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Three Ways Lockdowns Paved the Way for These Riots
[Mises.org] There were many reasons to oppose the COVID-19 lockdowns.They cost human lives in terms of deferred medical treatment. They cost human lives in terms of greater suicide and drug overdoses. Domestic abuse and child abuse have increased. Not according to San Diego County Law enforcement, which is based on , you know, FACTS and data. There is also good reason to believe that lockdowns don't actually work. The lockdown activists capitalized on media-stoked fear to push their authoritarian agenda based not on science, but on the whims of a handful of experts who insisted that they need not present any actual evidence that their bizarre, draconian, and extreme scheme was worth the danger posed to human rights, health, and the economic well-being of billions of human beings.
The lockdowns have created a situation in which millions of law-abiding citizens have been deemed criminals merely for seeking to make a living, leave their homes, or engage in peaceful trade. In many areas, violations of the lockdown orders have been‐or even still are, in many places‐treated as criminal acts by police. This has greatly increased negative interactions between police and citizens who by no moral definition are criminals of any sort. Many have already seen the stories: police arresting mothers for using playground equipment, police arresting business owners for using their own property, police beating people for the "crime" of standing on a sidewalk. Complicating the issue is the apparent fact that police have not enforced social distancing edicts "uniformly." Some have alleged, for example, that the NYPD has lopsidedly targeted nonwhites in enforcement: of the 40 people arrested [for social distancing violations in Brooklyn between March 17 and May 4], 35 were African American, 4 were Hispanic and 1 was white. The arrests were made in neighborhoods‐Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Cypress Hills and East New York‐which have large concentrations of blacks and Latinos. This may or may not reflect the reality of the general situation, but the fact is that the lockdowns created the perception among many that this is just yet another case of law enforcement targeting certain populations over small-time violations. Moreover, it is quite plausible that lower-income populations have more often been on the receiving end of state harassment in the name of social distancing. After all, compliance with lockdowns is something of a luxury reserved for higher-income, white-collar residents who can work from home and remain comfortable for long periods in their roomy houses. Working-class people and those with fewer resources are far more likely to need to find income and venture outside during lockdowns. This attracts the attention of police. Lockdown advocates, apparently in their usual state of extreme naïvete, perhaps believed that further empowering police to violently enforce government decrees against petty infractions would not lead to any unfortunate side effects down the road. Yet criminalizing millions of Americans and subjecting them to heightened police harassment is not a recipe for social tranquility. Worsening a Volatile Situation Of course, my comments here should not be interpreted as making excuses for rioters. Smashing up the property of innocent small business owners‐or worse, physically harming innocent people‐is reprehensible in all circumstances. But this isn't about making excuses. We're talking about avoiding extreme and immoral government policies (i.e., police-enforced lockdowns) that remove those institutions and conditions which are important in helping minimize conflict. Some may insist that the riots would have occurred no matter what, but it's easy to see how the lockdowns made a bad situation worse. Yes, some of the rioters are lifelong thugs who are always on the lookout for new opportunities to steal and maim. But experience suggests that the pool of people willing to engage in riots is often larger during periods of mass unemployment than during other periods. In addition, those people who exist on the margins of criminality‐the sorts of people for whom third places serve an important role in moderating their more antisocial tendencies‐are more likely to be swept up in these events when third places are abolished. And, as we have seen, lockdowns also create more opportunities for police abuse that ignite riots of the sort we've seen in recent days. It's true the responsibility for the riots lies primarily with the rioters. But we cannot deny that policymakers fuel the flames of conflict when they outlaw jobs and destroy people's social support systems by cutting them off from their communities. It's also wise to not provoke people by pushing for widespread human rights violations and additional police harassment. But this is what lockdown advocates have done, and their imprudence should not be forgotten. Posted by: Clem 2020-06-05 |
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