Seattle anarchists and their lunatic fringe list of demands

OPINION:

Anarchists masquerading as social justice activists and George Floyd sympathizers who’ve taken over streets in Seattle and set up a Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, CHAZ, in which no police are allowed have a list of demands for local and state governing officials that clearly shows A) they’re unaccustomed to normal political bartering that includes give-and-take, concession for success, diplomacy as part and parcel of the dance — and B) they’re nuts.

And not just any old nuts. The kind of nuts that takes years to hone and develop.

Meanwhile, America take note: the takeover of Seattle’s streets is just the beginning.

Defund enough police, dismantle enough departments, handcuff — figuratively — enough law enforcement officers from doing their jobs and similar uprisings will come to communities near you. And me. And those of our children.

These are not your peace-talking, peaceful-walking Martin Luther King, Jr., protesters.

These are armed rebels, bent on toppling societal structures in order to usher in a new nation, one where chaos rules, lawlessness leads and anger feeds.

“Activists take over a Seattle neighborhood, banishing the police,” The Washington Post reported.

“Seattle’s ’autonomous zone’ has armed guards, local businesses being threatened with extortion, police say,” Fox News reported.

And they show no signs of leaving — or laying down arms.

“The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone Just Keeps Growing,” wrote The Stranger.

So what is it they want?

Everything — everything far leftist, and the kitchen sink.

A webpage, CapHillAuto.zone, with the banner, “CHAZ: You Are Now Leaving The USA” and “Welcome to Free Capitol,” lists the demands of the “collective black voices” at the Seattle scene, as petitioned to the city government.

They include the abolition of the Seattle Police Department and local court system; the banning of ICE operations within city limits; a halt of any armed force against citizens; reparations for “victims of police brutality, in a form to be determined;” amnesty for all protesters; and the release and expunging of records of all city and state prisoners currently behind bars for marijuana offenses or for resisting arrest.

There are more.

“We demand an end to the school-to-prison pipeline and the abolition of youth jails,” the site reads.

“We demand … the federal government launch a full-scale investigation into past and current cases of police brutality in Seattle and Washington,” the site continues.

“We demand that prisoners currently serving time be given the full and unrestricted right to vote,” the site states.

And more: No more immunity for police. No more prisons, “generally speaking, but especially” for youth. No more criminal justice as it stands, but rather a replacement “restorative/transformative accountability” system.

And yet even more: Let the people self-police for crime, the petition states. Let the police return all “lost and found” properties to the “denizens of the city,” the petition reads. Let the police immediately turn on all body cameras, and release all video for public viewing, the petition reads.

“We demand that the funding … for Seattle Police be redirected into socialized health and medicine for the city of Seattle; free public housing, because housing is a right, not a privilege; public eduction … naturalization services for immigrants to the United States living here undocumented. (We demand thy be called ’undocumented’ because no person is illegal),” the petition continues.

There are still more.

The list breaks into specific economic demands — “the de-gentrification of Seattle, starting with rent control,” for example, and “free college for the people of the state of Washington,” for another example.

Then it breaks into specific health and human services demands — that hospitals in the city “employ black doctors and nurses specifically to help care for black patients,” for example.

Then it breaks into specific education demands — that “the history of black and Native Americans be given a significantly greater focus” in Washington schools, for example, or that “thorough anti-bias training become a legal requirement for all jobs in the education system, as well as in thee medical profession and in mass media,” for another example.

Does this sound like the campaign of people bent on real reform, trying to strike reasonable compromises, fully willing to come to the table to talk sensible shop?

Or the mindless fancies of the lunatic fringe? Obviously.

But that Democrats in these Democrat-controlled streets haven’t booted these lunatic fringers speaks volumes about the Democrat Party.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.