Why I sympathize with Kyle Rittenhouse more than Daniel Penny.

Note 12/10 - I like both, I just like Rittenhouse more.

The internet is abuzz with talk of the trial of Daniel Penny, the White former Marine who was just acquitted in the killing of a Black homeless man on the New York City Subway. Penny got in an altercation with the homeless man, Jordan Neely, age 30. Neely entered the subway train and threatened passengers, saying he didn’t care if he was arrested and he was ready to die. Penny put Neely in a chokehold for several minutes, although he was only choking Neely for part of the time he had him in the hold.

Neely was still alive immediately after the incident, but he died shortly afterwards presumably because of the altercation. Penny was arrested and he talked to the police without a lawyer. It was only later that Penny learned that Neely had died. The DA charged Penny with multiple charges including manslaughter.

The case calls to mind another recent case in which a White man killed in self-defense. Kyle Rittenhouse of Kenosha Wisconsin, then age 17, heard that Black Lives Matter rioters were coming to his home town. He joined other locals to defend downtown businesses and provide medical care. He brought his AR-15. During the fiery and violent riot that night, the mob attacked Rittenhouse. He shot three men, killing two and injuring the third.

Once he was attacked by the mob, Rittenhouse’s actions were an absolutely clear cut case of self-defense. Rittenhouse tried to retreat but the men chased him. They physically assaulted him and pointed a gun at him. Only then did Rittenhouse fire.

The evil vermin in the Mainstream Media brayed for Rittenhouse’s blood. He was charged with first degree murder. The media launched a nationwide smear campaign to vilify him. The mainstream media promoted utter falsehoods about Rittenhouse while taking care to never say anything technically libelous. They presented Rittenhouse as if he had been a mass shooter, shooting protesters at random. In order to gin up even more racial hostility against him, the media led people to believe that the men he shot were Black.

In a highly publicized trial under a conservative-leaning judge, Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges.

The Penny trial has not received as much media attention as the Rittenhouse trial, but some conservative commenters think it’s an even bigger deal. They think that Penny is even more clearly in the right than Rittenhouse was. Jeremy Carl said that “the Daniel Penny case makes the Kyle Rittenhouse case look like a model of blind justice.” Matt Walsh said on his podcast last week that Penny’s case is even more egregious than Rittenhouse’s because Rittenhouse “did something stupid” by going to the protest with an AR-15 in the first place. The idea is that Rittenhouse knowingly put himself in a situation where he might get in trouble whereas Penny was simply going about his usual business, and happened to fall into a difficult situation.

My impression is the opposite. I sympathize with Rittenhouse more than Penny, and I’m trying to put my finger on exactly why I feel this way. There may be a generational difference here. Carl and Walsh are middle aged and grew up before the enormous social changes brought about by the internet. Scott Greer, a younger writer, chastises other conservatives for not being more enthusiastically supportive of Rittenhouse.

I can’t help but think that Penny should have known better. Anyone who thinks that a White man will get a fair trial in New York for a conflict with a Black man is a fool.

Maybe the thing that makes me more sympathetic to Rittenhouse is that Rittenhouse was more responsible. Rittenhouse chose to act. He chose to take responsibility for the safety of his community and his nation.

There’s a part of me that wants to say that Rittenhouse shamed the men of Wisconsin by doing what would not have been necessary if all of them had had his courage. On the other hand, you shouldn’t be foolish. Going guns blazing is not the right move at this time. Don’t throw your life away, even for an act of justice. We have to be smart about this.

The older conservatives look down patronizingly on Rittenhouse who they describe as a hot-headed young man, but the fact is that Penny’s actions were actually stupider and more reckless than Rittenhouse’s. Choosing to ride the subway as a White man in New York is unadvisable. Choosing, as a White man, to get into an altercation with a Black person on the subway in New York is stupider than choosing to go to a riot with a gun in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

There’s also the fact that Rittenhouse was defending red state (or at least red county) territory from an onslaught of out-of-town left wing rioters. Penny was behind enemy lines, living deep in the bowels of a blue state. So Rittenhouse’s action makes sense as a defense of conservative territory while Penny’s does not.

Rittenhouse was deliberate. He planned his defense of his hometown and he willingly stepped into the fray. Penny is an oaf who made the stupid choice of living in New York and then bumbled into a situation where he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Gen X people who sympathize more with Penny seem to sympathize with him precisely because he was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. They seem to think Penny’s case is particularly outrageous because it targets a man who was just keeping his head down, going along to get along.

I don’t think that going along to get along is admirable. I like Rittenhouse’s sense of personal responsibility much better.

In a corrupt regime, vice is rewarded, and therefore many of the people who have been most successful will have made their success partly through vice. Our culture rewards the vices of cowardice and irresponsibility. In high profile mainstream conservative figures like Jeremy Carl and Matt Walsh, and many others, we see a condescending attitude towards those like Rittenhouse who refuse to tolerate injustice. I think this is in part because those successful mainstream figures got to where they are in part by compromising and by lacking real courage. Going along to get along helps you to, well, get along - it helps you to succeed. And so the set of people who have achieved mainstream success¹ contains a disproportionate number of people who think that going along to get along is prudent and smart, rather than cowardly and irresponsible.

I listened to an interview that Aporia Magazine did with Jeremy Carl and he said that he was hiding some of his real views, even on a friendly podcast. Carl has an Ivy League degree, has established himself as a right wing political commenter, and presumably has plenty of money. Why is he still not courageous enough to speak his mind?

Then there’s the contrasting behavior at the two trials. Penny didn’t testify in his own defense. Rittenhouse took the stand and defended his actions.

Rittenhouse put it all on the line. He took his gun and purposefully went out to stand up to the barbarians, to defend his neighbors, to affirm the ancient Anglo-Saxon respect for property and justice. At his trial, he took the stand and said his piece for history and the whole world to hear.

Daniel Penny seems like a good man. I am glad that he was acquitted and I hope he will beat the civil suit against him. But heroes are people who take responsibility and act deliberately, not people who bumble their way into dangerous situations. If the West is going to survive we will need more Kyle Rittenhouses and fewer Daniel Pennys. The reason I sympathize with Rittenhouse more is that Rittenhouse acted like a man. Penny acted like a moderate.

1. Success within the mainstream conservative movement. As opposed to success outside the movement, such as the more extreme people who gained their fame through social media rather than rising through the ranks of conservative institutions.