MLK addresses looting.

> Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights.

Also, throughout its history, many US agencies astroturf “fake” riots to discredit their targets. The CIA did it in Iran in 1953 for example. Many LEO plants were identified in 2020, smashing glass, planting bricks, etc.

Wow, that MLK quote cuts deep. It should also come with context as to what MLK was doing. He wasn't apologizing, rationalizing it, or supporting it. He was explaining why it happens. He continually called for non-violence and civil disobedience, not rioting. In many ways, he was calling to the black community to stop doing these things and up-level protests to effective means from ineffective means.

Sorry, from my perspective he's talking utter shite. I knew people in northern Ireland who rioted. They were young angry stupid men who didn't give a fuck who's lives they were making a misery. It was a form of collective punishment on people whose only crime was having a business or a car that idiots enjoyed smashing up

That sounds exactly like what MLK was describing:

"Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights."

It's about shocking society more than it is about the property and who it belongs to.

When you say “it’s about”, it’s like you’re assuming rioters need to have a rational explanation for what they do. It could very well just be the unleashing of some inner raw-animal destructiveness for no reason other than the opportunity presented itself. Post-hoc rationalizations need not have any connection to the rioters themselves.

Amm, not in northern Ireland like the commenter says. That wasn't people out to just shock anyone. Same repression by the state, but differently aims.

>> a form of collective punishment on people whose only crime was having a business or a car that idiots enjoyed smashing up

So people without property were punishing people who had property? Sounds very standard to me. Extend that a bit further and you get something like the French revolution where poor people executed rich people for the crime of simply being rich.

Correction: the crime of being rich while many starved.

I'm currently reading 'The Dawn of Everything,' and it is FASCINATING. The case made at the beginning of the book is that notions of equality and individual freedom basically came into being in Europe because of contact with indigenous Americans. Suddenly there was a flood of observations and conversations with societies that made sure no one went hungry.

And then when people started starving with the knowledge that another world was possible, things got violent. Incidentally, many-to-most violent uprisings have started with food shortages. Typically people have to be extremely uncomfortable before they start breaking out the guillotines, and hunger is extremely uncomfortable... And one of the still-active remnants of the French revolution is a government regulation ensuring that baguettes are cheap and readily available.

> The case made at the beginning of the book is that notions of equality and individual freedom basically came into being in Europe because of contact with indigenous Americans.

The biggest problem with that theory is that indigenous Americans generally did not hold notions of equality and individual freedom.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_the_indigenous_p...

2: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/service...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois#War

It falls under the "noble savage" concept, the thought that native Americans were somehow innocents living in the garden as god once intended. The concept is far more telling of the European religious mindset than anything of actual native Americans.

I read a great book a few years back about the lives of African slaves owned by native Americans, native Americans who took said slaves with them when they were exiled by white settlers. The fact that I had not known of such things is a remnant of the noble savage concept. I was taught little in school about native american views on class.

The book talks a lot about this, and is worth reading.

Note that nothing you've pointed to is exclusive; Mayan society was very different from the societies of New France. Indigenous America is not a cartoon, but a large collection of societies with different organisation.

Another interesting point in the book is that there are many instances of enlightenment thinkers explicitly pointing to indigenous Americans as the source of their ideas... Which has tended to just be ignored or glossed over, in favor of the great man theory where these ideas spring from pure European genius.

There's a lot of ground between "these ideas spring from pure European genius" and "[these ideas] basically came into being in Europe because of contact with indigenous Americans." It would be much more interesting to acknowledge the specific ways in which contact with indigenous society contributed to the European Enlightenment than to dismiss Europeans' contribution entirely.

And describing indigenous people as "societies that made sure no one went hungry" without mentioning warfare, torture, and slavery does appear to be restating the classic myth of the noble savage. These practices were not limited to the Mayans, but were widespread across the Americas, including New France, as the additional links I added above describe.

Sounds like you'll enjoy the book (which is long) more than my comments (which are short). Getting into the specifics of how these ideas originated and travelled is exactly what it sets out to do.

Were the indigenous Americans the source of the ideas, or did the mere existence of indigenous Americans foster these ideas? The discovery of people, any people, outside the existing understanding of european/asian culture would bring forward new ideas. Were they the source, or were they simply the canvas onto which European thinkers painted stories?

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a classic example:

https://shanesafir.com/2020/12/before-maslows-hierarchy-the-...

The book makes the argument that the ideas originated especially from debates between Jesuits and the Wendat tribe, and was then over a hundred years or so internalized into the enlightenment debate.

I read your Canadian article. I don't see anything that contradicts the idea that indigenous Americans valued (or invented) individual freedom and equality. Unless you mean that they fought wars against other tribes.

The recent violence in kazakhstan came after the possible rise in gas and electricity prices (which in turn is tied to crypo mining). The Terror started with food shortages but I think the next violent revolution will be triggered by energy prices, be it gas or electricity.

As for breaking out the guillotines, that doesn't take much. A gallows made an appearance on January 6th. Those people looked very well-fed. I'm not sure they were joking.

that is a good take on it, i would also say happiness, if you see your parents and grandparents falling in love and starting a life together but you are pushing 40 with nothing to show for it because of unstable environment conditions, poor schooling and unfair labor wages which are all have to do with equality then people will look for a representation of their struggle.

the blm movement was not just about blm, a lot of it was used as a starter to talk about a related issue. which is equality in general, you can see this by how many socialist supporters came out. in reality mlk supported fair wages for all working class people and that is the “conspiracy” theory of why he got shot, but obviously if people can’t eat, or if they feel very they are being massively mistreated, they will riot.

If being rich were simply simple, wouldn't everyone have been rich?

> It was a form of collective punishment

Yes, and those people aren't allowed to do that, only approved governments.

> people in northern Ireland who rioted

Yeah, these are not equivalent scenarios.

A divided population , a minority that sees itself as a victim of oppression, rioting and other violence. Yes, the people doing the rioting don't have similar excuses at all.

Edit infact in school I was taught Catholic civil right protestors drew inspiration from the black civil rights movement

> Edit infact in school I was taught Catholic civil right protestors drew inspiration from the black civil rights movement

Indeed, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/dr-king-s-impact-fight-c...

are you really sorry?

Erm, surely this applies to MLK too.

Violence, or the threat of violence, against a civilian population with the intended aim of effecting political change is the actual definition of terrorism, special or not.

I think what you may be missing is that this paper juxtaposes "Just Riots" with "Just Wars."[0]

In modern warfare, massive numbers of civilians are often killed -- for example, the most deadly bomb attack of World War II was the Allied firebombing of Tokyo, which killed over 100,000 people, almost all of whom were civilians.[1]

Surely this is "violence, against a civilian population, with the intended aim of effecting political change". Indeed, harming morale was an explicit goal of attacks like those against Tokyo and Dresden during WWII.[2] The idea was that the population would be cowed by these attacks and (somehow) get their governments to surrender to the Allies.

So the question is: If we have a theory of "Just War," that includes wars where the "just" side can claim to morally kill tens of thousands of civilians at once, then should there also be a theory of "Just Riots," even if riots can scare civilians sometimes hurt or kill them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_Wa...

There's a really big difference between civilian targets being collateral damage, and civilian targets being attacked intentionally. It's not like the rioters thought they were looting a police station but accidentally ended up in Target; they intentionally chose to loot Target.

The mass killing of civilians in Tokyo and Dresden was absolutely deliberate. Same with Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the atom bombs used in those attacks were dropped on the center of those cities, even though the factories we were ostensibly targeting were located on the outskirts.

Having said that: If indeed the Allies targeted civilians intentionally in World War II, would you say that the war was unjust? Or that the Allies committed war crimes? If not, then you might consider that there is such a thing as just riots.

This is why every definition of terrorism mentions non state actors, precisely because states use violence themselves.

Terror is historically the name of a form of draconic government. Your definition is prescriptive and the way I understand it you changed a perceived thread into an intended thread.

I'd argue that an act of desperation is rather aimless, frustation rather apolitical and anger not even well defined and well unintentional. You'd have to assume that a riot is concerted or agitated and that rioters were used, by a government against civilians. That's a real possibility, but it would also include kinda civil wars.

The current understanding as formed by extensive definitions does not capture mass hysteria though. It's simply terrible, a real riot.

> Often the Negro does not even want what he takes

Riiiiight. I guess that’s why it’s mostly big box consumer stores being looted and not, say, an industrial supply company like a Grainger or even a hardware store like Home Depot.

Reads a lot like a motivated rationalization of inexcusable criminality.

> Reads a lot like a motivated rationalization of inexcusable criminality.

To MLK ? Really ???

> Riiiiight. I guess that’s why it’s mostly big box consumer stores being looted and not, say, an industrial supply company like a Grainger or even a hardware store like Home Depot.

My guy I'm sure they're just going to their nearest / most frequented shops. If a Home Depot was in the neighborhood, I'm sure they would rob it.

> To MLK ? Really ???

I think that was meant to the quoter of MLK, MLK lived 50 years ago so he has no understanding of the events happening today. So it is the person bringing up the quote who stands by its validity for todays events.

> Riiiiight. I guess that’s why it’s mostly big box consumer stores being looted and not, say, an industrial supply company like a Grainger or even a hardware store like Home Depot.

In addition to the point made in a sibling comment, are you sure it is mostly big box stores? It seems just as reasonable to me that the big ticket items are what you hear about because someone stealing a bunch of 50c plumbing supplies just doesn't produce the same headlines. Certainly we've heard of things like 7/11s being hit, which frankly don't have as many "big ticket" items as Home Depot or Grainger.

That's a strange position to pivot off of - there's no normative claim in that entire passage, just an analytical deconstruction of a societal manifestation.

"Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights."

Maybe times have changed, but this is excusing and not at all accurately characterizing the people I saw looting Nike, Best Buy, and Walmart. It was naked theft under the cover of "equity." I want to know whether MLK was principled, or a politician making excuses. I'll do more research.

Interesting...you seem to have a superpower... you can look at someone and read their exact psychological state... you know their wants and intentions from a glance... How do you sleep with such a burden?

> The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions.

This sentence is particularly egregious.

To see MLK just come straight out and say black people don't target institutions because they don't care about changing them kind of defeats any legitimate argument for rioting.

The problem with the MLK quote is that he is just confirming what every racist white person thinks, institutional racism isn't a thing black people just want free shit and are willing to resort to violence to get it.

I don't think anybody is defending the legitimacy of rioting, are they? The MLK quote is an examination of the rioters' motivation and state of mind.

The topic being discussed is whether there is a legitimate defense of rioting and plenty of people feel like it is. For example if the police abuse their powers its just for citizens to riot against the police smashing police cars and throwing bricks at police stations / cameras. Its very easy to justify the legitimacy of this as you are directly disrupting the ability for the police to operate freely.

Looting another citizen is much harder to justify the legitimacy of, disguising looting as rioting makes it easier to do so.

Not sure why you got downvoted for thinking aloud. It’s very much worth reading in depth about how the activists of the 1960s formulated their views. MLK wasn’t a born messiah, he refined his philosophy over the course of his life and only came to adopt a non-violent strategy after others influenced him. It’s quite easy to cherry pick a quote from a younger MLK that an older one wouldn’t agree with.

It sounds like you're assessing his ideas based on whether they harmonize with your current ideology, ergo thinking about it in terms of "favorability" like how you might vote for a politician. This is not the right way to read a persuasive essay.

Sure.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mlk+thoughts+on+riots

I am assuming your comment was in good faith, although it's odd for an HN user to ask a question that could be answered by a simple google search.

I also note your highly loaded language of "race wars" which is not the same thing as a what everyone else is talking about in this thread.

The term "race wars" is a term that is frequently used by online right-wing agitators in order to derail discussions and push people's buttons. I'm not saying you're doing that, I am saying that it's not possible to distinguish your post from a post written by a ultra-right troll.

How do I know this? Because in college I was trained by right-wing activist to use exactly that type of language in order derail conversations.

If that's your reaction to that paragraph, I can pretty confidently predict that you would have despised him while he was alive.

I agree 100%. It was so disappointing to see all the damage done to private businesses during the summer of 2020. Why not go after government buildings? Isn't that who funds all the things that were being protested? How does destroying a target store help anything??

I agree with you that no one should ever like seeing damage to a community. Two things come to mind in response to your comment:

1. it is important to differentiate between violence done towards individuals and damage caused to private property. i am not accusing you of conflating the two but i just feel it necessary to be explicit in these discussions because people often try to slyly discuss one as if it was the other.

2. I think a compelling argument in defense of the demonstrators in 2020, target isn't a part of the community. It pays minimum wage, makes it difficult for small business owned by the community to compete, and most importantly extracts the wealth and moves it away from the community. I am not saying there weren't better targets. I'm not saying we shouldn't (necessarily) go after government buildings if those are you grievances. I'm just saying that there is reasoning behind this even if its blunt.

(Also worth noting i read an interview with a restaurant owner near the target whos restaurant was burned down that effectivly said "yeah this really really sucks, but at the same time i understand the wider context." That's what happens when you're actually a member of the community and get caught up the fallout from these things.)

This is an incredibly rosey take on what happened. One guy was okay with his restaurant burned down, probably because he had insurance.

Many of the businesses affected (thinking lake street in minneapolis and kenosha) were POC owned small businesses. Many were permanently closed because the owners lost everything and didn't have insurance to cover it.

> it is important to differentiate between violence done towards individuals and damage caused to private property

Tell that to the people who put blood, sweat and tears into getting where they are. You think the emotional, mental and financial pain didnt do any damage?

> target isn't a part of the community

What about the cub foods that was totally trashed? Empty shelves, aisles flooded with broken containers. The community didn't deserve that. Nobody benefitted from it. Nobody saw that and thought to themselves "Yeah, go protesters!" It took 8 months to reopen after all of the damage and unrest.

Absolutely fair argument. I don't live there so im not gonna comment to deeply here, but one thing i know to be true is that by and large the people who were participating in the demonstration were also members of the community. This doesn't necessarily justify harm done but it makes their view just as relevant as someone who is more successful than they are. (Though notably it wasn't just the poor demonstrating.)

Mobs are hard to control. Negative elements tend to take over and the crowd often follows the flow.

Ofyen times thieves, corrupt politicians, bad businesses, etc., are part of a community. A community includes all. Good and bad. Saying “but they were part of the community does not speak at all to their intentions.

Even in families, when someone is irrationally upset they may do things they regret later on. Even the self can do irrationally negative things to itself.

We should still be able to revisit events and determine what was bad and could be prevented and how we can provide tools for people to prevent a recurrence. Also highlight the good that might have come out.

Usually the term "demonstration" refers to something like a march, sit-in, or some other form of non-violent protest. We're not talking about that, we're talking about people destroying private property.

> by and large the people who were participating in the demonstration were also members of the community

Does that make it okay? Just because someone lives close to a business doesn't give them the right to destroy it. It seems that you would be ok with it happening to your business, but I bet 99% of small business owners would not.

The supposition that demonstration doesn’t include obstructing or destroying property is relatively new. When I say demonstration I mean it to include everything from drum circles in zucotti park to the 60s civil rights demonstrations which locked down cities and towns to the events which triggered the Bolshevik and Cultural revolutions and the de-colonization of India.

To think that change happens without damage to property or obstruction of daily life is historically inaccurate and myopic.

If you destroy someone's livelihood and make them and theirs go hungry, are you not committing violence against them? If you destroy cars people need to reach work and earn their keep, are you not doing violence against them? If you burn down a church, are you not stripping someone else of their civil rights?

Many leftists will argue that sanctions are inherently violent and murderous because they often push people on the precipice over the edge and kill them from malnutrition or lack of medical access. Yet when rioters do essentially the same, destroy property in already precarious communities, this argument is made that it's not violence, it is a noble political demonstration. I for one do not buy it and find it hard to believe that your anecdotal business owner is representative of the wider economic and individual impact riots have.

The truth of the matter is that riots are a symptom. There is nothing noble about a riot and they are inherently violent, even if only property is destroyed. In the same way that those capital rioters deserve prison, so too do other rioters. That does not mean the conditions that caused the riots are just or proper but neither are the rioters righteous.

Leftists will also correctly say that when the state murders you extrajudicially there is only one way to respond. What you're saying is that unless you can somehow guarantee that property wont be damaged you can never attack those who are doing violence to you. Unfortunately, the position that many poor people are in doesn't afford them the luxury of being concerned with other peoples private property and, personally, i am of the mind that they shouldn't have to be.

>What you're saying is that unless you can somehow guarantee that property wont be damaged you can never attack those who are doing violence to you.

Nonsense. If rioters burned down a police station and the fire spread to some neighboring buildings it would be unfortunate (and would probably hurt public opinion about the riot to some extent). But it's not even remotely comparable to a riot that doesn't even try to target the sources of its grievances and directly and intentionally harms civilians instead

Well, many rioters did target police stations. The issue is that any sufficiently large riot is necessarily disorganized, composed of different people with different motivations. For that reason, I think private property being targeted by rioters is actually not too different from your example of fire spreading to buildings. It seems an impossible standard for any riot / rebellion on a large scale to meet.

If that is a natural element just like fire spreading, then it is also natural to put down riots just as if they were fires. When a fire burns down a building you stop it, so the same should go for riots.

So basically you made the case for "there are no just riots, they are all mindless violence". If they could behave then they could be just, but if you argue that they can't behave then they can't be just and should be stopped.

Note there are many examples of protests being violent in targeted ways that don't harm innocents, so I disagree with you here. There are just riots, but what we saw in USA wasn't that. Its just that when that happens it isn't called a riot, its just called a violent protest or something like that.

On the other hand, one can argue that the voters are ultimately the source of the policies that result in the grievances in the first place. When it comes to systemic societal issues, it is not very clear where one can draw the line on fault.

> What you're saying is that unless you can somehow guarantee that property wont be damaged you can never attack those who are doing violence to you.

No, I'm not saying that. My worldview is not poisoned blind by my moral views on rioting. I don't think people can only react one way because they clearly react many ways to injustice, societal change, etc, one of those ways being rioting. I will not argue that they should not do these things because it's the same as arguing that rain should not fall. I do believe that actions have consequences and, in a society of rule of law, rioters do not get a pass to burn down buildings and destroy cars for the sake of their cause. They deserve prison, in those cases, even if they don't always face justice. It's interesting that you feel they shouldn't have to face consequences but your worldview does not mesh with how greater society operates. Criminals that are caught go to prison.

You're framing the issue as if the mob meant to attack a police station but accidentally started robbing Targets and grocery stores instead. That's ridiculous.

> Unfortunately, the position that many poor people are in doesn't afford them the luxury of being concerned with other peoples private property

There is a huge difference between being concerned about other's property, and intentional wanton destruction of other people's property.

Also, don't just concede to him that the characterization of the rioters as "poor" or "members of the community" is accepted. Nobody has done any kind of survey of who the rioters are, and from what little we do know, many of those arrested in the larger riots were out of state travelers.

He's painting the most optimistic possible scenario and it's still stomach turning. It's complete moral depravity through and through.

I mentioned target because it was a very visible event; I think a lot of people saw that one picture of the self checkout machine being smashed with a hammer. What people don't seem to know or remember is that a lot of small, local businesses were also damaged. Even black owned ones!

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/12/901859883/riots-that-followed...

It's just really hard to reconcile all this damage/looting with the notion that all of it was in protest. To me it seems like a lot of people just wanted some free stuff.

Many would argue that the destruction of their livelihood does much more long-lasting harm than suffering physical violence. Many a small business owner would rather catch a beating than see their business burnt to the ground.

When, on the flip side, the violence is administered by the State, this comes close to the argument of In Defense of Flogging. Like, "just give me a spanking and get it over with".

(Though, that book is also about the cruelty and dysfunction of the "justice" system.)

This also shows up in personal relationships. If you had the choice between transitory physical abuse, and permanent wage garnishment, which would you choose? Only one of these is considered legitimate, and yet if people could freely choose I think they'd accept beatings a lot of the time.

In a way, this is what everyone who chooses a physically dangerous or even painful job is doing: "Pain ends. Money, and thus private property, I get to keep."

The question is how much permanent injury you suffer.

Lol. Rather get beaten half to death (and pay for it because America!) than replace a building with insurance money?? Wrong.

Plus, it's traumatic for your family to watch you get beat down - more traumatic than watching you cry at a replaceable loss.

Many of the destroyed businesses weren't insured, they were POC owned small businesses that were part of the community and barely afloat. Many did not return.

If you think there are no long lasting health effects from that kind of emotional and financial stress, think again.

Even for those who were insured, having to file claims for this sort of destruction is a good way to make your premiums --and those of nearby businesses that may have been spared direct damage--skyrocket to unaffordability.

I tried pretty hard to specify this bit in my comment: violence towards people IS NOT damage to property. Hard thing for people to engage with earnestly though :( I think its because to them, damage to private property makes life to varying degrees more difficult for the owner of the property. I know from growing up in the middle class suburbs that it is difficult for many people to tell the difference between that difficulty and violence done directly or indirectly to you by a power structure.

Have you considered it's because you've grown up in a middle class suburb, isolated from all the depravity and violence that goes on in these inner city neighborhoods, that you can afford to daydream about "power structures" and dismiss these losses as mere property damage? Do you know how many of these businesses are owned by poor minority and/or immigrant families, who have taken out loans and spent every last penny they had to open up shop?

The enshrinement and protection of private property rights is one of the core principles that separate developed nations from third-world banana republics. If property is worth that little to you, perhaps you should start by offering up your own, and move to one of these places.

This is a wild overreach. It seems to presume that because I grew up there that I was middle class. I am now but believe me I was not always. I still do now own where I live and it’ll take me to the end of my thirties before I can, reasonably.

If you consider analysis of power structures “daydreaming” I’m not sure what to say. There is a manifest difference between two random people slapping each other in an argument and a cop slapping a civilian.

Every single interaction which has ever occurred between humans has a power dynamic. It’s the furthest thing from “academic” “philosophical” or “theoretical.”

This is a pretty big overreaction to a statement no-one should have any issue with accepting. It's manifestly obvious that property damage is not the same as violence against humans. It's something which is reflected in our laws. You can believe that property damage is bad and still accept this as clearly true.

Yes, they're clearly not the same thing, which is why we have different words for them. I would however disagree that any violence is worse than all property damage, which is what seems to be implied. Would you rather be slapped in the face or have your house burnt down?

A lot of people depend on corporations for employment and the services they provide. So if a large store gets burned down and doesn't reopen that will likely just lead to decay and harm the community, especially if it's in a low-income area where sources of fresh food are already generally rare.

>Also worth noting i read an interview with a restaurant owner near the target whos restaurant was burned down that effectivly said "yeah this really really sucks, but at the same time i understand the wider context." That's what happens when you're actually a member of the community and get caught up the fallout from these things

No, what this means is that this owner is privileged enough that this isn't life ruining to them. A lot of small business owners in poor areas have partial coverage at best and will never recover, having their store burned down is having their livelihood burned down.

> it is important to differentiate between violence done towards individuals and damage caused to private property.

It’s important to note that when your property is being looted, you can’t actually know for sure whether the mob is going to turn violent. In this case, fleeing to safety and leaving your home or business burned to the ground may be the only legally safe response. (ie, it is usually not

To be clear, I would never sympathize with the political cause of those who would violently destroy the interests of my friends and neighbors. I also don’t believe that violence against people is acceptable simply because they can be considered separate from a community.

I don't think going after government buildings would have been justified either; those buildings are all of our buildings. We paid (and pay) for them, and they provide services to the community.

I am all for widespread recognition of the horrible state of American policing, including the fact that a lot of (but not all, and I do not think I am prepared to say "most" either) of the people who go into it are clearly bad people. I am also into significantly modifying or abolishing qualified immunity, a move which I think most Americans, of all political persuasions, would favor if they read some of the caselaw and came to understand how much police officers have gotten away with under current law.

In addition to having an obvious direct negative impact on our economy and the victims of such riots, lawless, destructive riots only damage both of those causes.

I just want to put a pitch in here that I am related to several LEOs, and I can assure you that the number of "bad people," are a tiny minority. And I am also STRONGLY opposed to this idea that it's OK to attack government buildings, and I don't think I'm alone. If 2020 riots happen again, I think you can expect all out war.

> How does destroying a target store help anything?

If only someone had just won a prize for a fifteen page theory of how riots can be justified.

> Samsung TVs on sale at 100% off at your local Target doesn't have the same moral weight to it

I kinda disagree with this. If it were a local retailer run by your neighbors, you’d be absolutely correct. But if you’re talking about Target, you’re now in the territory of a system of economic oppression where money is siphoned out of local communities by large multinational corporations and the actual residents have no ownership over anything. During the 2020 riots, there were definitely some people trying to make the point, “we have no ownership of our own neighborhoods.”

I can see many people, especially black Americans, feeling all but imprisoned by the fact that they can’t afford to own property, can’t run the businesses that serve their community and are at the mercy of white people who move in and gentrify the neighborhoods forcing them to find new, less desirable places to live. The police who are the immediate focus of protests become merely the jailers in a systemic prison of which Target and other large retailers play a huge part.

I'm probably going too far from the original point since Target was only cited as a hypothetical example, but Target has some of the country's largest and most capable crime labs. I mention this as an example of how large corporate entities can be enthusiastic participants in the police state.

> But if you’re talking about Target, you’re now in the territory of a system of economic oppression where money is siphoned out of local communities by large multinational corporations and the actual residents have no ownership over anything.

Wow, are you using loaded language.

Say the Target wasn't there. The people of the neighborhood are still going to want to buy things. Without the Target, there might be locally-owned mom-and-pop businesses. Target takes the profits out of the neighborhood. All that is true.

But Target drove those businesses out by selling stuff for less money. So your solution is that the people of the neighborhood have to spend more in order that some people of the neighborhood can have the profits. And you call Target a system of economic oppression and a money siphon. Yeah, I'm not buying it.

I'm not sure it's as black and white as you make it out to be. Many things are cheaper from various other countries, yet we are encouraged to "buy American" because it's generally understood that keeping that money in the country is better for everyone in than long run than sending it to some 3rd world country where labor goes for pennies. We are also often encouraged to "buy local" rather than go out of State, town, etc for similar reasons.

The idea that keeping that money in the community might benefit the community, including the purchaser, more in the long run than saving a few bucks doesn't seem that crazy to me.

> During the 2020 riots, there were definitely some people trying to make the point, “we have no ownership of our own neighborhoods.”

Another reason why riots are not helpful is that it's impossible to know whether someone is breaking a window to make a statement about police violence, institutional racism, capitalist oppression, or because nobody can stop them from breaking a window right now. It's not an eloquent means of expression, and the message will never be received as the author intended.

that would be the reason why there are few or no just riots, not why there is no theory of a just riot.

Most wars are not just, but there is a theory of just war.

Riots are indiscriminate almost by definition. Has there ever been a riot whose targeted damage outpaced its collateral damage? We can imagine such a thing, but if it's not practically likely to ever occur I don't know what the point would be of developing theories about it.

On the other hand it's very straightforward to locate some justified wars in history. In fact I would say that most wars have a side that has a just cause, which is typically the defender.

You used two different standards for riots and wars. For riots you judged damage. For war you judged motivation.

Most wars fail your targeted vs collateral damage test. Maybe the US drone war from 2001 to present as an exception. Although we don’t really have the full picture to say.

Hrm, neither of motivation nor damage are sufficient alone. It's something like the product of the two. For an action to be justified it must both have a just motivation and a reasonably predicted just outcome proportional to the motivation. If either of those two requirements are not met, then the action is not just. Happy to go into examples if it would help clarify what I'm thinking. Feel free to ask if you want me to, but I think you might already understand my pov from what I've said above.

To be clear, I am not arguing that my point of view is or should be universal. I'm only sharing my own thoughts on the issue.

> I don't know what the point would be of developing theories about it.

Easy, the same reason most contrarian theories are developed: grant money and academic prestige. Most theories like this are woefully at odds with what the majority of society believes. If you asked most Americans whether or not they wanted a riot, just or not, in their neighborhood, you know what they would answer.

Riots are sort of like protests that have lost control. We have just protests.

If we compare it to war, would a riot be like a certain subset of war that's lost control, like a slaughter, though that name doesn't perfectly fit and my vocabulary may be lacking a term for what I'm thinking of? Are there any theories to call such a war that's lost control just, or would the loss of control preclude it from the theories you mentioned?

We call those "war crimes".

I'm not convinced there is no theory of a just riot, at least inasmuch as the majority of riots in history seem to have non-participating academic types willing to explain explaining why the anger was in this case justified. (Some of it's pretty ad hoc rationalisation, but lots of "just war" claims are too). Plenty of theory about how much rioting is too much rioting too.

It's just that most people who believe a cause justifies a riot (whether that's police killings, blasphemy, a candidate not winning an election or high taxes) want the riot to go beyond a riot and into some sort of actual change. A war is justified as a means to an end; a riot is usually only a small part of that means.

Also, a lot of just war theory boils down to asking religious figures or bodies like the UN for permission, which isn't really practical for your average riot.

In that case, the "Capitol Riot" was probably the most justified riot of 2021 in the US, yet the media (state-sponsored and affiliated) would disagree. Operation Mockingbird [1], anyone?

[1]-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

> If anti-police riots solely targeted police stations, city offices, and other related government buildings

Rioters/protestors burned down the third precinct police station in Minneapolis. Also in May, protesters smashed a window and defaced the Veterans Affairs headquarters building, and smashed the doors and windows at the National Treasury Employees Union headquarters. The National Park Service reported vandalized monuments on the National Mall.

Edit: downvotes but no explanation?

“solely” is the word you are missing.

You managed to confuse an entire comment tree by ignoring the article and presenting fallacious, anti-American rhetoric.

Congrats.

Minority groups have been dealing with systemic and deliberate murder as part of their daily lives for 400 years and you're worried about... a reconcilable loss of an inanimate object?

Oddisee and Shabazz Palaces can say it better than I can.

> I got a cuz that’ll be your doctor after a test that I hope he’ll pass

Isn’t that what you fear most? But fear don’t trump your needs

Our pros do trump our cons though. And cons don’t trump your greed

And monsters’ what you make of us and we make you succeed

And that’s what makes this country great, it’s built by those who bleed

It’s built by those who came on boats, it’s built by those who flee

And you forgot your family tree and we’re just all your leaves

So if you just try to chop us down you only hurt your knees

> That's how we start the show

Eagles soar and oil flows

You didn't decide what you chose

We will pay back what they owe

Yeah you say its so

I got mines now you get yours

Crime depends from who you stole

Rich is good, black is no

Don’t lots of supposed just wars cause massive amounts of damage to civilian lives and property?

Civilians are never targeted deliberately except in extreme circumstances, like the World Wars.

Really? I don't know of a single war off the top of my head that didn't have many high-profile incidents of militaries targeting civilian infrastructure (with people inside).

Collateral damage is not deliberate targeting. Targeting civilians that are not participating in the conflict is against the Geneva Conventions:

https://guides.lib.unc.edu/militarylaw/armedconflict

Yeah, I know the 'rule'. The least messy war that comes to mind is the first gulf war, and that had loads of direct targeting of civilians[0]. Most wars (second gulf, various israeli wars, etc) are way worse. I cannot in fact think of a single example of the rule being followed, can you?

If you consider a really bloody war, like the korean war, they killed a fifth of the population of north korea, and destroyed basically every single piece of civilian infrastructure.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign

Often it's not a specific agency or policy that's being protested. They're involved, sure, but the protest is about the brokenness of the social contract more generally--which means that working towards fixing it is everybody's problem. A targeted strike on a police station wouldn't do much to engage anybody who is neither police nor protestor.

There are obviously better ways to drive change than destroying whatever's around you, but much like you'd protest a too-low speed limit by speeding, it's not insane to protest a broken social contract than violating it at scale.

There are plenty of theories that justify collateral damage in war. There are even theories that justify war crimes (e.g. have to break a few eggs to make an omelette). The main difference here is between state actors and non-state actors.

And it's bizarre to say that you don't need to get "philosophical or long-winded" about it, when it's a link to the British Academy Brian Barry Price essay. I mean "philosophical and long-winded" is exactly what their looking for here.

BTW, I agree with your normative assessment I am just saying your comment makes no sense in the context of this article.

The righteousness of a riot (or 'civil protest') is as described by the storyteller.

If the media decides it's a 'mostly peaceful' protest, then acts of violence are not emphasized. Participation is not demonized.

But if the describer calls it 'an insurrection' or 'riot', then acts of violence are magnified. Being present, even without participation, is demonized.

The real truth is that no act of violence is acceptable.

The article talks about riots across history, not the American experience. I doubt it means looting to the exclusion of civil unrest, upheaval. Inter Arma Sine Legis, ergo looting is a probable side effect.

The US had a riot on Jan 6th 2021 and it’s been portrayed as a crisis on the scale of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. Millions of Americans think it was an insurrection. I don’t know if your theory holds up.

> The US had a riot on Jan 6th 2021 and it’s been portrayed as a crisis on the scale of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. Millions of Americans think it was an insurrection. I don’t know if your theory holds up.

To be clear, there was a riot, but said riot was also allegedly used as cover for (and was also allegedly an outcome of) sedition - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/leader-oath-keepers-and-10-ot...

The vast majority of Jan 6 charges were riot-related, but that there are any insurrection-related charges at all is what's branding the event as an attempted insurrection against the United States Government.

Serious charges, in general, take longer to investigate and charge.

Only, the "riot" coincided with the counting of electoral votes, they erected gallows and chanted "Hang Mike Pence" because he wasn't playing along with Trump's fraudulent attempt to replace electors, as the crowd attempted to force their way into the legislative session. The crowd may have failed, but the attempt was made. After they bloodied dozens of cops, what do you suppose would have happened if they made it into the chamber full of senators?

That's dishonest. Anyone looking even only perfunctory at the lead up to and events of the day knows that this was provoked by Trump and the sycophants around him. They falsely claim the election was stolen from them, and January 6th was their last chance at a coup. Riled up protesters stormed government buildings and tried to kill multiple government officials who were in the process of ratifying a valid election.

Rightfully, there's a much higher threshold of evidence in court, and this of course takes time to gather. Rats like Trump and the people around them also have plenty of experience skirting the line of illegality, and them being often high-ranking government officials gives them a certain degree of immunity.

"Insurrection" is harder to prove than "riot" or "breaking and entering". They don't want to charge a bunch of people and lose in court; they want the charges to stick. That takes time to get right.

> To be more clear, no charges of sedition were filed until nearly a year after the "riot" had been branded an "insurrection". The branding of the riot to insurrection occured about 45 minutes after someone sat in Pelosi's chair.

Investigations are a thing that take place, and exceptional charges tend to be distant followers of actual events, especially when cases need to be airtight.

There's no conspiracy with the way the charges were handled; there's simply evidence-gathering.

I think location has to do with it. Riots in DC government buildings are taken more seriously than riots affecting civilian housing and businesses. You can argue that's a double standard, but many people just feel differently when they see rioting in the capital building(vs rioting on Main Street)

Came here to say this but you already said it

Anti-government riots that damage businesses in communist countries are just because all of the businesses are owned by an illegitimate state.

So any one individual could corrupt a just riot by targeting a citizen or home. Seems this theory is severely lacking, then, if it basically means no real sporadic action can take place unless every single individual involved must be on the same page and avoid committing any mistakes.

In war where every soldier is trained on rules of combat, when some break the rules and do unjust things they are seen simply as "lone wolves breaking the rules". In riots, people rarely offer the same reasoning that those who commit crimes against citizens are simply "lone wolves breaking the rules" detracting from the larger movement. The lone wolves actions are taken to represent the entire movement as a whole. There is a huge unexplained distance between those two. Why is it that state powers can make mistakes but sporadic grassroots movements cannot?

No, it just means we don’t have to make excuses for riots, and the protestors could leave the area where riots are happening, to make their intentions clear.

If riots are a “mistake”, then protestors should be admitting that, rather than attempting to excuse them.

>and the protestors could leave the area where riots are happening, to make their intentions clear.

Since when are protectors a monolithic entity that can sense when a single individual is doing something unjust? I can show up to a riot and break into a house, and the other rioters will continue doing what they were doing totally unaware of my actions.

But this also means if people are justly rioting all it takes is a single bad actor to throw a brick through a window in order to force everyone else to leave. Otherwise it would mean everyone else is being unjust. Again, a single cop beating protesters is seen as doing wrong, and a single soldier raping a foreign citizen is seen as a lone violator. Seems like a double standard.

With this standard, America's founding was closer to terrorism than revolution. People threw hot tar and feathers on innocent tax collectors. Rather than apologize, they armed themselves. America couldn't exist if the world followed these ridiculous rules

> Since when are protectors a monolithic entity that can sense when a single individual is doing something unjust?

It’s not hard to see when people are looting and move away. It’s also not hard to say “hey there is looting happening here, let’s move the protest away”.

Anyone can do this. No monolithic entity required. The reason it doesn’t happen is because the protesters don’t in fact have a problem with the riots.

> But this also means if people are justly rioting all it takes is a single bad actor to throw a brick through a window in order to force everyone else to leave.

Leave, no. Move away from the vandalism, yes. If protesters did this instead of giving cover, the rioting would stop.

>It’s not hard to see when people are looting and move away.

If you're asking that everyone in viewing distance leave, I figure that'd be an area about 20 feet around. The vast majority of protestors are in that area, and cannot even see the rioting.

>The reason it doesn’t happen is because the protesters don’t in fact have a problem with the riots.

This is an oversimplification and a generalization. The logic doesn't even hold up in reality. There already are cops around the majority of large protests. There aren't looters freely destroying things beside them. Looters are separate from protests, they just get grouped together. Looters aren't all in close geographic distance of protests

> Looters are separate from protests, they just get grouped together. Looters aren't all in close geographic distance of protests

There is no evidence of this, and all of the reporting from the BLM protests showed them together.

If you have some way to support the claim that riots and protests are somehow always distant from each other, it would be interesting to see.

> Looters aren't all in close geographic distance of protests

This seems like a straw man. We are talking about riots that co-occur with looting, of course.

In any case it doesn’t matter. Protesters could distance themselves from riots, but don’t and that is the problem.

> the protestors could leave the area where riots are happening, to make their intentions clear.

So a small group of three people breaking windows is enough to force 3,000 people to go home? Because I can think of people who would break windows at events they disagree with. There are accusations that that occurred already during BLM protests.

> f riots are a “mistake”, then protestors should be admitting that,

I'm not sure what this means.