"And, more to point, none of his followers, apologists and fans have the clarity of moral purpose to discriminate right from wrong. They are rationalizing, making excuses, telling him that what he did was heroic, “self-defense,” “protecting the community.” "

Maybe, just maybe, you should refrain from making sweeping, global statements that assume as fact what cannot be fact: That the tens of millions that appreciate the legal decision rendered are lionizing KR as some sort of hero. It is decidedly not true.

KR was morally in the wrong but legally in the clear. Rational people understand this distinction. It is legally OK for your spouse or significant other to sleep with your sibling, but few would find that act to be moral. I hope the moral high ground you claim to live on agrees with that, or else it's not a moral high ground.

How did this all this come about? Because the right to self-defense is inviolable. You toss that right away for whatever reason, and you've lost the moral sense of an entire nation. It's a hard sell, telling people they need to die because they have no right to fight off an attacker, even if bad personal choices caused them to be in that situation to begin with.

So, yes, once all the moral mistakes were made (traveling to Kenosha, accepting a charge to defend the property of another, carrying a deadly weapon) situations arose which fall into the classic definition of self-defense. He was acquitted, enraging the sensibilities of so many media talking heads and their fellow travelers who, as the tide rolled out, were found to have been swimming naked. Just as no sane person agrees with the decisions KR made that put him on the street that night, no sane person who sees that video believes that those shots were anything other than self-defense.

"This is men creating an entire generation of boys who have no moral compass, no strength of character, no purpose."

My first response would be "hyperbole much?”, but then as I think about it, perhaps you're right. Do we now have a generation of public servants who lack a moral compass to the point that they would order police to stand down and contain a riot rather than to do their jobs, which is to protect people and property?

It seems so.

So, as long as we're talking about moral responsibility, I think it important to mention that the bad decisions KR made that night were seeded by the bad decisions of the public servants who decided to let a riot run wild. A public servant who tells the police force to simply contain rather than prevent a riot, or who declines to fully prosecute rioters should they be arrested, is watering the fields from which more Kyle Rittenhouses grow. If police cannot be depended upon to protect and serve, then men (yes, real men, in this case) who wish to protect their own families and property will take up arms and fill that vacuum, just has they have for all of recorded human history., for that is their moral duty.

And if your father had the moral clarity you purport, he would not disagree. A man who does not protect his own is not much of a man.