Hacker News Reader

Comment by ixtli | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

>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

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.

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.

> 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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com