They call it closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. But Chicago has an interesting way of dealing with looters, who ransacked the city Sunday night.
Don’t punish the miscreants sufficiently to deter the criminal behavior.
Instead, close thruway exits and raise drawbridges — “shut down” the city’s downtown, in other words. Hmm, haven’t we seen a shut-down strategy used to address another problem just recently?
Of course, as English philosopher Herbert Spencer warned, “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools,” and the Black Lives Matter looters are Exhibit A. Their free rein to steal has emboldened them to conjure up rationalizations and entertain stupidity, with BLM Chicago organizer (agitator) Ariel Atkins saying “Looting is reparations.”
She also stated, “Anything they wanted to take, they can take it because these businesses have insurance.”
Well, perhaps Atkins graduated from the Ocasio-Cortez School of Economics, but she may want to investigate the concept of cost incidence.
The Daily Mail summarizes the story:
• Black Lives Matter Chicago held a protest Monday night in which they defended looting as a form of ‘reparations’
• Drawbridges into Chicago were raised Monday night and freeway exits closed as downtown was locked down
• Precautions were being taken to avoid a second night of chaos, following riots and looting in the early hours
• SWAT teams were seen patrolling the streets of the Illinois city on Monday afternoon
• Protests and looting erupted when a false rumor spread that police had shot and killed a child on Sunday
• Police in fact had shot and injured a 20-year-old man, who ran from them, turning to fire his gun at officers
• Latrell Allen has been charged with attempted murder after the shooting on Sunday which sparked the riots
• Chicago’s Magnificent Mile was hit by looters after hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police
• People then started organizing on Twitter and Facebook to loot downtown in a caravan of vehicles
• The violence coincided with the sixth anniversary of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri
• Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the looting had nothing to do with peaceful protest over police brutality
• She denied that the decision not to prosecute looters during George Floyd riots had spurred on looters now
Funny, but leftists have no trouble understanding the consequences-behavior connection when enacting “hate crime” law, which mandates greater punishment for wrongthink crimes as a deterrent. Lightfoot apparently has ever-shifting goalposts in her own head.
She has nothing on Atkins in the rationalization department, though. “I don’t care if someone decides to loot a Gucci or a Macy’s or a Nike store, because that makes sure that person eats,” NBC 5 Chicago reports her as saying. “That makes sure that person has clothes.”
Ah, naked and emaciated, these hapless souls were just trying to survive another day. Okay, view the video below and judge whether these “activists,” who range from muscle-bound to soft and round, were just Jean Valjean seeking that elusive loaf of bread.
It’s good they had cars, so they didn’t have to loot an auto dealership.
But they did, anyway. Below is a video of the social influencers using a stolen Audi as a battering ram and extracting reparations from Tesla, among other entities.
And here are the desperate and hungry looting an Apple Store (hint: it wasn’t for want of an apple).
As a top commenter under the last video noted, “The only safe store to own nowadays is a bookstore.”
Speaking of books, Mayor Lightfoot, perhaps sensing that even her constituents may turn against BLM and its enablers, turned a new page and said that the looting “had nothing to do with legitimate, protected, First Amendment expression” (sharp as a tack, nothing gets past this woman!).
Yet she also rejected federal assistance, saying that if President Trump wanted to help, “he should not ‘rattle the saber’ but rather enact gun control, which she said would provide ‘real safety,’” reported Breitbart.
She forgot to mention Audi control (and self-control).
Chicago authorities did arrest more than 100 looters, but it’s a little too little a little too late. Moreover, while shutting down the city did prevent a riot repeat performance on Monday, it doesn’t remedy deeper issues. There’s an interesting parallel here, too.
With the COVID-19 lockdowns, authorities took the unprecedented action of “quarantining” large, healthy populations because of a physically sick minority; likewise, Chicago on Monday was shut down because of a morally sick minority. It’s collectivist politicians making the “collective” suffer because they don’t want to administer the required medicine to sick individuals.
Another problem with the coronavirus lockdowns is that they just delayed the inevitable and necessary: allowing our antibodies to do their job and effect herd immunity. Somewhat analogous, leftist politicians haven’t allowed society’s “antibodies” — the police and National Guard — to do their job and neutralize the criminal pathogens.
If the “George Floyd” (or, as the “protesters” call him, What’s-his-name) riots had been immediately quelled in Minneapolis in late May, this problem wouldn’t have metastasized the way it has — around the world. It’s not rocket science, either: Begin with non-lethal force, such as water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, and German shepherds. If that doesn’t suffice, you proceed to the next step out of compassion.
Deadly force.
(Aghast leftist politicians should just imagine the rioters are “deplorables” who reject white-privilege dogma. They’ll bring out Darth Vader and the Death Star.)
Failure to do this in our permissive, effete society isn’t surprising. But it’s the antithesis of compassion, leading to innocents being hurt and killed, to impoverishing wealth destruction, and to destabilization that moves the nation closer to collapse.
Thus far, the only things miscreants and Machiavellian power seekers have learned is that crime pays — and violence brings results. Riots and looting will continue as long as the rewards outweigh the risks.
Image: screenshot from YouTube video
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
