theamericanconservative | Teenager Kyle Rittenhouse’s shooting of three men in Kenosha,
Wisconsin, has sharpened the debate between left and right over whether
rioting can be justly met with violence. Opinions about Rittenhouse’s
attempt to interpose himself and his AR-15 between rioters and buildings
in Kenosha have become entangled with beliefs about the relative value
of property versus people, a juxtaposition dishonestly advanced by the
left.
Writing in The Nation, R.H. Lossin captured the
Left’s point of view artfully, proclaiming: “Plateglass [sic] windows
don’t bleed. They don’t die and leave loved ones grieving. They don’t
contribute to the collective trauma and terror experienced by their
communities. They just break, and then, at some point, they are replaced
by identical sheets of glass.”
Leaving aside her comical lack of curiosity about where, exactly,
sheets of glass come from, Lossin expresses a widespread sentiment, and
it has a certain indisputable logic: things are not, after all, people.
The response of too many on the right, unfortunately, has been to take the bait. They’re ably represented by National Review
editor Rich Lowry, who argued that the person-property distinction
neglects how people depend on their property for shelter and sustenance.
Destroy or steal it, and you inflict physical harm.
This
argument, while true, is the ante in a utilitarian shell game, wherein
we must weigh the value of property against the cost of harming someone
who wants to take it. Whether a store owner can resist people trying to
burn down his business suddenly turns on whether he has insurance. Or
his track record in the community, as when the author of the newly
released book, In Defense of Looting (on sale in soon-to-be
looted stores near you!) told NPR that small, locally owned businesses
don’t do enough for workers, and are therefore no more deserving of
protection than large chain stores. This property versus people framing
pushes conservatives into a losing corner: if you’re really pro-life,
how can you justify firing a shotgun at someone who just wants to smash a
window and take some of your stuff?
As with so many other
debates, conservatives lose the moment they adopt the left’s
materialism. What’s at stake in these riots is not property, but the
civic order. The most honest, ardent leftists admit as much. Looting is
imperative, writes R.H. Lossin, “not because property destruction has
any moral or political value in itself, but because it is coercive. It
is an actual threat to order and a very real threat to capital.”
Describing looting advocate Vicky Osterweil’s point of view, her fawning
NPR interviewer exclaims that rioters “are engaging in a powerful
tactic that questions the justice of ‘law and order,’ and the
distribution of property and wealth in an unequal society.”
While we quibble with a leftist intellectual vanguard about the
relative value of plate glass windows versus human life, mob rule is
being solidified as the new norm in our cities. The question is not
whether this should be met with force because of the inherent damage it
inflicts on property. The question is whether civil society is worth
preserving with violence.
This
question answers itself. When civil society disappears, individualized
violence is the only means of resolving disputes. In the state of
nature, red in tooth and claw, might makes right. Withdraw the police
long enough, and you get Kyle Rittenhouse. The shame of it is that so
many able-bodied men in Kenosha relied on a boy from Illinois to defend
their streets. The danger is that masses of them will begin to feel
similarly responsible for confronting hoodlums—as witnessed recently in
the streets of Portland.
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