Looting is Bad; It should be Condemned

Here are some of the basic rules for having a functional society:
-Don’t hurt other people
-Don’t take their stuff or destroy what belongs to them.

That’s basically the Golden Rule, isn’t it? Treat people like you would want to be treated. It’s also kind of at the heart of the social agreement.

Now, unfortunately, the Minneapolis police officers who killed George Floyd already broke the first part. They hurt someone. They killed someone.

That doesn’t mean it’s now fine to steal or destroy someone’s property. Whether it’s a black-owned shop or a mega Target it’s wrong to smash, burn, loot or grab. And it’s not wrong to SAY it is wrong. George Floyd’s brother has said the destruction and theft is NOT cool. I’m with Mr. Floyd’s brother and I think the majority of the protesters are with him too.

Who’s protesting peacefully? From what I’ve seen, almost all of the protesters are doing so peacefully.

Who’s looting and destroying? That one’s a little more complicated.

I think you have a few types. You’ve got the opportunist, sociopath criminal. The type of person who sees people demonstrating peacefully but passionately...and uses it as perfect cover for their opportunistic criminality.

Next, I think you’ve got some people who didn’t head out planning to pillage but see the looting already occurring, the police standing down and the figured, “Eh...might as well.”

Then I think you’ve got others who would claim they would NEVER steal. But , they also see a store already in the process of being looted, realize at this rate everything will be gone in an hour and ONLY THEN decide they may as well get in on it because “SOMEBODY is going to take all this stuff; why can’t I get mine.

But I also think you’ve got some who are protesting that are sickened and angry about people using the legitimate anger to destroy or loot things that aren’t ours. That includes businesses owned by people actually IN the community, our high temples of corporate Commerce like a Super Target or a group of sociopaths burning a homeless man’s mattress in Austin. How are so many people having trouble condemning this kind of behavior?

Let’s condemn bad behavior when we see it. The death of George Floyd was bad behavior by the cops. Looting an elderly black woman‘s store is bad behavior. Not calling it such is also bad. Let’s try to be less bad.