Only a Lad

Hey there, Johnny, you really don’t fool me

You get away with murder and you think it’s funny

You don’t give a damn if we live or if we die

Hey there, Johnny boy, I hope you fry!—Oingo Boingo (“Only a Lad”)

Today’s “Only a Lad” award goes to Kyle Rittenhouse, the poor misunderstood politically naïve waif from Illinois who went to Wisconsin armed and ready for action, and ended up murdering two people in self defense. The Daily Howler and its fake news bedfellows are all over this story. The poor guy just couldn’t help himself, apparently. What was he supposed to do in the midst of all these scary people demanding redress for injustice. It was just too much for him, and he had to open fire on somebody—apparently.

Drooling dumbass Tucker Carlson has this story covered. It seems that Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back while he was leaning into a vehicle is self-defense as well. The video evidence that we can all see for ourselves, it seems, is simply wrong and should not be trusted. Instead we should believe the assertions supposedly made by officers at the scene that Blake got one of them in a headlock and was unaffected by a taser shot by two of them. Waving a knife wildly he headed straight for them and at the last possible moment, he stopped on a dime. Unfortunately, the dime was in Mr. Rococo’s pocket. No, that was Catherwood’s story to Sgt (that’s Lt.) Bradshaw. But this farrago doesn’t come off any better.

Self-defense has a lot to answer for. In Christopher Marlowe’s day a defendant had to demonstrate that he was both in imminent danger of losing his life and that he had no opportunity to escape the attack to claim self-defense. Today the only thing that matters is that a killer had a feeling he might be in some kind of danger. When an armed man stalks and kills an unarmed teenage boy in self-defense, or a police officer shoots a man in the back seven times in self defense, or an armed vigilante kills somebody and then attacks and kills a man trying to disarm him in self-defense, that concept has been stretched well past its breaking point. Was Lezmond Mitchell acting in self-defense when he killed a nine-year-old girl and her grandmother? I mean, how far are we going to take this thing?

As far as I can see Rusten Sheskey belongs in prison. I mean, I don’t believe in prison, but until we come up with a sane alternative, he belongs off the street where he can’t do any further harm, and in our present society, that’s prison. As for that vile Trump-loving racist vigilante piece of shit Kyle Rittenhouse—lethal injection’s too good for the likes of him. I hope he fries.