i hope Kyle rittenhouse never feels peace ever again

i hope he’s wracked with fear every time he leaves his house

i hope he gets got one day

He's gonna be fine, I'm sorry.

Hard time imagining him going to college or anything but I'm ready to be proven wrong yet again.

oh i know. he’s gonna be surrounded by supporters and emboldened. the next Kyle rittenhouse will appear within a matter of months, if not weeks.

I don’t care about him. He’s a dumb ass kid.

I hate everybody else. They are worse.

Also, fuck him ftr. And fuck him harder 5 years from now and even harder ten years from now when he’s governor of Alabama or whatever.

Ever since the verdict I’ve had lots of anxiety about what this means for murder weapon rights and “self defense” going forward. We’re a democracy in decline and will for the foreseeable future see cases like this where you can basically kill anyone - especially if you’re white - and get away with it because murder weapon rights are the most important rights in this country.

yep, every protest from here on out is gonna feature 50 fucking kyle rittenhouses "protecting" gas stations and best buys and shit

i need to learn to shoot a murder weapon asap

JJ, why not just leave the country? Nick probably couldn't make those kinds of drastic life decisions because he has a wife and children but if I remember correctly you haven't yet made those kinds of really deep roots. Before you settle down entirely, you should consider it. It really isn't that dramatic of a thing and your American citizenship actually has more purchase living outside of the country (you speak English and are therefore coveted) than within it (since we don't have a functioning public welfare system). I am much happier when I am leaving outside the United States and it isn't some act of political virtue or anything. At the end of the day, I just think there are some really socially unhealthy aspects about American life (isolation/alienation foremost among them) that makes living abroad incredibly enjoyable in comparison.

We’re still living in the US only because in the past 2 years we have each lost a parent and that’s been incredibly hard to deal with and see the remaining parent struggling with the loss a year or more later.

Leaving them now would be heartless and the kids have wonderful relationships with them. But I do think once they’ve passed moving out of country is a real possibility. That being said, I feel like I could pick a half dozen countries that appeal to us and residents there would say, “Oh stay in America you don’t want to come here we have problems XYZ that are just as bad.”

As someone in my late twenties who would rather delay professional life to keep enjoying the dying embers of my youth, southern Europe is a haven. There are obvious problems though. The salaries are absolutely atrocious. But now that remote working is likely to become a permanent fixture of professional careers, it makes sense to exploit the low cost of living in these beautiful countries, especially when you are young and don't necessarily need to rely on their crumbling public health infrastructure.

Despite my political grievances with the United States, I actually have a lot of sympathy for the average American. And there are aspects of the American project that are actually really special. It is, objectively, an incredibly fascinating place. Shitting on America is passé and lame, obviously. But just in terms of overall quality of life, yeah, probably not the best...

I do think that anything of world-historical political significance is much more likely to happen, in my lifetime, in the States than anywhere in continental Europe. European integration has absolutely exhausted itself and rather than producing some federalist superstate they've just created some Medieval administrative patchwork. The only ascendent parties are right-wing nationalists but they don't even really pose a genuine threat because they lack a mobilized social base. It really does feel like there is nothing new under the sun, which might be for the better because every time these delinquents Europeans start trying new things they end up committing a genocide.

The center of economic gravity has obviously shifted towards the Pacific. It seems like culture is starting to follow that trend as well. I've never travelled to East Asia but they seem like such fascinating and dynamic societies. Also probably really nice to live in as well if you can afford a middle-class existence.

we've certainly thought about leaving. both of my siblings are about to have kids, my parents are getting on in age, my wife's already lost her father. it seems like a truly awful time to leave our families behind.

that being said, my wife's brother got PR in canada last year, so we'd maybe have a not-hard time emigrating up north.

If you move up north to Wisconsin and run into Scott Walker, though, you can now start a fight with him, try to kill him, and then kill him legally when he defends himself. I'm just saying. There's a silver lining, here, if you're willing to put in the leg work.