Riots? What Riots?

 After all these years of Antifa violence in the streets, we still know very little about their makeup because the press hasn’t been interested in reporting on them.

Judging from mug shots, they tend to be ugly people with bad teeth and even worse taste in grooming.

A remarkable fraction in Portland are some version of transgender. Oregon has offered free transsexual health services for several years, so perhaps the state attracts this type of mentally ill person from across the country?

Also common are drug addicts, sex offenders, punk rock fans, educators, and general lowlifes who have personal reasons for hating cops. On the other hand, they don’t seem particularly interested in stealing nice things the way the black looters are.

The riots tend to go on the longest in places like Portland where there are few blacks, so it’s easier to theorize about what they must be like.

Ethnically, Antifa arrestees tend to be of Anglo or German stock, with not that many Catholics or Jews. (There has been little Antifa rioting in heavily Jewish cities like New York and Los Angeles.) Some are from affluent backgrounds, but more appear from their lack of orthodontic care to have always been fairly downscale.

Are Antifa led by behind-the-scenes masterminds? Perhaps, but their actions don’t seem anywhere near as clever as, say, those of Hong Kong demonstrators. They seem to mostly succeed by having Democratic politicians on their side.

Are Antifa being funded with George Soros’ money? I don’t know. To me, what they are doing doesn’t look all that expensive, especially during a time when government cash is flowing to the unemployed.

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One obvious response to looting is shooting, which gets the deterrent message through quickly and vividly.

For example, the teenage marksman Kyle Rittenhouse appears to have single-handedly ended the Kenosha riots by shooting the three Antifa who attacked him. The Texas Rangers cherish the phrase “One Riot, One Ranger,” but in Kenosha, it was “One Teen, No Riot.”

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Of course, the fundamental problem is political rather than technical: Democratic governors and mayors haven’t wanted to arrest the criminals.

But it would be reasonable after Nov. 3 to treat race rioting as a federal civil rights offense. Rioting over race should be treated as a hate crime and punished accordingly.

After all, one lesson of 2020 is that the country will have to be reorganized on the unifying principle that the equal protection of the laws applies to all races, not just to the privileged ones. To survive, the United States of America can no longer afford to treat some races as above the law.