https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/ongoing-riots-prove-again-dangers-appeasement-bruce-thornton/
The riots and protests that began in late May have been like wildfires of the sort currently blazing in California. Just as riots have lessened in intensity in some cities, in others they have flared up to new levels of destruction. In Kenosha Wisconsin, the arson has spread more widely, and fatal gun-battles have erupted between the “peaceful protestor” thugs and armed citizens defending their lives and property.
Also like the wildfires, the continuing violence is the consequence of unforced errors made by civic leaders in thrall to dubious ideologies. California is burning because of government environmental policies that encourage mismanagement such as not thinning its huge tracts of forest, resulting in lethal loads of dead and dying trees that provide abundant the fuel for the fires.
In the cities most afflicted with violent protests, mayors who embrace the progressive demonization of law enforcement and the racial melodrama about “systemic racism” have not acted quickly and vigorously enough to stop the violence before it escalated. Police have been ordered to stand down, restricted in their tactics and weapons, and left on their own without moral and material support from their civic bosses.
The ancient lesson has once again been proven: Failure to act preemptively and forcefully to violent disorder, and the appeasement of aggressors with concessions, lead to ever escalating levels of violence and mayhem.
America’s historically most destructive riot provides an object lesson. In July of 1863, New York erupted in widespread rioting over a recently passed federal law instituting a draft-lottery. Working class New Yorkers went on a rampage, attacking buildings and free blacks, who were not subject to the lottery. Five days of rioting left over 100 dead, including 11 black men who were lynched, 3000 blacks left homeless, 2000 blacks and whites wounded, and millions of dollars in property damage.
