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>What you're saying is that unless you can somehow guarantee that property wont be damaged you can never attack those who are doing violence to you. Nonsense.

>What you're saying is that unless you can somehow guarantee that property wont be damaged you can never attack those who are doing violence to you. Nonsense. If rioters burned down a police station and the fire spread to some neighboring buildings it would be unfortunate (and would probably hurt public opinion about the riot to some extent). But it's not even remotely comparable to a riot that doesn't even try to target the sources of its grievances and directly and intentionally harms civilians instead

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
On the other hand, one can argue that the voters are ultimately the source of the policies that result in the grievances in the first place. When it comes to systemic societal issues, it is not very clear where one can draw the line on fault.
sohdas 5y ago
Well, many rioters did target police stations. The issue is that any sufficiently large riot is necessarily disorganized, composed of different people with different motivations. For that reason, I think private property being targeted by rioters is actually not too different from your example of fire spreading to buildings. It seems an impossible standard for any riot / rebellion on a large scale to meet.
- Jensson 5y ago
  If that is a natural element just like fire spreading, then it is also natural to put down riots just as if they were fires. When a fire burns down a building you stop it, so the same should go for riots. So basically you made the case for "there are no just riots, they are all mindless violence". If they could behave then they could be just, but if you argue that they can't behave then they can't be just and should be stopped. Note there are many examples of protests being violent in targeted ways that don't harm innocents, so I disagree with you here. There are just riots, but what we saw in USA wasn't that. Its just that when that happens it isn't called a riot, its just called a violent protest or something like that.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

On the other hand, one can argue that the voters are ultimately the source of the policies that result in the grievances in the first place. When it comes to systemic societal issues, it is not very clear where one can draw the line on fault.

sohdas 5y ago

Well, many rioters did target police stations. The issue is that any sufficiently large riot is necessarily disorganized, composed of different people with different motivations. For that reason, I think private property being targeted by rioters is actually not too different from your example of fire spreading to buildings. It seems an impossible standard for any riot / rebellion on a large scale to meet.

Jensson 5y ago
If that is a natural element just like fire spreading, then it is also natural to put down riots just as if they were fires. When a fire burns down a building you stop it, so the same should go for riots. So basically you made the case for "there are no just riots, they are all mindless violence". If they could behave then they could be just, but if you argue that they can't behave then they can't be just and should be stopped. Note there are many examples of protests being violent in targeted ways that don't harm innocents, so I disagree with you here. There are just riots, but what we saw in USA wasn't that. Its just that when that happens it isn't called a riot, its just called a violent protest or something like that.