Episode 32: Lady Vengeance

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has shown us, once again, that the progressive left does not want anything to do with justice. They will disregard all evidence, throw away due process, and proclaim a presumption of guilt in order to punish those who oppose their ideology. It's about power and control. They don't want justice. They want vengeance. 

Transcript

My name is Leonydus and this is Informed Dissent

What is up guys! Welcome to episode 32 of Informed Dissent, the podcast where we push back against the culture of Groupthink and challenge the narrative. I hope everyone is having a good week. Make sure you like, subscribe, share, hit the bell so you get updates when I post new content, you know the drill. I appreciate it. 

So, the trial against Kyle Rittenhouse is almost over and maybe it will be by the time you are watching this but it has been an absolute circus. The prosecution’s behavior, in this case, has been so unbelievably unethical and it highlights a lot of the problems that exist with our justice system and how incentives revolve around winning cases rather than finding the truth. It also highlights how toxic tribalism is when people have absolutely no issue with tossing due process right out of the window when the defendant is representative of the wrong tribe or when the case advances a particular political agenda. This case has proven to us once again that progressivism does not care about justice. Only vengeance. This is the case every single time. Remember during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings how unhinged people were and how willing they were to latch on to any accusation, no matter how outlandish, and the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever to support any of the insane accusations didn’t seem to matter at all. The media even elevated the creepy porn lawyer, Michael Avenatti to a position of prominence and credibility. Even to this day, they refuse to admit what they did. In fact, they continue to pretend their cause was righteous. Here’s Joy Reid, the most despicable person in the media except for maybe Jemele Hill, spewing her racist hatred about Kyle Rittenhouse and Brett Kavanaugh. 

The revulsion I feel after watching that. Having that level of hatred toward someone else simply because of their skin color is abhorrent. This goes without saying but substitute the word black or Jewish or any other race or ethnicity for the word white and tell me it’s ok to speak this way. Animosity or hostility toward someone else based on their skin color? I believe we have a word for that if I remember correctly. Let someone say something like that about her. She would be hollering for weeks about it. You know, I often say that people like that, they like to claim that others treat them badly because they’re black. No, other people treat you badly because you’re acting like an insufferable piece of garbage. Ridiculous. What they did to Kavanaugh was unforgivable. And it wasn’t just Kavanaugh either. The case with Nick Sandmann and Covington Catholic, same thing. They all became completely unhinged, went after a teenager, just like they’re doing now, and claimed to know the nefarious truth beyond any doubt only to be proven completely wrong. And this happens time and time again. It doesn’t matter to them. Derek Chauvin, still to this day, there is not a single shred of evidence that what happened with George Floyd had anything whatsoever to do with race. Nothing. But yet if you didn’t post the black square on your Instagram, you were a white supremacist. If you didn’t demand that Chauvin be drawn and quartered without even a trial, you were a white supremacist. Who cares about the body cam footage. We don’t need to watch that. There wasn’t even any evidence that Chauvin was trying to hurt Floyd and a basic knowledge of anatomy and physiology tells you that he did not cut off Floyd’s airway. I am a speech-language pathologist and I am telling you that if someone is compressing your trachea to the point that you cannot breathe, you will not be able to yell. It’s not possible. But hey, these facts are irrelevant when the agenda matters more. Justice doesn’t mean justice, it means vengeance. It means people wanting revenge for some perceived grievance or to further a political agenda. When people say they want justice, they don’t want due process, they want convictions or they want exonerations depending on which ideological camp the defendant falls into. In much the same way, the actual facts in the Rittenhouse case DO. NOT. MATTER. You have Joy Reid and all of these other blue checks on Twitter turning it into a race issue, accusing Rittenhouse of being a white supremacist, coming up with these ridiculous hypotheticals about what would have happened if Rittenhouse had been black. Are you kidding me? Look at this tweet from Cori Bush. 

“When we marched in Ferguson, white supremacists would hide behind a hill near where Michael Brown Jr. was murdered and shoot at us. They never faced consequences. If Kyle Rittenhouse gets acquitted, it tells them that even 7 years later, they can still get away with it.”

What!? Not only is she completely fabricating what happened with Michael Brown, who was not murdered, he was killed by a police officer after attacking said officer. He did have his hands in the air. He was a thug who died like a thug. And the whole thing about white supremacists shooting at them. Ok, Cori Smollett, there is a 100% chance that that did not happen. Zero chance that story is real. Completely made up. And on top of all of that psychosis, she’s clearly calling Kyle a white supremacist and declaring him to be guilty. This is a sitting member of Congress doing this. Here’s another one from Nina Turner. 

“If Kyle Rittenhouse were black, he would’ve been killed for holding that weapon. What’s a justice system without justice?” 

These people, man. They have absolutely no shame. No self-respect. We must make everything about race and use it as a political cudgel in every opportunity even when the case in question has literally nothing to do with race. It’s pathetic and embarrassing. They won’t be embarrassed but they should be. I’m embarrassed for them. 

Here’s Ben and Jerry’s, who has apparently decided to just abandon all sense of reason and sanity altogether and tweet out the absolute worst political takes ever.

“The Rittenhouse Trial displays yet again that our justice system is racist. How would this trial be going if he was a Black 17 year old that crossed state lines illegally carrying an AR-15 and shot 3 white protestors. We need real justice in the legal system. This isn’t it.” 

Literally nothing in that tweet is correct. It would be extremely difficult to write a more wrong tweet than that. They might as well blamed everything on heffalumps and woozles as much sense as that made. And also, how is it that people have so quickly forgotten about the black teenager in Texas who, just a month ago, took a gun to school and shot three people. And then was released on bail the very next day, very much alive. That was only a month ago. It’s almost like the facts don’t matter and it’s all about the agenda.

What about these from Dylan Park, a writer for Marvel?

“White privilege is illegally carrying a weapon to an event with the intent to use it, murdering two people, then getting up on the stand and crying about being the victim. (And of course he’ll be acquitted.”

“With a verdict near, Governor Tony Evers said that 500 National Guard members would be prepared for duty in Kenosha if local law enforcement requests them. Burn that mfer to the ground.” 

Wow. Ok. So these people had already decided that he’s guilty. And they believe that anything else is injustice and should be met with heavy resistance, even violence as Mr. Park was advocating for and as we saw journalists and celebrities advocating for all last year. They think their cause is righteous and anything that opposes their cause must be destroyed. And there are so many more examples I could put up here. This is the general consensus on the progressive left. This is who they are. Like I said, the people who are constantly screaming about justice, they don’t believe in justice. They don’t want anything to do with justice. They want vengeance. They want suffering. They want to hurt and destroy anyone and anything that opposes their ideology. That’s it. That’s what justice means to them. They are totalitarians. 

And this is what they do. This is how they determine truth. They decide guilt first and then they seek out ways to rationalize that conclusion. The conclusion comes first, not the evidence. And they do this with every single issue. Every single one. It always starts with some conclusion that was reached through emotional reasoning and then that conclusion is rationalized post-hoc. That’s why we end up with nonsense like “oh, but he crossed state lines” and “he’s a white supremacist” and “he shouldn’t have had a gun.” It’s because they’re searching for reasons to justify the decision they’ve already made, a decision they arrived at based on emotion and based on tribalism, not based on logic and reason. They have no interest in seeking out the truth as we understand it. They seek out their truth which is just another way of saying emotional reasoning. That’s what my truth means. It means I’m going to get in my emotions and decide that reality is whatever I feel like it is. 

I am reminded of this quote by CS Lewis. 

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second, then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed forever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Remember Stalin’s chief of his secret police said show me the man and I’ll show you the crime. Well, this is the kind of thing that we’re dealing with. And it’s a disturbing trend. Thankfully, there is a reasonable judge on the Rittenhouse case, because I shudder to think of what this case would have been like if this were a progressive court with a progressive judge on the bench. And the fact that I can tell the judge’s political leaning based on how he behaves in court is absolutely abhorrent, by the way. I shouldn’t be bemoaning progressive judges because of their penchant for bucking the law in favor of progressive ideology. That is insane. It shouldn’t happen. All judges should behave like this judge is behaving. Like an actual judge and not an activist. Not a social justice warrior. Anything else is outrageous and goes directly in the face of how the justice system is supposed to operate. Everyone should agree with that. The idea of conservative and progressive justices on the Supreme Court, for example, is foolish. Not saying they can’t personally be conservative or progressive, obviously, but for that to come out in their rulings and for it to be readily apparent in how they vote on issues regarding the Constitution is ridiculous. That should not be happening. We should not be able to tell what their personal politics are. We should demand better from our judicial system. 

So, I don’t know. It’s honestly incredible to me that this even went to court because it is as clear a case of self-defense as you can get. The assertion that Kyle was somehow looking for trouble because he was armed is nonsensical mind reading that, again, is not supported by the evidence. Binger, the assistant DA, even suggested that simply having a firearm means you lose the right to self-defense is unbelievable. This guy works for the state. He represents the state. And for the state to make the argument that simply having a firearm is grounds to cancel out any claim for self-defense....it’s outrageous and flies directly in the face of the 2nd amendment. If what he said were true, then there would be no such thing as self-defense at all. And just as an aside, that picture is insane. He actually pointed an AR-15 at the jury with his finger on the trigger. Holy gun safety Batman. The dude is an absolute joke. 

But beyond all that, the videos show clearly that Kyle was being attacked. Do murderers normally run away from the people they want to murder? Is that normal murderer behavior? Maybe it is. Maybe people regularly go out to murder someone and trick them into chasing them and beating so they can then fall down on the ground and shoot them. It’s genius. It is clearly self-defense. They threw out the charge that he was illegally carrying a firearm, so what else is there to say about it? Even the guy Kyle shot in the arm admitted that Kyle didn’t shoot him until he advanced on him and raised his gun, which was illegal for him to have by the way. And that’s another thing, people are so focused on Kyle and clutching their pearls about him being there and yelling about a curfew, but no one seems to have any issue with the people who were there rioting and burning down buildings and beating people with skateboards. No concerns about a curfew for them. It’s just a foregone conclusion that they belong there? Kyle is the one who is out of place and who shouldn’t be there? And the whole thing about crossing state lines? Listen, I live in Ohio and it’s right on the border of Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia. On Sunday, I went to church in West Virginia, ate lunch in Kentucky, and then went back home to Ohio. I crossed several state lines within a couple of hours. Clearly, I have lost my right to self-defense, right. It’s ridiculous. It would take me 6x as long to get Cincinnati, which is in the same state where I live as it does for me to get to Kentucky. I can get to North Carolina in the same amount of time it takes me to get to Cleveland. The state line argument is delusional foolishness. Regardless, one does not lose their right to defend themselves from violent attacks  just because they cross into a different state. And again, how is it that there is nothing to say about the people who were there to burn down Kenosha? The people who are there attacking teenagers. How do they get blanket immunity? 

The general hypocrisy surrounding the riots and violence from last year drives me up the wall, man. We’re just supposed to pretend like all of it was normal and justified. David Dorn was murdered in cold blood. His death was live-streamed. They let him lie on the sidewalk and bleed out. It’s a shame he didn’t bring an AR-15. Maybe he’d still be alive. An 8-year-old little girl named Secoreia Turner was murdered when some BLM thug shot into her car. 8-years-old. An innocent little child. Where is the outrage for her? At least 30 other people were killed during the hundreds of riots last year. And progressives have absolutely no energy for any of them. It was MOSTLY peaceful, they say. But hey, drug dealers, arsonists, sexual abusers, pedophiles...they lift them up as saints, martyrs for the progressive cause. It never fails. The people they champion are always the worst of the worst of our society while they ignore the truly innocent and virtuous. Why is that? They make villains out of heroes and heroes out of villains. Consistently. It’s incredible. 

It would be one thing if the people they were always advocating for were truly innocent, upstanding members of society. But no, it’s always people like Joseph Rosenbaum, one of the people Rittenhouse killed, who had a rap sheet that included and I quote, “11 counts of child molestation and inappropriate sexual activity around children, including anal rape.” The victims were five boys ranging in age from nine to 11 years olds. Is it just a coincidence that these people always end up being just awful human beings? How can it happen so consistently? The other guy who Rittenhouse killed was a domestic abuser. The guy who survived was also a felon, with felony burglary and other crimes on his rap sheet, which means he shouldn’t have even had a gun. I mean - These are you heroes? Are you kidding me? They are the people you want to lift up on a pedestal? And the fact that they were all there rioting because of Jacob Blake who, himself, sexually assaulted a woman just completes the whole ridiculously insane picture. Are you seeing a pattern here? Add George Floyd to that mix, the guy who set off the whole chain of events, a drug addict who robbed a woman at gunpoint and pointed a gun at her pregnant belly. Why are their heroes all criminals? Make it make sense. 

Thomas Sowell often talks about how the left tends to view people as abstractions rather than flesh and blood human beings. I think there is a lot of truth to that. And I think that’s what’s going on with the Rittenhouse case. None of this has to do with actual people. Kyle Rittenhouse is not a human being to them. He’s an abstract representation of opposition to their ideology. And as I mentioned, anything that opposes their ideology must be destroyed. 

500 National Guard troops are in Kenosha to prepare for the verdict. I think it’s pretty clear that the National Guard is not being called in to respond in case of a guilty verdict. I think we’re safe to make the assumption that it’s not Kyle Rittenhouse supporters they’re worried about, right? Especially after that Dylan Park tweet. Just like businesses weren’t boarding up before the Presidential election in case Biden was declared the winner. It was then and is now in anticipation of things not going the progressives way. If it doesn’t fit with the progressive vision, then it will be deemed injustice and will be called some massive threat to democracy that must be squashed. This is what I was saying about them not caring about justice. There is no situation in existence where justice means them not getting their way. Do you understand what I mean. In their world, there is no such thing as justice where they don’t get what they want. Justice means strictly adhering to their vision of the world and the way they think things ought to be. The end. Power and control. That’s the bottom line. You’ll hear me say that often because I truly believe that this is the motivation. So when they do things like intimidating the jury, they believe that cause is righteous because the jury ruling against them would be unjust. Check out this tweet from Jack Posobiec. 

“Two jurors holding up decision, outright citing backlash, per US Marshal in Kenosha. 

Worried about media leaking their names, what will happen to their families, jobs, etc. Including doxxing threats from anarchist groups”

That’s fine, right? Morally justified. Apparently, the judge had to be put under police protection because he was also getting threats. This is insane. This cannot happen in the United States of America. If the jury can’t be impartial because of threats to themselves and their families, then we don’t have a justice system. This is mob justice. But like I said, those who subscribe to the progressive dogma don’t actually believe in justice or due process or liberty or fighting white supremacy or anything else they claim to believe in. They don’t. They believe only in power and control and whatever they have to do to gain it. How else can justice mean cases turning out exactly how I want them to rather than following what the evidence actually says. Is lady justice wearing a blindfold or not? 

This whole game is just so tiresome. I’m tired of it. Especially the race stuff. We have a case where a white kid shoots three other white people so of course, it has something to do with white supremacy. Give me a break. It reminds of the cases in California and New York where black people were attacking Asian people and THAT was blamed on white supremacy. It’s incredible. There is no logic to any of this. Literally anything can be blamed on white supremacy at this point. But again, only things that go against progressive ideology. We all know that white leftists can do or say whatever they want to black conservatives and no one will say a word. It’s fine. The cause is righteous. They don’t see hidden white supremacists in a white woman wearing a gorilla mask throwing eggs at Larry Elder but somehow they see it in a 17-year-old kid defending himself while trying to help his community. It’s disgusting, man. The moral compass in this country is so twisted and distorted. Dave Rubin often refers to it as the Upside Down like from Stranger Things and it legitimately feels that way. Up is down. Right is wrong. Men are women. It’s absurd. It’s all absurd. 

You wonder how much longer they’re going to ride this tactic. It is clear that the only reason they do it is because it works. They know that it’s an effective tool of emotional manipulation and emotional blackmail. All they have to do is yell racism or white supremacist and people lose their minds. Of course, the election of Glenn Youngkin and Winsome Sears in Virginia may be an indication that the tactic is losing power. I mean, you can only cry wolf so many times before it starts to lose its punch. I’m just so tired of it. I’m tired of not being able to talk about anything without it being filtered through some racial lens. I’m tired of the truth meaning so little and so few people having any interest whatsoever in seeking it and don’t care if that ends with people suffering. I’m tired of all of it. 

Here’s the thing. And this is a good thing for everyone to remind themselves of, not just progressives. Concepts like justice or due process or even liberty itself, the entire reason for the existence of these concepts is to protect people you don’t like or agree with. This is vital to understand. The only reason we need these things is to protect people you might prefer not to protect. Because if the only people you ever want justice, due process, or liberty for are people who you like and agree with, then you don’t actually believe in those things at all. And if that’s the way things are going to operate, then there is no reason to even discuss those concepts, because decisions can simply be made based on how you feel about the person in question. Mob justice. Witch trials. Of course, that ends badly for you when you are the one being accused. But people don’t seem to think that far. They never believe they’ll be on the receiving end of the horrors they unleash on others. Like Alexandre Solzhenitzn said in the Gulag Archipelago, people believed in their innocence and couldn’t imagine such abhorrent things happening to them. After all, they personally didn’t think they had done anything wrong. They were naive. And so are we, if we think we’re better than them. If we think we’re better than other countries and civilizations have collapsed on themselves. We are naive if we think we can give the government the power to violate the rights of our political opponents without also giving the government the power to violate our own. The blindfold of lady justice is supposed to represent impartiality. Justice should be administered without regard for political ideology, race, gender, socioeconomic status, whatever. I’ve said many times that if you create a monster and send it after your enemies, it’s only a matter of time before that monster comes for you. Justice should never be confused with vengeance. 

Thanks for watching. I’m Leonydus and this has been Informed Dissent. 

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If you would like to support the show you can do so through Donorbox.org/leonydus. I really appreciate that. Make sure you follow me on social media @leonydusjohnson and check out my website at leonydusjohnson.com. And I have a substack now which is just leonydus.substack.com. And as always, remember to do your own research, challenge everything, and don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe. We’ll see you next time. God Bless