Rittenhouse's appearance at a university generated hostility from a number of students but he remained positive, saying it had been "a great event."

Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.

Rittenhouse was invited by the college’s Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouse’s presence.

The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, he shot and killed two men—Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz—at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He said the three shootings, carried out with a semi-automatic AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.

  • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
    11·
    7 months ago

    Edit: Most of this is way off topic in response to an entirely different dipshit.

    Do you mean baseless assumptions?

    No - I mean obvious conclusions - you know, like seeing HD footage of the IDF drone striking obvious unarmed civilians and concluding they’re drone striking obvious unarmed civilians. Never mind the rhetoric of their government or the IDF, or the track record of either. Baseless is pretending it’s plausible they’re Hamas.

    This is your reaction to me saying it’s not surprising that a young adult is awkward and doesn’t handle unexpected confrontation well.

    Nope - this is in response to you seeing clear, entirely unambiguous evidence of warcrimes and saying we can’t possibly know what’s happening. I know how old I am, and some genocide denying dipshit telling me otherwise isn’t going to change that.

    Just to drive the point home, I’ll ask the question we know you can’t answer one final time - where’s your evidence these civilians are Hamas?

      • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
        11·
        7 months ago

        My mistake - I’ll return to the question you haven’t answered.

        Do you consistently defend people that are clearly unqualified and incapable of doing their job as they fail woefully, or is this an edge case for you? I suppose that unlike most, the likes of Rittenhouse and Kirk aren’t doing anything of value - it’s not as though they’re performing surgery, driving a bus, or flipping burgers.

        • aidan@lemmy.worldM
          1·
          7 months ago

          Do you consistently defend people that are clearly unqualified and incapable of doing their job as they fail woefully, or is this an edge case for you?

          I’ll repeat what I said, I empathize with people. They are not just their utility. He is not famous for his speaking skills, but TPUSA are clearly trying to capitalize on them, whatever not my problem. Anyone who paid to see him knew what they were getting

          • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
            12·
            7 months ago

            I empathize with people. (…) Anyone who paid to see him knew what they were getting.

            You’re empathising with the same thing the audience went to see - the extreme right’s posterchild for killing your political opponents. The analysis is super-straightforward and backed by studies - this is simply ignorant hate, fear, and disgust stoked by the likes of TPUSA. The fact that you can’t progress to synthesising straightforward conclusions is a massive red flag.

              • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
                1·
                7 months ago

                You’re very empathetic - that’s entirely unremarkable. One can empathise with Hitler - but only a mentally deficient or monstrous person would stop at empathy and be incapable of synthesising conclusions like he was a bad guy that did bad things. It’s like reading without comprehending.

                Why can’t you advance past the insistence you empathise with Rittenhouse toward an opinion? Are you deficient or dodging?

                • aidan@lemmy.worldM
                  1·
                  7 months ago

                  What is there to have an opinion on? He’s socially awkward? I said that. What more is there to draw from this? Also remember insults and uncivil behavior are not allowed

                  • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
                    11·
                    7 months ago

                    Here’s mine.

                    Travelling interstate to put yourself in a position to shoot 3 people, killing two of them is incredibly stupid at best. Proceeding from that to a job for a transparently dishonest media org that has hired you primarily to celebrate your killings demonstrates a total lack of remorse, and incites similar politically motivated killings in what amounts to pretty clear-cut stochastic terrorism. If we take him at his word, he’s done no research into the media company that hired him, and has been on stage at events where openly racist nonsense has been celebrated without him noticing - if this is true, he’s deficient enough that he should be in assisted living. The reasonable conclusion is that he’s some degree of comfortable with the racism.

                    So we have a remorseless killer, stochastic terrorist, propagandist (or useful idiot) that doesn’t care about or actively embraces racism.