Kyle Rittenhouse’s family: We’re his collateral damage

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 265 points –
Kyle Rittenhouse’s Family: We’re His Collateral Damage
thedailybeast.com

The far-right darling is accused of leaving his mom and sister high and dry as they fight eviction.

Kyle Rittenhouse has been publicly dragged by his own family, who say the far-right darling has left them high and dry as his mother and sister brace for eviction from their home. 

Faith, Kyle’s sister, put out a desperate plea for help on May 29, setting up a GoFundMe to help fight their eviction notice.

“With my brother’s unwillingness to provide support or contribute to our family, we’ve been left to navigate this journey on our own,” she added. 

Her family has “exhausted every resource available to us,” she wrote, and “time is running out.”

When I was in the hospital we tried to like talk to my brother, we tried to like to tell his lawyer to tell like my brother like I was maybe needing surgery or like I was in the hospital, I never heard from him,” Faith told viewers of the V-Radio podcast.

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“people still believe my mother drove Kyle or was somehow involved in his decision to go to Kenosha.”

Was she not sitting right there behind him in court supporting what he did?

my brother was involved in a tragic shooting incident,

Fuck you.

I'm going to go ahead and post my hot take: I hate that these people are facing eviction and that they're faced with crippling medical debt caused by chronic illness and frequent hospitalization. I don't like these people. I don't agree with their beliefs. I think Kyle Rittenhouse did something unforgivably terrible and that his family likely enabled him and his actions. But I also don't want them to be homeless or to have to deal with medical debt, because those are things that I believe our society should guarantee, as inalienable rights, that no one, regardless of how odious they or their family might be, should have to endure. And I don't care that they (probably) believe differently.

This is what separates people like us from people like them: empathy

I think what people believe is more a matter of environment, exposure, and upbringing. The Rittenhouses are victims of an ideology that they internalized because they were, in some very real way, made to internalize it. It doesn't benefit them and it exists purely to support systems of power that actively disenfranchise them and people like them. And "our" ideologies, however similar or different your beliefs and mine might be, are just as much a product of environment and conditioning. I'm not entirely sure I can draw the exact line where a society's failure of its own people stops and personal accountability begins when it's tied so intimately to how an individual believes the world is and should be.

I think you’re right. I also think that’s the real reason some conservatives hate college and cities. Living in close proximity to others exposes you to different perspectives, and (hopefully) teaches you that other points of view aren’t automatically wrong. Different isn’t necessarily bad. Your parents, and the values you grew up with, don't have the solution to everything. Lines are much harder to draw.

The liberal urge to donate to people who are literally and unapologetically trying to fucking shoot you

Okay, I did laugh, but I have to point out that there are people caught in the middle. A lot of folks, no how loudly they yell, or how many flags they burn on TV, don’t actually want to kill anybody. They just want to live. They just want to take care of their families. That’s who liberals are trying to help.

Us vs them... At least we can all agree on othering people we disagree with

I don’t like it either, but pretending differences don’t exist won’t make those differences go away.

People we disagree with isn't the same as people who lack a quality that's necessary for society. That's not a disagreement

Thank you. I couldn’t quite nail down what was fundamentally bothering me about that statement, but you did it for me!

Honestly, same here. I despise what they enabled, and continue to enable. I also despise that they're facing homelessness and serious healthcare issues because nobody should have to face that, regardless of how repugnant I might find their beliefs and actions. I honestly hope that they manage to get out from under this and continue to live long, healthy, and happy lives, because I believe that everyone SHOULD have these things.

I'm not as good a person as you, and I'm sorry. I accept them losing their house as long as it's to someone better. Odds are that's happening.

It's crazy they act like he's the black sheep...

The mom raised them, and drove him across state lines.

The sister is just as big of a piece of shit, as evident in the video where Kyle curls up into the fetal positions and cries after some guys stopped him from beating a young girl his sister picked a fight with.

They're all shit people.

The mother did not drive him to Kenosha, or across state lines, and she was not involved in acquiring the rifle.

He drove himself to Kenosha. Dominic Black acquired the rifle. It's unclear whether it was Dominic Black or Rittenhouse who drove him home, but his mother was not in the car. Hours later, his mother drove him to the police station in his home town - not in Kenosha, not in Wisconsin - where he finally surrendered himself.

Frankly, it's disgusting that even basic facts of this case are so poorly known. I am still seeing claims that Rosenbaum, Huber, and Grosskreutz were black.

He drove himself to Kenosha. Dominic Black acquired the rifle. It’s unclear whether it was Dominic Black or Rittenhouse who drove him home, but his mother was not in the car.

Well, if you're right maybe you should.link sour es so people believe you?

What type of source would you be willing to accept?

I know that your claims do not arise from primary sources. No audio or video recordings from Kenosha show her to be present. No witnesses for either the prosecution or the defense ever testified to involvement that could be construed as proving your claims. I cite the trial transcripts in supporting mine.

I will note that you have provided no source for your claims. I know they did not arise from any primary source, but I do not know what secondary source you are relying on. Are you willing to accept major news organizations, such as Associated Press? They reported that false claims of her involvement were widely reported in social media.

Fact check.org also refuted claims of her involvement.

Politifact concurred.

Are you as certain of Rittenhouse's culpability in the killing of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz, as you are about your claims about Wendy Rittenhouse's involvement?

Are you as certain of Rittenhouse's culpability in the killing of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz, as you are about your claims about Wendy Rittenhouse's involvement?

"Oh, you were misinformed about something worthy of a snopes article, have you considered that you might also be wrong in opposing murder?"

Get the fuck out of here with this fallacious nonsense. Kyle Rittenhouse has said he wanted to kill protesters. He's as innocent as OJ Simpson.

"Oh, you were misinformed about something worthy of a snopes article, have you considered that you might also be wrong in opposing murder?"

Yes. That is my question. Is it possible that the same sources and methods by which you came to be misinformed about his mother have also caused you to be misinformed about the actual circumstances of the attack?

12 jurors all heard the same evidence, and concluded that his use of force was justified against all three of the people he hit, and a fourth that he fired upon and missed. What do you know about the case that leads you to believe differently?

Were you aware that there was a fourth person to attack Rittenhouse?

Were you aware that Gaige Grosskreutz ("Byecep") was live streaming, captured Rittenhouse stating he was going to police, observed him running toward police, and still called for mob violence against Rittenhouse?

These are all from primary sources: people and video directly involved. They aren't from reports or commentary. If any of this information is new to you, how confident are you that you now have all the relevant information? How confident should you be?

Remember when one of the idiots who participated in his defense came out and said that he fucked up a full ride scholarship to go be a right wing talking head for Turning Point, and called him an antagonistic arrogant dumbass who couldn’t score high enough on his ASVAB to live out his dream of murdering minorities legally overseas?

How the fuck does someone who does that poorly on the ASVAB get a full ride scholarship?

Maybe it wasn’t a scholarship I don’t remember all the details, just that he had the opportunity to go to college all expenses paid through some means.. It was my assumption that the “scholarship” was just some right wing organization issuing him something to make him seem like less of a vicious moron with no future prospects for the trial.

Republican donor groups fell over themselves to prop this guy up as some right-wing hero. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them decided to send him to college on a full ride so that they could continue to point to him in the future as someone who went on to make a success of themselves rather than continue to prove to the world that he's a vicious idiot with no prospects in life.

"Involved in a tragic shooting..." Like he wasn't the one doing the shooting 💀

You raised an asshole. You pay the price.

Sorry, but this is just plain evil. And we're talking about his sister here who should be considered blameless.

I understand that this isn't about being rational, but being outraged.

This is not about outrage. This is about consequences of ones deeds.

And since when is "sister" not family? Didn't she care growing up with a racist brother?

Yeah she should've slit his throat when they were in grade school if she didn't want to be judged for...checks notes...having a brother.

You have no idea what the mom or sister did or did not do growing up or what Kyle was like. Again, it's not about being rational, it's about being outraged.

Nature vs nurture. How much is it the parents' fault?

I don't think that racism and hate is "nature" thing at all. And his guns did not grow on trees, either.

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I'm absolutely sure his collateral damage is the families of people he murdered.

Murder implies not only an intent to kill without justification or excuse. As piss poor as his excuse was, a teenager from another state trying to protect a strangers property, he still only shot at the very last moment. He's a complete idiot and I believe guilty of manslaughter, but not murder.

God, reading that quote from the sister gave me braindamage. How many 'like's can you use before the entire sentence is incomprehensible?

Reading the word as 'um' or 'uh' in a sentence makes it easier to read. I think a proper editor of the commentary would have truncated excessive 'like' use as they would a stammer.

It's honestly unkind to include it in the quote from her. Written down, it is seriously hard to read. But spoken aloud, your brain will filter "filler words" like that out without needing to think too hard about it.

Asshole who raised an asshole complains about asshole behavior from said asshole.

Damn who could have seen that coming....

Is there some story I missed about his family being assholes?

Here I was thinking maybe I’d throw them a bone, maybe they were trying to be decent people that his public image and association made life difficult for them. No. Of course not. They just wanted his fame to bring them money. They are who they are.

The far-right darling is accused of leaving his mom and sister high and dry as they fight eviction.

Wasn't his mother the one who helped him get a gun and drove him to commit his murders? And he just leaves her twisting in the wind?

Why are so many facts about such a high profile case not known? If you're not sure, then why state misinformed things with such confidence?

We are stuck in the for profit medical hellscape we constantly vote for!

Conservative enablers become collateral damage of conservatives being conservatives...more at 11.

Also if you've never seen the Rittenhouse family they all appear to have iqs below 85 or so.

Look at the sisters quote here...like...uh...like Kyle ..like never helped us ..like even like for my like surgery like .....like like like

wonder if mom regrets buying her child a battle rifle so he could go murder innocents.

At some point, when a family member is that toxic you have two choices: you try to bring them back on the right track, or you cut them loose.

Right track? They support him. They're only upset they're getting evicted and ostracized

It's indeed hard to put him back on the right track when the family is unable to see it in the first place. So their only realistic option is to cut him loose.

Looks like they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

I hope he desperately needs their sympathy and compassion someday.

They should open a business first, he’ll happily defend those with deadly force.

Seems the other commenters fell for the propaganda hard. This kind of thing happens in America everyday, but now that it’s happening to someone the left loves to hate it makes every news channel.

America needs medical reform, not to dunk on a guy that defended himself.

Maybe don’t deliberately grab a gun and go put yourself in a situation that has nothing to do with you?

That said, single payer healthcare all the way baby!

The left isn’t who made him a cause célèbre. That was the right wing media. He wasn’t interviewed by fucking Jacobin or whatever. He was interviewed on Fox News. And he didn’t “defend” himself unless you ignore everything that happened leading up to the killings. He got driven across state lines with a AR-style rifle “to protect businesses” like a dumbass.

I want medical reforms as much as you, believe me, but I also want a dumbass exception to self-defense laws. If you arm yourself and appoint yourself a vigilante, you are no longer acting in self defense. You are an untrained dumbass creating the conditions for violence. It’s like showing up to an Alabama - LSU game and going into the LSU student section in a Bama jersey. If you get a beer thrown at you and it ends in a brawl, nothing you do is self defense. It’s your own dumbass fault.

He got driven across state lines with a AR-style rifle “to protect businesses” like a dumbass.

And then, when the businesses that he and his associates were "protecting" were fine, he went off on his own to look for trouble.

This fucking loser wanted a body count. He put himself in harms way so he had an excuse to pull the trigger. And he found that excuse. And a jury accepted that excuse as justification for his actions.

The left isn’t who made him a cause célèbre. That was the right wing media. He wasn’t interviewed by fucking Jacobin or whatever. He was interviewed on Fox News. And he didn’t “defend” himself unless you ignore everything that happened leading up to the killings. He got driven across state lines with a AR-style rifle “to protect businesses” like a dumbass.

The left went after him with teeth, they wanted to turn him into another mass shooter. Kid was a fucking idiot, but you wanting to hitch your wagon to felons and child molesters who attacked him is a bit silly.

If you arm yourself and appoint yourself a vigilante, you are no longer acting in self defense.

How come the left didn't apply that same logic to grosen or whatever the fuck domestic violence guys name was that got his arm smoked? He was carrying illegally, and was part of the crowd burning down buildings that had nothing to do with the police.

You are an untrained dumbass creating the conditions for violence. It’s like showing up to an Alabama - LSU game and going into the LSU student section in a Bama jersey. If you get a beer thrown at you and it ends in a brawl, nothing you do is self defense. It’s your own dumbass fault.

No that's called being a child, but it's not ok for the other side to not act like adults and be violent. The fuck is wrong with you, you sound like a damn gang member "well he was in our hood wearing the other gangs colors, so we shot him".

Grow up.

%100 need single payer though.

The kid is on record saying he wants to shoot someone and then he put himself in a position to make it happen.

That's the piece of shit you're defending.

Where did I defend him? I'm not the one acting like the 3 people he shot were angels, and I sure as fuck am not the one who is completely ignorant to the case. There are still tons of people on the left who seem to think he shot minorities...hell even in this thread someone said it.

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