It’s a blazer outside and especially so if you unfortunately live near any of the areas where rioting is taking place. Businesses burned, lives destroyed, cities destroyed and violence initiated on the innocent all for no reason.
Since there’s a lot of people who have fallen victim to every philosophical sin you could possibly imagine and its correlating actions you’re bound to see a variation of some of the arguments to be addressed below. It’s amazing to me how fast all of these arguments emerged and how quickly people parroted them to a T.
In no particular order:
They’re protesters.
Nope. Protesters engage in the First Amendment. Rioters destroy the welfare of society therefore violating the rights of all. Protesting is a not a rights violation.
It’s like the Boston Tea Party.
The implied “logic” behind this circus freak claim tries to expose supposed hypocrisy behind people that patriotically support the actions that led up to the founding of our country yet condemn the rioters. It’s put forth sounding something like, “You support the Boston Tea Party, which involved property damage, in order to achieve a political goal yet you don’t support the protests? It’s obvious you’re a racist because the Boston Tea Partiers were white and these protesters are fighting for black rights.”
No. First, the Boston Tea Party had a reason to take place. The British Empire routinely violated the inalienable rights of those who lived under it. Here, we have an ex-con who was murdered by a whack job cop. As horrible as it was, this does not constitute nor justify the random and sadistic targeting of society as a whole.
The tea partiers targeted property that was directly linked to The British Empire and not random stores and people. In the process, the only thing they damaged was the tea itself and the boat’s lock which was quickly replaced by them. The tea partiers also held on to stringent rules. They were to take nothing for themselves and anyone to deviate faced punishment.
It’s self-defense.
Self-defense is the act of protecting yourself from an immediate threat. For instance, George Floyd would have been morally excusable if he was able to overpower the cop and save his life. In that case, it would’ve only been morally and legally permissible if Floyd were to directly fend off the cop using the proper amount of force.
Rioting and revenge ARE NOT self-defense. Rioting involves the non-objective and unfettered act of directing force at anything one chooses. You’re not fighting off anything that’s attacking you. AutoZone, Target and sports bars along with their owners are not attacking you. They had nothing to do with what happened. Causing collateral damage for the sake of causing collateral damage is not defense but barbarism.
Attack the police.
What about the police station burning then? Libertarians who are, from what I’ve seen, against the property destruction tend to exempt the police department burning down. The logic at work seems to be along the lines of, “Well, a police officer killed the man therefore it’s acceptable to destroy anything involving the police.”
Wrong again. The concept of self-defense dictates that the amount of force you retaliate with should be proportionate to the amount of force waged against you. Destroying an entire building and putting the surrounding area in risk of numerous types of destruction far outweighs a sadistic cop killing one ex-con.
By targeting cops as collectively responsible, it also roundhouse slaps all cops as being guilty by virtue of occupation and not by action. It can easily also endanger their loved ones and fails on every level to consider that there’s cops that find Floyd’s death an unforgivable act of injustice. Plus, consider the lives of firefighters and paramedics who may be required to be in the midst of the rioting trying to save lives and property.
You must value material goods over human life.
Interestingly enough, this was something the pro-government mandated quarantine thumpers espoused many months ago. Here, they’ve resurrected this lame tearjerker and are trying to apply it to the nationwide debauchery.
This is conditional. There are certain people who I value my possessions over. That’s a perfectly moral stance. A woman who owns a priceless pearl necklace has every moral justification in the book to value that over the life of a thug trying to break into her house. A man with an Aston Martin has every moral justification in the book to value it over the life of the man who tried to rape his daughter. A person whose livelihood is supported by their business has every moral justification in the book to value it over the looters who wish to destroy it.
This is nothing more than lame brained rhetoric to try and take your breath away and make you look like you’re a materialistic monster.
Like every intellectual abomination to support the riots, there’s flawed premises at work here.
Material goods are the result of human life and establish the livelihood of the creator(s) and the society he or she trades them with. As a result of producing goods, people have established property rights. Property rights entail freedom and protect you from the aggression of others. Property is the moral barrier that prevents humans from dealing with each other by violence. Property rights are an extension of individual rights (i.e., it sustains life). Once you’ve taken away property you’ve violated rights. There’s a reason why slaves can’t own property.
Without property rights you get what we have now.
Someone on Facebook commented to me, “I’d gladly lose my material possessions to be an ally in this fight.”
At first glance, it sounds like he’s admitting that they are rioting burglars. I agree. Once you think about it though it openly advocates suicide. Translated it says, “I’m willing to kill myself for the sake of others who are destroying society.” The anti-materialists though are ironically supporting the materialists. I’ve yet to figure out what stealing spark plugs from AutoZone has to do with Floyd’s life.
By the way, remember that pets are legally considered property. Why do I have a feeling the “anti-materialists” will start to pick and choose which possessions they’d like to keep?
Who’s life is this by the way? Floyd’s life or the life of the looters? One person’s life or death should never overtake the livelihood of others whether it’s Floyd’s or anybody else’s. The reverse is the same. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice ourselves on a societal level to someone that died. We’re not collectively guilty.
Get ready for this one. I’m paraphrasing a tweet.
“We” built this country therefore we get to burn it down.
As you might guess by the use of the word “we”, it was written by someone who is black.
If this is the case, does that mean the assembly line workers that built your car get to destroy it? Does that mean the construction workers that built your house get to cut its gas line? Does that mean that the farmers who laboriously harvested the vegetables in your salad get to eat them? Moreover, does building something mean you automatically own it?
In this case it wouldn’t even be the current laborers that own them let alone produced them. Instead, it’d be people that shared the same melanin as them from centuries ago. In fact, if you pay close attention it’s not even about the type of labor but more or less the melanin of the laborers.
Legally, I’m pretty sure you can’t just destroy your property either. If it’s a windup toy I’m sure you can but if you built your house and burn it down or set your car on fire I’m confident that you’ll face harsh legal penalties rightfully so.
This is also effectively saying whites are slaves to blacks. If blacks are the builders and owners and can take away property from whites they’re the slave masters and whites are the slaves.
There you go. Autozone is the result of the legacy of slavery. Mystery solved.
How dare you tell blacks how to protest.
Not just blacks but anybody. Yes, there is a code of conduct for protests in that it ceases being a protest once rights are violated. Saying whites cannot perform a certain action (i.e., judgment) and blacks can getaway with whatever actions they see fit is a textbook example of racism.
Relativistic thinking is brazenly anti-thinking and therefore immoral. If you refuse moral judgement you can easily end up being the victim of what you refused to judge.
I could’ve stopped it at the initial argument though. There aren’t any protests to begin with so there. Most importantly, when everyone is held to different standards they are immediately placed into an “alternate reality”. And when other people are placed into an alternate reality of judgement we have division. And when we have division, we have a civil war. In the end, we’re all held accountable to different standards and I thought this was about equality.
You didn’t like their other forms of protest Pt. 1.
This refers to any peaceful protests that may have occurred such as the famous Colin Kaepernick NFL “take a knee protest”. Yes. People did have problems with that but it wasn’t the kneeling itself. It was a combination of what he said and where he said it. Hoards of people disagreed with the idea of the United States being an inherently racist country along with those who didn’t want soapboxing in sports.
If they think whites hated their prior forms of peaceful protest what makes them think rioting will change their opinions for the better? This easily plays into the hands of white supremacists who characterize blacks as rioting and looting savages. It seems as though they’re inadvertently proving the white supremacists right even though they’d still be wrong in their racist judgement.
People criticizing a protest doesn’t mean they’re not okay with freedom of expression.
It’s also an argument for the ends justifying the means. Why is this wrong though? It’s wrong because the end doesn’t exist since only means do. We’re always in the present and have to think long range. We have to always be aware of what we’re immediately doing and how it will effect where we’re going. The end justifies the means method has no moral regard for the present so what makes them think it’ll have moral regard for the end. If you want to achieve a desired goal it needs to match up with what came before it. Pertaining to the context of the riots, you don’t achieve peace by violence.
What’s the goal here? Where does property destruction take you other than back to your burned down home?
Interestingly enough, the supposedly systemically racist conspiracy at work has fought back against Floyd’s aggressor. The cop is fired and charged with murder. Police unions have spoken out against his actions and Trump has ordered an FBI investigation.
You didn’t like their other forms of protest Pt. 2: Peaceful protests fell on deaf ears.
No. Peaceful protests like Kaeperknick’s did not fall on deaf ears as evidenced by the public response to them. People strongly disagreed and agreed. If being ignored means getting a 14 trillion dollar endorsement from Nike I wish more people would ignore me.
How does this justify destruction though? If you say it’s a matter of getting others to listen to you you couldn’t be more wrong. You get people to listen by persuasion not violence. If you initiate force the only thing people can do is use force (rightfully so) in return. All you’ll do is further convince them that your side is destructive and built upon threats. Violence isn’t a conversation.
What kind of an argument is this? Being ignored means you’re justified in initiating violence? Is it always permissible for cops to initiate violence on someone who ignores them? Is it permissible to punch somebody in the face for ignoring you? What if a child’s parents don’t listen to him and he kills his sister for their attention? Is that justifiable?
It sounds like they’re saying they’re little demented kids begging for attention. I agree. That shows you what their movement is worth.
Sympathy
Some are saying they’re against the rioting yet are sympathetic or understanding as to why it’s happening. If you manage to complete the rest of the sentence past “sympathetic” you should realize that you cannot ever condemn something and then be “understanding” and “sympathetic” about it. Those are feelings and capacities that must be directed by reason and only deservedly applied rationally to things that you should not condemn.
The supposed arbiters of these sentiments are by default apologists for the rioters. They openly admit they understand the motivations behind destroying cities.
The sympathy argument is one big supposed understanding of a violent non-sequitur. If your mom were killed what would you do? Go outside and randomly target innocent civilians and their homes? How would that be worthy of sympathetic understanding?
If you are to allot sympathy to anybody allot it to the innocent business owners and civilians who were victimized by these savages. Save your tears for the victims not the victimizers.
Why didn’t you criticize the anti-lockdown protests? They had guns and “stormed” state capitals.
- They protested.
- They didn’t kill or injure anyone or destroy property.
- Most of these protesters utilized their First and Second Amendment rights which is perfectly legal. A lot of cops are smart enough to know that it’s not legal to randomly tackle somebody just for holding a gun for those of you who say it was only because they were (predominantly?) white.
- Their protest made sense. They were petitioning the government to hand back their livelihoods and not force them into their homes.
Now, you can raise the question of whether or not it was sound to bring guns. I don’t think it was. Then again, cops were arresting people for pretty much being outside so maybe they had a point in “scaring” off cops. Either way, I don’t think the guns were smart.
I’m also not saying they didn’t do anything moronic or uncalled for but I’m okay with an angry belligerent moron if the city is still intact afterwards.
This point also treats white cops as a collective and therefore accuses all of them of having double standards when it comes to white or black protestors. It looks at an incident like the Floyd case and assumes that’s how white cops act when confronted with blacks. So, if a white cop has a “peaceful” encounter with a white civilian it’s immediately assumed it wouldn’t be that way with a black civilian. All of these examples are cherry-picked. They’ll take a photo of an angry white protestor from the quarantine protests and then juxtapose it against the Floyd case and then claim it proves their point.
They take two completely different situations with completely different officers and then try and make ties between them based around skin color.
The bottom line here is if they truly let white quarantine protestors get away with whatever it is they did why’d they even bother sending out cops to patrol these events in the first place? Why are they currently letting white rioters destroy cities right now?
Bankers who looted money during the financial collapse didn’t go to jail but there are “protestors” that did.
Maybe because lunatics on a rampage throughout a city are more of an immediate threat than guys who siphoned money through loopholes and lobbying.
This is assuming the unnamed people that maintain these occupations actually did that.
Conspiracies
Trump has recently tweeted that he is going to label Antifa a terrorist organization. It’s about time. There’s also evidence emerging to suggest that Antifa could’ve agitated the protest to which I wouldn’t be surprised. Antifa (mostly white kids) has continuously billed themselves as an organization that fights against things like systemic racism by rioting. However, here they’re exhibiting a morbid comedy of errors.
They claim to be allies to blacks yet are inadvertently doing the dirty work of would be white supremacists by burning down black neighborhoods.
It’s interesting to note the 180 that’s been pulled here. At first, people were saying these weren’t riots but instead protests against racism. Then the rioting escalated to the point where I think they realized they couldn’t rationalize it as protesting anymore. So, what’d they do? They admitted they were riots and then claimed they were committed by supposed far-right white supremacists and condemned them! I’m a little confused. Now pro-racists are fighting using what were once considered anti-racist tactics? Unreal.
If it’s white supremacists then why do they indiscriminately destroy businesses run by other whites?
Then they’ll claim that they initially started out peacefully. Okay, that’s fine but it didn’t stay that way for long and to blame this on only Antifa is sinful. There’s tons of others participating not limited to Black Lives Matter. Whoever did it should be convicted. We shouldn’t sit around trying to nonsensically pin it on who we want to for the sake of our agenda. If it’s white supremacists jail them. If it’s Black Lives Matter jail them. If it’s the cast of Cats jail them. I don’t care as long as the guilty are jailed.
Collectivism
Collectivism is the way Americans are currently thinking. My side is right. Your side is wrong. When you’re “wrong” you’re everything wrong with the world and deserve everything that my side has directed at you. Black Lives Matter stokes this perfectly. By saying immediately that someone’s life “matters” because of their melanin that will ultimately create rioting and needless protest anytime someone with that melanin gets harmed (justified or not).
It frees them of moral judgement. So, if a black person is killed (especially by a white and it seems like only by a white) no judgement is made as to whether or not the killing was justified. It assumes all my tribe members unconditionally “matter”. This undoubtedly breeds conformity in that they’ve been taught to uphold their tribe at all costs. People’s lives matter in that they should all be held equally under the law regardless of race or sex but still should be judged according to action(s). This we should all have in common.
It’s an absolute religion. Whichever black dies at the hands of only a white he’ll become their Jesus – an inadvertent sacrifice to show what is wrong with the world.
In this religion though black lives matter only when they’re killed by whites and not by blacks.
I hope the rioting stops but at least COVID-19 seems to have miraculously been “cured”. The frustrating thing though is that just as the country was opening up parts of it are shutting down once again except this time it seems justifiable due to severe threats of violence.
Originally, the pious quarantine thumpers and politicians espoused it wasn’t acceptable to open your barber shop but now we can assume it’s acceptable for others to destroy your barber shop.
I support protests against the bastard cop but right now I’m not seeing anything by and large that resembles a protest so I have close to nothing to support.