Anti-Mubarak Protests Trigger Looting, Arson Attacks (Video) (Bloomberg) Looting engulfs Cairo, other Egyptian cities (Bloomberg, January 29, 2011) Looters rip heads off 2 mummies at Egyptian Museum (Bloomberg, January 29, 2011) Metro AG Says Both Cairo Stores Looted During Unrest (Bloomberg, January 31, 2011) Hardee's restaurants looted, closed in Egypt (Los Angeles Business, February 1, 2011) Egyptian seed bank looted (Nature, February 1, 2011)
"Would-be looters broke into Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, ripping the heads off two mummies and damaging about 10 small artifacts before being caught and detained by army soldiers, Egypt's antiquities chief said Saturday."
How dare those statist pigs interfere with the revolution!
"Anarchism misunderstands the real nature of man. It would be practicable only in a world of angels and saints" - Ludwig von Mises
I detect sarcasm. Are you saying that the existence of the destruction of private property is a justification for the state?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
For some reason I'm still puzzled why people choose to comment on peoples' situations that have nothing to do with them, particularly when there is obviously a traumatic situation going on. This is why no one should trust an intellectual as far as they can throw them, they turn every real person and action into an Aesop.
3 months ago no one gave a fig about a single person or thing in Egypt (minus the Pyramids), and when bored opportunistic Westerners start caring, I feel sorry for the poor SOB's under their radar of concern.
This is the trade-off in every revolt. You are setting back investor’s confidence by the turmoil and you expect them to provide more capital in the future due to the allegedly improved freedoms this revolt will bring. It’s an investment which one expects to pay back in time its costs in capital. As many investments, its is very risky. Chile succeeded. In the case of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, as I wrote elsewhere in the forum, this investment will end up having a negative net present value. Autocracy is better than democracy, but there’s no point in trying to convince anyone now that the damage has been done.
Obviously not, it is clear the looters should have been allowed to destroy the Egyptian antiquities without interference from statist soldiers. The ReVoLution! seems to be an economic boom for Eygpt,
Businesses stay closed amid fear of looting (Financial Times, January 31, 2011) BG, Statoil Halt Drilling in Egypt as Unrest Escalates (Bloomberg, January 31, 2011) Coca-Cola, Cisco Scaling Back in Egypt Amid Protests (Bloomberg, January 31, 2011) Egypt unrest casts dark cloud on investments (Bloomberg, January 31, 2011) Egypt's economy hurt as travelers avoid the unrest (Businessweek, January 31, 2011) Lafarge Halts Output in Egypt Until Unrest Diminishes (Bloomberg, January 31, 2011) Nissan Closes Egypt Plant After Political Protests (Bloomberg, January 31, 2011) P&G closes Egypt plants, office (Bloomberg, January 31, 2011) UBS Will Temporarily Close Representative Office in Egypt (Bloomberg, January 31, 2011) Egypt unrest could impact aviation in region (Bloomberg, February 1, 2011) Egypt Unrest May Drive Up LNG Trading Costs for Asia, Europe (Bloomberg, February 1, 2011)
I am overwhelmed by the number of signs saying,
"اعطني الحرية وسياسة عدم التدخل" (Give me Liberty and Laissez-faire)
Viva La ReVoLution!!!
Are you seriously arguing that the destruction of private property is benefiting the economy?
He's trying to use the Egyptian riots to say that the state is necessary and anarchy is chaos.
Here's a story highlighting spontaneous order of property rights protection during the chaos.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_egypt_neighborhood_watch
Civilians watch over neighborhoods in Egypt chaos CAIRO – When Egypt's police melted from the streets of Cairo this weekend, the people stepped in. Civilians armed with knives, axes, golf clubs, firebombs, metal bars and makeshift spears watched over many neighborhoods in the sprawling capital of 18 million this weekend, defending their families and homes against widespread looting and lawlessness. The thugs had exploited the chaos created by the largest anti-government protests in decades and the military failed to fill the vacuum left by police. ... Mohammed Gafaar, a 34-year old salesman in the Nasr City area, said his neighborhood watch organized soon after the night curfew went into force at 4 p.m. They did it at the behest of residents, who appealed for protection of their property, sending out the call from the local mosque. ... Akram al-Sharif, a 33-year old Cairo resident who lives in one of the affluent compounds in the city's west at the edge of the desert, said locals hired twenty bedouins with guns, and organized into groups to protect the five gates of the compound. ... On Saturday, the tens of thousands of police who normally patrol the streets vanished. Security officials, asked why they disappeared, said that remained unclear. But the police, who are hated by many, may have been seen as just fanning the flames. Throughout the day, shops and malls were ransacked and burned, and residents of affluent neighborhoods began reporting burglaries by gangs of thugs roaming the streets with knives and guns. By mid-afternoon, shopowners and residents were boarding up their stores and houses. Gangs of armed men attacked jails, sending thousands of inmates into the unpoliced streets. As night fell, the neighborhood watches took up where the police left off. In the affluent neighborhood of Zamalek, where many foreigners live and embassies are located, groups of young men, some as large as 40 people, set up barricades on every street entrance to the island in the middle of the Nile. In other neighborhoods, residents wore arm bands to identify each other and prevent infiltrators from coming into their midst. In Zamalek, a handwritten announcement hanging on a street window asked people to register their names for neighborhood defense committees. Watch groups armed themselves with a makeshift arsenal of shovels, baseball bats, whips, and the occasional shotgun. Young men organized themselves into shifts, and locals brought tea and other snacks. "We have these firebombs, just in case," said Amm Saleh, the doorman of a building in Zamalek. "Some of these thugs are armed with knives and guns, so we have to be able to defend ourselves," he added, showing off a line of kerosene-filled bottles with paper wicks ready for action. Neighborhood guardians set up metal barricades and stopped cars, questioning them about their destinations and street addresses and sometimes searching them. With many roads blocked, drivers went the wrong way on largely empty one-way streets to get around. Long after midnight, gunshots rang out on a scenic street along the Nile, near the Indian embassy and the Algerian ambassador's residence. One youth said the neighborhood watch confronted the passengers of a car, one with a firearm, and persuaded them to leave. ...
Civilians watch over neighborhoods in Egypt chaos
CAIRO – When Egypt's police melted from the streets of Cairo this weekend, the people stepped in.
Civilians armed with knives, axes, golf clubs, firebombs, metal bars and makeshift spears watched over many neighborhoods in the sprawling capital of 18 million this weekend, defending their families and homes against widespread looting and lawlessness.
The thugs had exploited the chaos created by the largest anti-government protests in decades and the military failed to fill the vacuum left by police.
...
Mohammed Gafaar, a 34-year old salesman in the Nasr City area, said his neighborhood watch organized soon after the night curfew went into force at 4 p.m. They did it at the behest of residents, who appealed for protection of their property, sending out the call from the local mosque.
Akram al-Sharif, a 33-year old Cairo resident who lives in one of the affluent compounds in the city's west at the edge of the desert, said locals hired twenty bedouins with guns, and organized into groups to protect the five gates of the compound.
On Saturday, the tens of thousands of police who normally patrol the streets vanished. Security officials, asked why they disappeared, said that remained unclear. But the police, who are hated by many, may have been seen as just fanning the flames.
Throughout the day, shops and malls were ransacked and burned, and residents of affluent neighborhoods began reporting burglaries by gangs of thugs roaming the streets with knives and guns. By mid-afternoon, shopowners and residents were boarding up their stores and houses.
Gangs of armed men attacked jails, sending thousands of inmates into the unpoliced streets.
As night fell, the neighborhood watches took up where the police left off.
In the affluent neighborhood of Zamalek, where many foreigners live and embassies are located, groups of young men, some as large as 40 people, set up barricades on every street entrance to the island in the middle of the Nile.
In other neighborhoods, residents wore arm bands to identify each other and prevent infiltrators from coming into their midst. In Zamalek, a handwritten announcement hanging on a street window asked people to register their names for neighborhood defense committees.
Watch groups armed themselves with a makeshift arsenal of shovels, baseball bats, whips, and the occasional shotgun. Young men organized themselves into shifts, and locals brought tea and other snacks.
"We have these firebombs, just in case," said Amm Saleh, the doorman of a building in Zamalek. "Some of these thugs are armed with knives and guns, so we have to be able to defend ourselves," he added, showing off a line of kerosene-filled bottles with paper wicks ready for action.
Neighborhood guardians set up metal barricades and stopped cars, questioning them about their destinations and street addresses and sometimes searching them. With many roads blocked, drivers went the wrong way on largely empty one-way streets to get around.
Long after midnight, gunshots rang out on a scenic street along the Nile, near the Indian embassy and the Algerian ambassador's residence. One youth said the neighborhood watch confronted the passengers of a car, one with a firearm, and persuaded them to leave.
Poptech:Hardee's restaurants looted, closed in Egypt (Los Angeles Business, February 1, 2011)
They have Hardee's in Egypt? And yet they still riot? I guess a people aren't really free until they have Sonics.
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
Seems a rather shortsighted point.
On the one hand museums are not private property. On the other hand, any type of big change will lead to expropriation. Even a libertarian one -- of any kind. For one because there is so much government property and two: because there is an unsustainable and irrational system of political privilege. Similar to a recession under centralized banking. Hoppe and Rothbard, not to mention many others, have talked about this at length.
To those who are criticizing them for not putting 'go free market capitalism!" on their signs. Do you cheer when little old ladies or black people get tasered by the police if they are not libertarians? Do you cheer the war in Iraq to support imperialism over their own autonomous government? Because they are not libertarians? It seems you have your blinders on. This seems to be driving some people into the type of cynicism that makes Cheneys and Rumsfelds.
Wouldn't this barrage of links be better suited for RevLeft or another left-leaning site? Libertarians/Liberals are pretty anti-violence and support commerce and private property. (In fact, most would only support violence when its in defense of private property)
I only know of Hardee's to exist on toll roads, they are surprisingly not bad. I guess I am under a tyranical yoke though due to not having a Sonics, even though I see their commercials all the time. We do have a Chik-Fil-A though, there is some fast food that can bring peace on Earth.
Seriously though, what is the point of this thread? That rioting is dangerous and unprofitable for most, I think most people share that sentiment.
(censored comment by the practitioners of liberty)
What are you talking about? Who is this directed at?
What the heck is this all about? I'm confused.
@ Angurse and William
I moved Poptech's post to his own thread on the subject. We can keep this as the sarcasm thread, and the other as the non-sarcasm thread.
It is clear Museums should be razed and burned to the ground as antiquity museums are obviously signs of statist imperialism!
Yes of course I ALWAYS cheer when the statist pigs tazer innocent people as that clearly relates to what signs ReVoLutionaries hold. Your direct leap of logical connections is breathtaking to behold.
Daniel Muffinburg, it is nice to see you practicing censorship because you do not approve of the comments. Did you learn this tactic in your statist reeducation camp?
I detect sarcasm. Anyway, since when is moving a post "censorship"? Did I delete you post? Nooo. Is moving a book in a library from the current events section to the humor section considered "censorship"? Btw, when I first the read the post I moved, I thought you had accidentally made the post in the wrong thread; I'd thought you had meant to make the post here.
Being that I am confused as I can be, and assuming you just aren't trying to goad people (which very well may be the case), I'm going to try to make sense of all this:
How many people here do you think are outright revolutionaries? I would hope it would be, at most, a very small minority. We're cosmopolitan capitalists, bloody revolutions and heroic myths just aren't in our blood.
Revolutionaries hate us, we are too bourgoise
Human Rights watch have claimed that these lootings were done by the authorities.
If it is not justly owned private property, then its owners have as such ceded their rights in proportion to their violation of the rights of others.
That said, I personally wish that they wouldn't destroy artifacts and art. Cover all the government buildings in graffiti, or even destroy them, but save the artifacts. I am not, however, offended by the fact that those retaliating against government oppression do not share my valuation of historical artifacts, and it is certainly no justification for a condemnation of the Egyptian protests.
" It is clear Museums should be razed and burned to the ground as antiquity museums are obviously signs of statist imperialism!
Yes of course I ALWAYS cheer when the statist pigs tazer innocent people as that clearly relates to what signs ReVoLutionaries hold. Your direct leap of logical connections is breathtaking to behold."
It is clear you are cheering on corrupt police and a known torture regime, for trolly purposes. And justifying it through allegations or cynical assumptions about the political views of those at large. And hence they deserve the brutal repression that they have receieved thus far. There is no difference between this and saying anyone else deserves the same. It is no different than if this happened when it was not a revolution, in fact. Theft of private property occurs in all societies and in all scenarios. Whatever point you are making is moot.
Someone -- probably the authorities themselves -- looted the museums, so all Egyptians innocent or no are anti-private property. That is your own lunatic logical connection.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/31/egypts-treasures-saved-looters-vandals/
Museum and artifacts should be burned? The museums themselves are probably not a target and I heard nothing about burning or razing. But the artifacts would be preserved with private owners. Quit being such an hysterical little strawmanist.
They have to be privately owned before they are private property, if that is the theory. But the failure to manage public property, is the failure of the state itself. In this case not because of the museum, but because the regime is hopeless. Yes, public museums are a sign of statism, if it is run by the state. QED. But you see museums, since they are no different than any other building, can be owned by private people. Imperialism? Now you're being an idiot.
Are there actually signs that say give me liberty and laisse faire?
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
Signs that say "democracy" are still better than the status quo.
Yes of course the retail locations were not justly owned and the Egyptian National Museum is the embodiment of statist imperial oppression! When Egyptians look upon the museum and its contents of antiquity they seethe with rage at how it has violated their rights! How dare the state be responsible for such egregious violations! Deface the museum in the name of liberty!
But that is exactly what I say, who cares if someone does not value historical artifacts? Clearly they therefore have the right to destroy them! For such is your rights in a truly "free" society.
Certainly no condemnation can be made for those expressing their "rights" through looting and arson! Anyone who disagrees is a statist pig.
Angurse: Signs that say "democracy" are still better than the status quo. Really?
A republic (which is what most people mean when they say "democracy") is more free than a dictatorship, yes.
Ah, yes just like I had expected the looters are state sponsored operatives who have been through the reeducation camps. As no such looting would ever exist without the state as all men are clearly angels and saints.
Angurse: A republic (which is what most people mean when they say "democracy") is more free than a dictatorship, yes. Doesn't that depend on the dictator vs. the potential representatives?
Any republic that more than nominally represents (i.e., functions as a republic and not a glorified oligarchy) the interests of even a relatively small portion of the Egyptian populace would be more free than the current Egyptian dictatorship. I was overly general in that first statement.
PopTech: knock it off with the smug sarcasm, already. Sheesh.
I'll take your word for it.
Here only anarchists can be smug, self-absorbed, demeaning.
Hopefully not, but bias is a very real concern. I would hope a double standard would be brought to people's attention with specific examples.
Big mistake, I’m afraid. The copts especially will be having a rough ride:
One of the countries surveyed was Egypt, and among other discoveries, the Pew researchers found that 84 percent of Egyptians favor the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion.