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Comment by BurnGpuBurn | Hacker News Reader

If it's a choice between protesters getting tear gassed vs your shop and livelyhood being burnt down by rioters the gas is not that much of a price to pay

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Even accepting this dichotomy at face value, rephrasing this a bit you could say it's a choice between bodily injury (to the protestors) or property damage. It's telling that in the US property "wins".

Property is acquired through the trade of one's resources, which are acquired through a time tradeoff in almost all cases.

The property vs. body isn't about valuing "things" more than people. It's about recognizing that the decision to destroy someone else's property is illegal, and that activity should be interrupted by the government. It is one of the few responsibilities a government should have. Underlying the property, real damage is being done to real humans by destroying their past and future bodies through the proxy of property and the tradeoff they would need to make to reacquire it.

It is about valuing things more than people. By saying that it's ok to respond to property damage with violence you are valuing property at at least the same, if not more, than people.

Yes. My point is that it took the equivalent of human life to acquire the property, so destroying someone else's private property is akin to destroying their life.

Obviously they're still alive so can spend time acquiring more, but let's not pretend property crime is priceless. That said, I don't advocate for violence and would prefer to see the legal system work the issues through.

This is a silly way to frame the issue. If you tell me "I have a baseball bat and I will use it to either hit a random person or smash the window of this car," I 'll choose the car. On the other hand, if a random person walks up to a car and starts smashing it, I don't have a problem with someone using force to stop that.

If it's worse to attack someone then it is to damage property then why would it be ok to attack someone to stop them from damaging property?

Because I value living in a society where people aren't free to victimize others more than I value that person being free from arrest or other violence.

In most cases, the protests were perfectly peaceful until the police escalated with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Perfectly peaceful? You must be talking about a different Portland. One without a Federal courthouse that was attacked nightly for months on end.

“Fiery, but mostly peaceful” is a euphemism we all can live with.

Are there actually any small businesses left in Portland?

Even big ones like REI are closing their last location in Portland: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2023/04/rei-to-close-its...

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