Amazingly, some people still think looting is wrong
Many local residents were astounded by the outpouring of support for the vandalization of Mayor Liccardo's home on social media, and the limited, tepid nature of the support for the Mayor from local leaders. Steven Greenhut opines in Reason magazine why looting is a classic form of injustice.
National Public Radio's interview last month with Vicky Osterweil, author of a new book called "In Defense of Looting," generated so much pushback that the network had to add a clarification providing more "context" to help readers "fully assess" her "controversial" views. But there isn't anything that NPR's editors could do to contextualize Osterweil's dangerous message.
The argument that the American system of property rights is oppressive and looting and mayhem will bring about positive social change is nuts.
When my oldest daughter was very young, she asked why we have to pay for things. "Why can't everything be free?" I explained that if everything were free, no one would work or produce anything or invest in factories and stores. In almost no time, we'd be staring down vast shortages—and people would go hungry. Violent thugs would rob and pillage. Society would collapse.
Unfortunately, many American adults seem to share this childish view of the world. After my column explaining what rent control does to small landlords was posted in a left-leaning social-media group, I was taken aback by the vicious ad hominem responses. As a building owner, I'm apparently a greedy oppressor—and never mind the investments, renovations, and hard work that goes into providing quality housing for others at an agreed-upon price. One poster even called me a member of the "petty bourgeoisie." Good grief.
Modern-day leftists have no understanding of how society builds wealth and prosperity. They revile those who create it, even as they post photos to the Internet from their iPhones. Do they believe such wonderful innovations fell from the sky? Didn't any of their professors teach them about the violence, starvation, and misery that took place in Soviet Russia—and every other society that attacked the idea of private property?
"Destroying a small business is akin to destroying an artist's studio, a scholar's library or a chef's kitchen," wrote Steven Horwitz, a professor of free enterprise at Ball State University in Indiana. "It's not just a matter of the loss of material goods, and insurance isn't the point. It's a loss of the space in which they make meaning in their lives and for others." People who defend rioting defend the destruction of the very things that make us human. They are the ones being unjust.
I'm a strong defender of peaceful protests against police abuse and have been writing about the need for reform for years. But it's one thing to peacefully march against injustice, and quite another to burn down what others built up. It's a warning sign for our society when it doesn't occur to a major news outlet that a defense of looting deserves more scrutiny than a puff interview.
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