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Looting as a Form of Protest
After his arrest during a protest in Santa Monica, actor Cole Sprouse took to Instagram to declare that “peace, riots, looting, are an absolutely legitimate form of protest.”
Looting would be “legitimate” only if people were not individuals but categories defined by their race, sex, or creed. If Derek Chauvin isn’t “individual police officer who used excessive force and killed George Floyd,” but rather “all white people,” then punishing “all white people” by looting stores owned by “all white people” might be “an absolutely legitimate form of protest.”
As it is however, looting just adds more individual people to the list of victims.
Published in General
Happy to say that, due to the fact I watch very little television, I have never heard of Cole Sprouse. Now that I’ve looked him up, I’ll do my best to forget about him.
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Absolutely. This inability to see people as individuals is, in my opinion, the single most dangerous and destructive force in society today. It underlies almost every problem we have. Unfortunately, humans seem hard-wired to think that way.
The various attempts to legitimize looting and rioting are the most disturbing aspect of the last several days, aside from the looting and rioting itself. We all recognize how radical ideas seep into the culture on an incremental basis until they are accepted, and I’m guessing this is another one. If these activities are not already seen as permissible, it won’t take that long until they’re just part of protest.
Meh. You Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jrs are all alike. (Just kidding. Some of my best friends are Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jrs).
Personally I am feeling a bit like a sucker in that I did not go get the free stuff that was available for anybody enterprising enough to do so.
It is common knowledge the way to fight for social justice is to break storefront windows and steal big screen televisions.
The goal posts are moving daily.
Next stop: Rioters and looters must be paid a “living wage” for their hard work breaking and stealing things.
I guess I have to stop watching Riverdale.
That’s Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvies, Jr. It’s amazing how often people make that mistake.
Looting would be “legitimate” only if people were not individuals but categories defined by their race, sex, or creed. If Derek Chauvin isn’t “individual police officer who used excessive force and killed George Floyd,” but rather “all white people,” then punishing “all white people” by looting stores owned by “all white people” might be “an absolutely legitimate form of protest.”
What, then, does one call looting stores owned by “all black” people?
74 cars stolen from a dealership in the bay area. Forget the tennis shoes, getting the good stuff now.
If they want to loot, and they want to smash, and they want to express their legitimate rage against injustice, and they don’t believe that the owner of the property has any right to it, wouldn’t it be simpler if they just went into their own homes and smashed everything? Throw their grandmother’s dishes against the wall, throw a chair through their flat-screen, pitch their iMac Pro through the picture window?
If it doesn’t matter, why not start right where they are?
This country was founded on the principles of life, liberty, and property. Violate one, you lose the others.
One of American abolitionists’ main arguments against slavery was that it denies people the fruits of their labor. Looting, smashing, and burning property do the same thing.
Fredrick Douglass once wrote:
By Douglass’ definition, those who claim they are entitled to steal or destroy another’s property are no better than the slave masters.
They don’t believe the owner of the property has any right to it……unless they are the owner of the property.
How many times can I like your comment @richardfulmer, and Fredrick Douglass. Here I thought that the concept of the individual’s own work and ideas are the most basic unit of private property, and that without the right to own those basic units, we are all slaves–well I thought that was my idea. At least I am in good company.
I could use a good car
Those are already in pieces.
That would make a fine Quote of the Day.
OK, so did he give out his address so we can steal his stuff and burn his house down? . . . For the cause, of course.
He’s entitled to his opinion. Harassing people at their homes is the Left’s schtick.