There Goes the Neighbourhood

Further to this comment here, Laurie Penny wants us to know that she knows more than the Ferguson jury:

Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit has coverage of the ongoing violence. 

As you can see, nothing says “we are righteous and entitled to deference” like smashing and looting a local woman’s cake shop. And smashing and looting the mini-market that Michael Brown robbed and then running away laughing, and looting the local phone shop, and burning down the local pharmacy, and burning down the local auto spares business, and the local pizza restaurant, and the local beautician’s, and then shooting at the firemen who are trying to put those fires out before other people lose their livelihoods too. You know, for “social justice.”

Other locals, however, have taken the high road – by bragging on Facebook about those lovely new shoes that were sourced somewhat mysteriously during the commotion. Note the new owner’s chosen hashtags: #NoJustice. #GotMine. Here’s a fellow protestor expressing his grief via the classic medium of big screen TV theft. And when words alone can’t express the woe, there’s always the option of carjacking the elderly and then running them over. 

Here’s an innovation by our betters on the left. Disapproval of “riot-shaming” is now a thing, apparently, and we mustn’t tut at people behaving like savages. Gawker’s Matt Bruenig, who writes about “economic justice,” goes further and says riots are a good thing, a way to chastise the police, and therefore we need more of them. Presumably, Mr Bruenig doesn’t expect himself ever to be on the receiving end of the violence and looting he endorses. Similar sentiments are aired by budding intellectual Laurie Penny, who reminds us that we mustn’t “condemn the violence of citizens hungry for justice.” So what to do? Well, fear not, Ms Penny and her chums are having a huge meeting about “what happens next.” 

Again, it’s worth noting that Laurie’s “huge meeting” and much of the protesting is based on the assumption that those doing the meeting and protesting know better than a jury that spent months studying the evidence and then made a decision according to the law. To assume one knows better than the jury - based on less information - is both begging the question and an act of hubris that’s hard to top. And yet many of the people doing it imagine themselves as righteous, even heroic.

Updated via the comments, which, as so often, is where the action is.