partial aspects of the story with heavy leanings towards either end of the political spectrum. The left and right are both equally responsible for this mess; the left more so.

In regards to Kenosha – and everything else, really – it just comes to whether or not we can stop to see what is going on before it becomes a footnote in future history books as “a moment where things could have stopped from becoming as worse as they did.”

Would I want anyone to be on either end of this situation?
No. I know chaos, and I know what things like this do to people in the long term. I know that feeling of fear, paranoia, and the cold and clammy feel of flesh as life leaves is.
Most importantly, I have seen first hand what happens when power becomes more important than the people… when identity is important enough to demolish nations… and when information is effectively used to link the two into a force which is easy to start and nearly impossible to stop.

Everybody thought they were right; nobody realized they were wrong.

Not too long afterwards, Colion Noir posted a video on YouTube discussing the same concept…

This morning, I awoke to learn that even more violence took place in Portland, Oregon – resulting in the death of yet another person…

We are getting to the point where the probable courses of action are leading towards the intersection of “most likely/most dangerous,” with the media fanning the flames of discontent and suspicion of motive. I keep wondering when and if folks will slowly realize this fact, but I reluctantly accept the fact that individual or group stubbornness is yet another invariable constant in our long-scale collective history.

We don’t want to go where this leads.

Some folks probably do – they view the possibility to raze everything and start over as a good thing – a chance to correct larger errors of the past and shape a more beneficial future. The problem with this is as unnerving in the implications as it is simple: restart according to whom? Both sides of the political spectrum need to realize this – in fact, the more extreme fringes of either side probably already do and what we are seeing more frequently is exactly that: a reaction to the possibility of losing… as if it is a game where victory is easy and clean-cut.

Most folks more than likely don’t want to be part of this careening locomotive. While they have various stakes in the game – the loss of freedoms, the decimation of small businesses, and the emotional and psychological tolls from the exposure to the deluge of bad news/Facebook posts/Tweets – the average person merely longs for December 2019… a time before things truly went off the rails.

More importantly, however, there are those who really don’t want the possibility of civil conflict within our nation. The “reluctant participants” who comprise a small percentage of the population who are best described by a simple meme:

They have seen what failed domestic policies have resulted in. They have seen what people are capable of doing to their own countrymen because of a difference of political, religious, or whatever differences. There is a pretty good chance that many would be more than willing to recreate the chaos in order to keep the peace. The thing about it is, is that folks like that cherish laws, ethics, and each other enough that they would be willing to go to great lengths to keep that piece… to uphold the foundation of law… to allow for differences.

Would they violate ethics in order to maintain the ethical framework that keeps our country together? That’s a hard question. And it’s a hard reality that some most people might not be able to fathom.

But this is where my vicious optimism comes in – that will sort ourselves out before it comes to that point where it becomes a question of ethics versus survival. Because the truth of the matter is that survival is not guaranteed by ethics or laws. It’s determined by who we are and what our internal guidelines dictate we do when needed.

While history has provided examples of the extremes of evil we are capable of, it has also given us an equal understanding of our compassion, benevolence, and magnanimity.