I recently read one of the most foolish things I have ever encountered, characterizing the situation in Portland as months of “largely non-violent” demonstrations. Demonstrations are either violent or non-violent. By the standard the author is laying down the First World War, famously characterized as “months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror”, was largely non-violent.
Of course they are violent. And in Seattle. And in NYC. And in Minneapolis.
The interesting question is why the respective mayors and governors have been willing to turn their cheek to the violence and commercial damage. What are the possibilities?
1. Care so deep for George Floyd and “institutional racism†that they believe the ends justify the means.
2. Just a federal vs local turf battle.
3. Political calculus in catering to the far left, believing them to reflect the views of enough of the electorate to maintain political viability.
If it’s 1, then they have the mentality of kindergartners. And since I’m not still in kindergarten, I’m not buying it. Antifa and BLM are Marxist terrorists. All you have to do is go to their website and read. Care about racial injustice was out the door after about a week.
It could be 2, but then their gross ineptitude would be on full display. Not buying it.
I think it’s 3. And political calculus is clearly what Pelosi, Biden etc are doing. If they are correct it’s a very sad commentary about who really controls the Democrat party. It’s fixable by the electorate. If not, if all those WaPo and NYT stories about sympathetic suburban women are correct, then they are going to be very surprised. The media will undoubtedly change their tune in the event of a November Biden win. All will be roses. But if voters think BLM or Antifa are going to take a break, well, gird your loins people.
I think it’s likely to be political calculus although not necessarily the one you’re making. I think there’s been a herd decision that the best way of handling these violent outbursts is with kid gloves because handling them forcefully will merely attract sympathy. IMO that calculation is wrong.
In Chicago there are actually two things happening simultaneously. Community distrust of the police, gangs (that have had the support of city politicians in the past), and a power vacuum are producing the most violent year of recent memory on the South and West sides. The mayor is completely at fault for this. I think she’s a fool. The other thing is a group of violent anarchist/BLM/nihilists. Many are probably not Chicagoans and even may be from out-of-state.
Fantasyland.
Moms and dads going down to the Portland Federal building to smash in it’s glass windows seem to see themselves as protectors of AA’s against Bull Conners’ water hoses but they’re the ones who will be taking tear gas and impact projectiles. Think it makes you feel like a SJW?
The legal consequences of destroying Federal property and felony assault on a police officer are something they haven’t penciled in for this year’s family budget. But that will be all too real for a number of them. They need to put the mugshots and charges on page one.
I don’t think they’ve really thought their revolution through.
There is a substantial difference between colonial India or the pre-civil rights era South. There are established processes for removing statues, for example. Removing them by mob action is not an act of civil disobedience. It’s authoritarian rule of the minority.
— Confucious
I have quoted the same passage a few times here myself.
You may be correct, Dave, but yes, gaining sympathy is a miscalculation.
I suppose there is another explanation, but its just a riff on the electorate. Mayors and governors may actually be afraid of the anarchists. (I’ve heard this about Wheeler) But this just shows how weak they are. And how did the voters make such a horrible choice?
Your Mayor is a case in point. What an absolute zero.
BTW – we don’t see these problems down here in SC. You know, where people are slow, speak with a drawl, and aren’t all sophisticated and such like in NY, IL or OR. Just sayin’.
She’s a great illustration of the dilemma in which Chicagoans find themselves. She ran on a platform of reforming the police and holding the line on property taxes. She has done neither. The alternative was Toni Preckwinkle who ran on a platform of increasing property taxes.
I didn’t vote for either one of them in the primaries. I, along with a plurality of black voters, voted for the candidate we thought was most likely actually to be willing to reform.
Become quite binary haven’t you? If there are a dozen protests and one has violence then they are all violent. I think that there is a criminal element at work and those should be arrested. It is not clear that those were being arrested by the feds in Portland so it looks like no one is arresting them.
Steve
Only because in this case any other position is patently absurd. When notionally peaceful protests are being used as shields by violent protesters how, precisely, do you separate them? Particularly as explosives and frozen bottles come hurtling at you?
“When notionally peaceful protests are being used as shields by violent protesters how, precisely, do you separate them?”
By banning all protests seems to be your preferred option. I would prefer that they arrest those actually committing the violence.
Just out of curiosity, you seem to want to have zero tolerance for violence occurring at protests since a few people might get hurt or some property harmed, yet you seem willing to accept lots of deaths as a price for further opening up of the economy. How do you decide when to take maximal actions to promote safety or when to tolerate some risk?
Steve
If the professionals who hijacked the protest are not BLM. Then it’s on the BLM thugs to keep order. Take a cue from Chicago funeral mourners and come ready to protect your turf.
That didn’t happen, so the umbrella people are BLM.
The Saudis use spotters to locate the leaders and direct crews to physically take them out of the action the direct way.
If the police can’t use such tactics they may as well go home. They just take up hospital beds others could use.
That’s circular. How do you identify them? How do you know who in the crowd hurled the frozen bottle that broke your jaw?
My views are a bit more nuanced than that. I have always been skeptical of mass demonstrations. They shouldn’t be protected in the same ways as individual speech is because they are different from individual speech. As I have pointed out the situation in the U. S. today isn’t the same as in colonial India or for blacks in the pre-civil rights South. Political organization should be preferred to mass demonstrations. Demonstrations are undemocratic. They’re a strategy for a minority to impose its will on a majority. My skepticism is heightened in this era of social media.
I don’t oppose reasonable restrictions during the pandemic. I think that, at least here in Illinois, the restrictions have been simultaneously too light and too heavy—arbitrary in fact. For example, if you can’t open a clothing store, why can you open the clothing departments at Wal-Mart? Why are package delivery drivers who deliver non-essential clothing, gardening tools, etc. essential workers? Why are government workers performing non-emergency services essential?
In Illinois I think that the lockdown should have been much tighter during its first six weeks, slightly lighter for the next six weeks, and even lighter thereafter.
Now I have a question. Do you genuinely see no difference between people who die of a disease over which no one has any control and injuries (even death) and destruction caused by deliberate human acts?
There is a huge difference. One is illegal. The other is a situation where you are partially wrong about lack of control. We do have means to lessen its effect, but it is disease.
However, I am interested in your zero tolerance approach which is something you have said you dont like. I guess that makes sense if you dont think protests are important or a free speech issue. I think protests are the kind of thing the 1st amendment were especially intended to protect. Free speech is so often misused as it is specifically about government suppression of speech. Protests being suppressed by government actors would seem to fall under that. Anytime you get big groups of angry people together then you risk some violence/destruction. I think the correct response is to arrest those committing criminal acts, not do away with protests with the caveat that if the protests have a high percentage of people committing violence then they need to be stopped.
So just from a utilitarian aspect, with the demonstrations you get a few people hurt and a small number killed. Those are largely criminal acts and we should punish those who did bad things. The choice of approach to handling the virus can result in many thousands more people dying.
“They’re a strategy for a minority to impose its will on a majority. ”
First, how can you be sure demonstrations are always by the minority. maybe they do represent the majority. Second, isn’t it the minority that especially needs free speech protected?
“That’s circular. How do you identify them? How do you know who in the crowd hurled the frozen bottle that broke your jaw?”
Three things. They can stop wasting their time by arresting TV reporters and others not committing violence or destruction. Second, why dont the police just follow around the TV news crews? They seem to capture a lot of the violence. Last, the police can act like police. How do they find any criminal?
Steve
steve:
If you’re in colonial India or in the pre-civil rights era South, mass non-violent demonstrations are warranted, even necessary. None of the conditions justifying them are present today. I don’t think the opposition to legitimate authority would be supported by the Founders. The argument of the Declaration of Independence was that the Crown was no longer a legitimate authority in the American Colonies.
I went back and checked. I think that even Jefferson and Madison would have been dismayed about the unwillingness of the state and local governments to manage the demonstrations. They were liberals but they weren’t anarchists. Washington, Hamilton, and Adams would have supported using federal troops to suppress violent demonstrations.