The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha on Friday was a victory over dishonest and overreaching prosecutors, over a largely dishonest national media, and over the same elements that produced mob rule in Kenosha in the summer of 2020.
But unfortunately, many of the media celebrants have taken it as a legitimate occasion to praise the American criminal justice system and to claim that it has been entirely upheld by virtue of this one successful case. If any such conclusion is the principal consequence of the Rittenhouse trial, it would be a disaster on a scale considerably exceeding the proportions of the individual victory for justice that it was. It would be a tragedy if this exemplary outcome were to whitewash what is in large measure an evil justice system.
It is sickening to hear well-intentioned people claim that American justice is “the envy of the world". I can assure them that it is not; it is regarded as probably the greatest failing of American society and government.
The American criminal justice system is an abomination: a mockery of impartial justice and a conveyor belt to the bloated and corrupt prison system in which millions of innocent or grossly over-sentenced Americans are ground to powder every generation. [And at the same time the system now lets too many of the guilty go free.] The Rittenhouse case avoided the curse; it certainly did not exonerate or vindicate it.
Brilliant! It is a smart prognosis to avoid from a hasty judgment about the judiciary system in the U.S. If they were honest, they should have done the right thing in the 2020 election.
Iranians say: With just a flower, the spring doesn’t come here.
Yes, the justice system is as corrupt as the rest of our system. I think part of the reason it worked in the Rittenhouse case was because it was in Kenosha, which is still enough of a small and grass-roots level of town to be conservative.
Also they lucked out with a conservative judge.
But the “termites” are still eating away at it.
Actually the Judge is an old school Democrat as this tweet explains.
There are still some conservative democrats left at the local level, as Jeanne would attest to!
The local level is the best place to stop the spread. And…this is what we are witnessing. When the “regular people” start pushing back at the local level, their energy fuels more to push back with them. If only Congressional conservatives would push the rot completely out… But, they are trying also, and it must be awfully frustrating to push against the sticks-in-the-mud of their own party. As Virgil would often tell his constituents, “I am just one vote. I need three more votes to get anything done or stopped.” It is mind-boggling even at the very local level, just how difficult it can be to affect real change in the trajectory of government.
Yes, it is, very hard to affect change. That’s why so many movements lose momentum.