Modern-day leftists have no understanding of how society builds wealth and prosperity. They revile those who create it, even as they post photos to the Internet from their iPhones. Do they believe such wonderful innovations fell from the sky? Didn’t any of their professors teach them about the violence, starvation, and misery that took place in Soviet Russia—and every other society that attacked the idea of private property?

“Destroying a small business is akin to destroying an artist’s studio, a scholar’s library or a chef’s kitchen,” wrote Steven Horwitz, a professor of free enterprise at Ball State University in Indiana. “It’s not just a matter of the loss of material goods, and insurance isn’t the point. It’s a loss of the space in which they make meaning in their lives and for others.” People who defend rioting defend the destruction of the very things that make us human. They are the ones being unjust.

I’m a strong defender of peaceful protests against police abuse and have been writing about the need for reform for years. But it’s one thing to peacefully march against injustice, and quite another to burn down what others built up. It’s a warning sign for our society when it doesn’t occur to a major news outlet that a defense of looting deserves more scrutiny than a puff interview.