Rex Murphy: What gives Antifa the right to take over Seattle?

People gather on the street as they establish what they call an autonomous zone, while continuing to demonstrate against racial inequality and call for defunding the Seattle police, in Seattle, on June 11. NICK WOOD/VIA REUTERS

Certainly, Seattle has long been the center of Antifa, now, it is necessary to bring a collation that is having a week more than curious. And it is that the wave of protests and nights of looting and riots naturally visited the city of the west coast, where progressivism and its infinite causes always find a home. At first, when protesters surrounded the downtown police compound, the police, presumably in the interest of keeping things peaceful, abandoned their posts.

It should be noted that, even so, that station did not suffer the fate of one in Minneapolis, which was actually burned, but was boarded up and the police went elsewhere. However, when they decided to return, we discovered that the neighborhood had been dramatically altered. The area around the police building, a total of six blocks from the city, had been reportedly taken, invaded, and occupied, released from the sovereign control of the United States by an assembly of activists, and some renamed it El Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).

Challenging situation

Certainly one of the elements of taking over six complete blocks of a modern city is that, along with the pavement and streets, there are also people who live and drive in the area. Likewise, it has been indicated that anyone who lives in the now called “CHAZ” simply has to show the guards of their identity documents to come and go from their homes or places of work. A minor inconvenience in a free society. If you have identity documents and live or work in downtown Seattle, you are simply shown an assembly of strangers, some armed, a flipper of your affairs as a free citizen.

After all, Antifa appears to have claimed the right to take control of the city that is unprecedented in legal terms or social contracts, but simply because they fervently believe in what they are doing. For the sake of consistency, it would be fair to allow anyone else with strong beliefs to do the same.

It is necessary to point out the fact that some are following reports from Antifa members asking a business owner for $ 500 to “ensure the safety and protection of the community.”

There are many others of the same type who might ask about this particular situation. Likewise, all illustrate that our institutions are delicate and that in heated moments, people neglect or challenge the standard codes of democracy.

Source: Rex Murphy | National Post