Are you implying law enforcement did a better job of “stopping riots” and destruction prior the current methods? https://www.cnbc.com/2011/02/01/Americas-Most-Destructive-Riots-of-All-Time.html
As a matter of fact he was NOT in violation of a legal curfew. Both prosecution and defense ended out agreeing on that, thus the charge was dropped with the judge otherwise being prepared to dismiss it. There was bloviating by the governor or mayor or someone about a curfew being requested or announced but no actualization or completion or prefection of the steps required for a formal declaration. Calling for a curfew and declaring one are different. They are close but they are not playing horse shoes in court.
So all the riots listed in the article are in 1960 or later -- the sole exception being the NYC 1863 Civil War draft riot. Yes... I am saying the politicians and police did a better job at stopping riots prior 1960 because they took deliberate measures to squash riots to avoid financial damages from being charged to the government.
I was actually going to mention that. Most commercial insurance policies won't indemnify for losses incurred as a result of civil unrest. So, what's a business owner supposed to do? Then not only will they incur a loss on their inventory, but the landlord will certainly (attempt) to go after them too. It's a big mess. That's why we pay friggin' taxes.... to have police. And commercial RE is even taxed at a higher rate. I bet the owner of that car lot is cheering for this kid.
Remember prior to 1960 the job of police was to "keep the peace". Some departments even had this in their logos in earlier times. The idea of keeping the peace is long gone... now it is rioters ranting about defunding the police. City governments, insurance companies and other entities all walked away from having any financial responsibility for damages during "civil unrest". It is a sad that our system since the 1960s allowed these entities to walk-away from their basic responsibilities.
Again Rittenhouse was neither the owner of any of that property or a resident of that specific block so his actions were not noble by any means. The owner of the car lot has losses whether a private citizen rides in like Wyatt Earp shooting up people or not. What if Ritti fired in a panic and it passed through a window and killed a child... is he still a hero or would the community suddenly change its mind and condemn Rittenhouse as a criminal. You dont think a 17 yeard old could fire recklessly in the air or miss and a stray bullet would kill a cop or innocent person hiding in their home?
I suppose this is an opinion. We used to have all our wars in this country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
It is true- to your point- without going into the historical picture- that the root cause of the disastrous night in Kenosha was the failure of the government to put down the destruction and clear the area- of all parties. And the root cause of the failure was that the the presidential candidate and the vice presidential candidate had sided with the protesters/rioters and in fact had been to kenosha to kiss the rings of their families and supporters. Allowing that type of criminal chaos under the banner or peaceful protests was the democrat prescribed response, kamala even out donating to bail funds there or elsewhere. To put the riot down was considered to be supporting Trump. As a result the citizens of Kenosha were the sacrificial lambs for that political drama to play out. And it went very badly. Independent of but also including the Rittenhouse thing. The local and state government failed their citizenry in every possible way. You can convict rittenhouse or not and I will say the same thing. Even dumb-arse portland is beginning to look at how they turned their city to rubble- figuratively speaking- but literally in many cases- and are asking "what the fuck were we thinking. now we are out tryng to recruit police back and trying to tell others that downtown portland is a great place to live and do business." They needed to call in the National Guard. Otherwise, you are watching the citizenry duke it out on the streets. Hopefully, they have learned that lesson because they could very well be confronted with that decision again at any moment.
And as noted... the miners lived in company towns. And you can bet that the company was compensated by the government and/or insurance companies for damage to their property due to striking miners who wanted to unionize. The other theme is that the Federal government and or private security firms such as Pinkerton immediately sent in heavily armed troops or agents to deal with strikers during this era. This usually led to bloodshed and the breaking of the strike. Today -- we merely have police who stand-down as riots encompass entire cities leading to large scale property damage and looting. They don't even call up the national guard usually in this "defund the police" era.