They are not THUGS!

[markpkessinger]

80. Riots and looting are a symptom . . .

. . . not of any inherent criminality on the part of participants, but rather of a breakdown in the belief that the very system of "law and order" any longer has any legitimacy whatsoever. And frankly, who could blame these folks for believing that the system of laws and the criminal justice system has lost all legitimacy? They continue to see one unarmed black man after another senselessly killed by police, and nearly always without police facing any accountability for those deaths. There have been peaceful protests all over the country, and they have yielded absolutely nothing by way of substantive reform. For these folks, the very notions of criminality or legality have ceased to have any real meaning. And how can we possibly expect these folks to think otherwise?

All of this pearl-clutching in the world about 'violence' and 'lawlessness,' all of the scolding about the use of "constructive' tactics to achieve desired ends, and all of the lecturing about the ineffectiveness of rioting as a means of achieving those ends -- all of these are completely and utterly irrelevant once the point of rioting has arrived. At that point, it is a raw, collective rage that takes over. And at this point, who can argue that the rage is unjustified?

Yes, it is true that riots are probably ineffective, and likely even counter-productive. And yes, they often wind up hurting the very communities whose rage they are expressing. But to lecture people from the sidelines about the need to 'make better choices' in how they go about venting their rage is not only pointless, it likely only acts as an accelerant to it.