Back in the good old days, the left loved to lecture us about civility. That time is over.
In the course of the last few days, at least two writers from liberal outlets have tried to justify and even advocate for the violent rioting in Ferguson.
First, we have Darlena Cunha of Time:
Ferguson: In Defense of RiotingWhen a police officer shoots a young, unarmed black man in the streets, then does not face indictment, anger in the community is inevitable. It’s what we do with that anger that counts. In such a case, is rioting so wrong?Riots are a necessary part of the evolution of society. Unfortunately, we do not live in a universal utopia where people have the basic human rights they deserve simply for existing, and until we get there, the legitimate frustration, sorrow and pain of the marginalized voices will boil over, spilling out into our streets. As “normal” citizens watch the events of Ferguson unfurl on their television screens and Twitter feeds, there is a lot of head shaking, finger pointing, and privileged explanation going on.We wish to seclude the incident and the people involved. To separate it from our history as a nation, to dehumanize the change agents because of their bad and sometimes violent decisions—because if we can separate the underlying racial tensions that clearly exist in our country from the looting and rioting of select individuals, we can continue to ignore the problem.
Next up is Matt Bruenig of Gawker:
Actually, Riots are Good: The Economic Case for Riots in FergusonSmirking St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch took his robes off long enough on Monday to announce to the world that the killer of Mike Brown would face no criminal charges. In lieu of the usual grand jury process wherein the prosecutor says it wants an indictment and then the grand jury automatically gives it to them, McCulloch clearly did everything he could to make sure officer Darren Wilson would never face a trial. In the wake of such transparent rigging, Ferguson quite naturally exploded into fiery riots…There is, of course, the historical case to be made for rioting: the past is replete with examples where rioting gets the goods. But there is also, I’d submit, an even more straightforward case for rioting: at the right levels, rioting is economically efficient.One need look no further than famous economist and Nobel laureate Gary Becker to see how this is true. According to Becker, punishing bad behavior increases the costs of engaging in such behavior and thereby reduces the amount of it. This is the underlying theory of most criminal justice schemes. Rioting that occurs in response to gross police misconduct and criminal system abuses imposes costs on doing those things.
According to this logic, conservatives and Tea Party groups should have rioted violently after the passage of Obamacare. Liberal writers might have come to our defense instead of calling us terrorists.
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