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Comment by phnofive | Hacker News Reader

> Riots are extra-public because crowds riot rather than institutionalized groups such as parties or social movements. Riots are extra-state because they violate the state’s monopoly on violence. Riots are extra-legal because they are a form of unlawful assembly. Riots are extra-Parliamentary because they operate outside of the normal legislative process.

Then, by definition, a riot won’t have a durable justification, since its goals are fluid, it uses extraordinary methods, has no accountable leadership, and doesn’t seek enduring change.

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Which I think is pretty fair. There's always bad actors who try to justify riots, but almost everyone agrees that they're bad - the "pro-riot" side of a discussion is usually along the lines of "you know, a violent crackdown just isn't going to work, so we'd better do suchandsuch or they'll keep on being angry".

I think you'd be surprised at how many (particularly young) people and leadership from organizations either refuse to denounce or outright condone rioting.

Refusal to denounce rioting can be problematic, but I'm not comfortable equating it with support. If people came by demanding that I denounce some random riot, I wouldn't do it, not because I'm pro-riot but because I reject the implication that the rioters have anything to do with me.

I've been quite surprised seeing how many people will condone rioting, but I'm still confident it's a small minority, shrinking to a barely existent minority for riots which can't plausibly be spun as honest protests.

Refusing to denounce rioting is almost always paired with something along the lines of "rioting is the language of the unheard" or "our organizations will not denounce any black person’s display of grief and/or rage", as is the literal case with one of the organizations from my hometown [0]. I cannot see that as anything but support. But trying to justify actions, you are, by definition, supporting those actions.

To be clear, it's the justification, not refusing to denounce.

[0]: https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/madison-...

Again, there are always some bad actors. I agree this statement sounds a lot closer to support than measured opposition.

"If you are not with us, you are against us."

I go out of my way to show that's not the mentality I have, nor one I want to promote.

I don't know if you've heard, but it's no longer enough to simply be "not in favor of riots", you must now be "actively anti-riots" — or so goes that other talking point.

Indeed we've gone from "if you're not with us you're against us" to "if you're not afainst them hard enough you're with them".

It's divisive and contributes to the conflicts that keep us from finding common ground.

Many young people don't feel secure about their own lives. Priced out of property ownership, didn't find a serious partner to make family with, don't have a rewarding job. By supporting the rioters they feel like they are attacking a common enemy (people that are better off).

Except, it won't work. The rioters are destroying one of the last remaining pillars of the middle class - small businesses. Sure, Walmart and Amazon will be happy to take over the niche, with a private security force to replace the defunded police. But what it will mean for regular people is less meaningful jobs, more poverty, and even less security.

"Many young people don't feel secure about their own lives. Priced out of property ownership, didn't find a serious partner to make family with, don't have a rewarding job."

Good grief - by this logic the entire country would have been continually rioting during the great depression.

Many of the current rioters are rioting because it's fun and/or a way to get free stuff. No need to make it more complicated than that.

Yes and no. I think, some level of hardship is absolutely required in order to develop good personality traits. Sure, if you get too much, and it will break your back. But if you get too little, you grow up as a useless entitled narcissistic asshole, completely toxic to everyone around them.

I bet none of those rioters had to actually work their asses off to put the food on the table. Because once you do, you start respecting other businesses and won't go break their displays for fun.

How do you feel about events like the Stonewall Riots[1], where police historically assaulted LGBTQ+ people, and those people fought back? These people should have just accepted being beaten and arrested for being gay? That should have waited until legislation caught up with their rights?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

I'm speaking specifically in the context of the riots we've been seeing over the last few months. To my knowledge the Stonewall riots did not result in the widespread destruction of uninvolved parties, vandalism, arson, etc. (there was some). It was a much smaller scale than what we're seeing now, which I think plays a part. It also had clear, actionable wants, something I think the recent movement lacks.

To answer your question, no I don't think every part of the Stonewall riots were moral or justified, but to some degree the end justifies the means and we look at it historically through that lens.

I’m not surprised at all. This is a novelty for them. If this were a regular occurrence as in countries where rioting is socially mainstream they’d be singing a different tune.

The pro-riot side of the discussion also wishes to point out that by the legal definition of a riot, an assembly of three[1] or more people, where one of them engages in graffiti is... A riot.

By that definition, there isn't a single protest, that can't, in thirty seconds, be turned by a drunken idiot, an agent provocateur, or an undercover cop into a riot. (Which immediately justifies the use of flashbangs, firing less-lethal rubber-coated bullets into crowds, and flooding the entire street with tear gas.)

The Hong Kong protests, under American law, would be considered riots. The folks tagging federal CCP buildings would, under American law, have been eligible for up to ten years in federal prison. [2]

Strangely enough, most of people demanding for crackdowns against domestic protests are also endorsing the protests in Hong Kong.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2102

[2] https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2019...

I'm referring to clear, unambiguous riots, where people run around looting stores or burning buildings down. Misuse of the American legal definition is a separate issue, and not one I'm interested in discussing.

I think that the legal definition of a riot is incredibly relevant to this conversation.

It's one that's applied in practice, as justification for police violence, over and over again.

In practice, a lot of the time, peaceful protests turn into 'clear, unambiguous riots' after police violence starts. Generally speaking, protesters try to police themselves - but when you're half-blind, stumbling away from clouds of teargas, you aren't going to do anything to stop the idiots who took advantage of the chaos to start throwing bricks at store windows.

There are very few clear, unambiguous riots. What is a protest that has a few looters or arsonists operating within it?

I've seen plenty of events here in the Pacific Northwest that police have labelled riots that I would in no way call a riot. I think that the legal definition very much plays into the discussion, because it gives the police the power to tell the media that a riot occurred.

There was one in Chicago just over the weekend. Police declarations of riots are much more common than what you or I would call a true riot, but I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that riots are a non-issue.

As a Minneapolis third precinct resident who saw what went down here, I saw the "looting" call in Chicago and immediately thought "Organized crime".

Something that happened here, as the protests kicked up, was organized robbery under the guise of looting. We'd see a van pull up to a boutique clothing/electronics store, and a group would pour out... a mix of "looters", lookouts, and security. They'd smash the store, grab the best stuff, toss it into the van, and roll away in minutes. That's not "looting". That's organized crime. And, because Minneapolis police were too busy tear-gassing peaceful protesters to bother protecting residents or property, it was easy.

So Chicago... after a police shooting, someone immediately goes online and calls for looting downtown, where all the nice boutiques are. Which, of course, creates plenty of cover for these organized teams to clean out stores. In other words, there's a fundamental difference between an organized crew robbing a boutique clothing store, and a poor mother walking out of a "looted" Target with a grocery cart full of diapers and food.

The public conversation, of course, lacks such distinctions.

The same thing happened in Bellevue, WA, on the second night of the protests.

The protesters were in open communication with police and city officials. The protest was peaceful, the police did not start a fight, and neither did the protesters. The protest peacefully dispersed later in the evening.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, what some might describe as a gang did a smash-and-grab at the (closed) Bellevue Square mall, grabbing merchandise off the store shelves, loading it into cars, and fleeing.

If the police wanted to pick a fight, they would have declared the situation a riot, and opened fire on protesters. They didn't, though.

Now riots and civil disorder are there to be exploited by the ruling class leading up to elections until the desired result is changed; they are in power.

Just like the noise leading into 2008, complete with celebrity moms and widows, to protests and destruction of property, once the political goal was achieved the money behind these people are groups were removed along with any attention directed their way through the press. The press has sufficient numbers who operate strictly at the order of political influences, people vastly underestimate this influence.

Smells like ideology to me.

Everything should.

The protests against police violence in Portland have continued every night since George Floyd was murdered. There has been a lot of attention at times and crowds swelled to the thousands. There is no organized money behind this, especially now that the groups are much smaller (and the police brutality and intimidation has risen to new levels).[1]

Pretty sure the ruling class would prefer for these protests to go away as quickly and quietly as possible.

[1]:https://twitter.com/r2020PB/status/1293553869470015493

> There is no organized money behind this

May I humbly ask where did all the millions donated to BLM go?

Lets just take Amazon for example. They donated to organizations(ACLU/NAACP etc). Likely non profits that support the POC communities. No one is paying protesters to be in the streets.

I don't think he's talking about Amazon's donations, but BLM itself. There is a big DONATE button on blacklivesmatter.com, and they take in millions in donations. No one knows how it is spent.

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