A disturbing new trend has been emerging, one that transcends political divides and partisan affiliation. This trend is represented by the riots in summer 2020 after the death of George Floyd and the riots on Capitol Hill as Congress moved to certify Joe Biden as the president-elect.
It is now clear that there is an entire segment of the population that simply does not believe that the rule of law applies to it and that it is not limited to either end of the political spectrum. These people do not believe that the only way to sustain a country is to be a nation of laws; they do not believe in nonviolence as an implicit condition of conflict resolution in a liberal democracy. In economist Thomas Sowell’s book, A Conflict of Visions, he writes that these people “put their own interests or egos above the interests, feelings, or lives of others.”
If this trend continues, it could lead to the demise of our republic. Moreover, it could lead to more innocent lives being ruined. At least 25 people were killed because of riots in summer 2020, one rioter was killed by Capitol Police during the election-certification riots, and one officer was killed as well. For this reason, all well-meaning people both on the Left and on the Right must recognize this trend and commit to stopping it.
But how exactly do we prevent riots? The answer: We increase the costs of rioting. People will respond rationally to the increased costs of their crimes. After all, costs are designed to be prohibitive, both in the market and in the social sphere. If law enforcement signals that riots will not be met with unrelenting force, why would the criminals stop their rioting?
In practice, this means that it is a bad idea to make police passively watch as lawless thugs ransack stores, police precincts, and the U.S. Capitol. Rather, law enforcement must put down the riots swiftly and by any means necessary. If this means that more criminals are wounded in the short term, it is a price worth paying in order to reinforce the rule of law. As Sen. Tom Cotton pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “The best way to maintain or restore order is an overwhelming display of force, which often can prevent the use of force.” In other words, increased force toward the rioters in the short run will result in less absolute need for force in the long run.
The issue is that the costs of aggression have remained low for rioters. It is for this reason there were nearly 600 violent protests, also known as riots, after the death of George Floyd. It is also the reason Trump sycophants felt that they could invade and trash the U.S. Capitol. Maybe, if more aggressive action had been taken in the first instance, secondary riots could be prevented.
Those who judge this solution as too harsh should take a lesson from 18th-century economist and philosopher Adam Smith, who famously said that “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” For every riot that goes unpunished, innocent lives are ruined. It may seem humane simply to give the rioters “some space,” but it does not come without a tremendous cost to society at large.
The question, ultimately, is who must bear the costs of rioting: the rioters or the innocent? For moral people spanning the ideological spectrum, the answer should be clear.
Jack Elbaum is a freshman at George Washington University. You can contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Jack_Elbaum.
