By The Editorial Board | The Wall Street Journal
After police fall back, protesters declare a
new ‘autonomous zone.’
People
walk past street art that reads "Welcome to CHAZ" inside what is
being called the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" in Seattle, June 11. Photo: Ted S. Warren/Associated Press
The founding of any new nation is worthy of note, and so
it is with the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, several blocks of Seattle that
have been seized by protesters, Occupy Wall Street types and assorted
opportunists. Now it’s up to the citizens of the CHAZ, adapting Federalist
No. 1, to decide the important question: whether anarchies of men are
capable or not of establishing good government.
This week the Seattle police withdrew from
their East Precinct in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, after threats that it
would be torched. The cops removed barricades and began
“decreasing our footprint,” Chief Carmen Best said, as the protesters had
requested. Ms. Best called it “an exercise in trust and de-escalation.” But
human nature abhors a vacuum, and CHAZ revolutionaries soon declared their
autonomy.
As a cardboard sign at the border of the CHAZ warns: “You
are now leaving the USA.” Seattle residents report “that they have been
subjected to barricades set up by the protesters,” Assistant Chief Deanna
Nollette said on Wednesday, “with some armed individuals running them as
checkpoints into the neighborhood.” Open carry is legal in Washington state.
CHAZites have also set up medic stations and a “No Cop
Co-Op” to distribute snacks. There were rumors of a rudimentary system of
taxation, “reports of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to
operate within this area,” Ms. Nollette said, although this is in dispute and
hasn’t been substantiated.
She added that police were interested in a dialogue with
the Foreign Ministers of the CHAZ, if any could be contacted. “There is a whole
city-wide effort at this point,” Ms. Nollette said, “to try to identify who the
leaders are.”
At a gathering of CHAZites Wednesday, there was talk of
perhaps forming governance. “In a leaderless movement there has to be people
stepping up to be leaders,” argued a protester identified as Rell, per the
Seattle Times. That night, a crowd enjoyed a funk-rap concert by the band
Marshall Law.
By Thursday the CHAZ had established that universal
symbol of statehood: a website. It explains itself as “an emerging community
based on mutual aid,” yet one with an ugly history: “Although we have liberated
Free Capitol Hill in the name of the people of Seattle, we must not forget that
we stand on land already once stolen from the Duwamish People.”
There’s a list of demands, which run from free college,
to “the de-gentrification of Seattle,” to amnesty for crimes committed “against
the terrorist cell that previously occupied this area known as the Seattle
Police Department.” But the future of this new micronation is yet to be
written. As one founding father told the Seattle Times: “I support this, but
what’s next?”
President Trump denounced all this in tweets, but for
once he should let it speak for itself. The good progressives of Washington
allowed the CHAZ to rise, and now they can decide whether to invade the enclave
or let it become a new republic, if they can keep it. The city of Seattle says
it has “arranged for garbage cans and portable toilets to be placed in the
vicinity for use by demonstrators.” Let’s see how progressive this paradise
looks in a month.
