It is an economic truism that when you subsidize something you get more of it. Perhaps if the leftists of Washington state weren’t so accepting of violence to achieve political means then incidents like this would not occur because the violent would think twice. Thus does another city on the Left Coast bring trouble upon itself. The state needs to reexamine its policy priorities over a wide swath of issues. This is just one.

FNC: “City officials in Olympia, Wash., on Tuesday condemned the actions of activists aligned with the group Oly Housing Now, after the forcible occupation of a hotel over the weekend to demand pandemic housing for the homeless, according to a report.

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‘I’m calling this crime an act of domestic terrorism,’ Olympia Mayor Cheryl Selby said at a city council meeting on Tuesday, according to the Olympian. The group of approximately 45 people barged into the Downtown Olympia Red Lion Hotel around 11 a.m. local time Sunday ‘armed with items such as hatchets, batons, knives and had gas masks, helmets, and goggles apparently in preparation for a confrontation,’ the city announced in a press release.”

Selby commented, “This created an active crime scene that necessitated a police response appropriate to the scale of the actions of these terrorists…Making sure our unhoused residents have access to safe and affordable housing has been Olympia’s priority for more than a decade…Olympia has led on responding to homelessness, on coordinating shelter and other basic needs. The tactics used today by Oly Housing Now are unproductive and won’t make the mission more attainable.”

“The group’s demands made no sense,” City Councilwoman Renata Rollins said. “They read like they were copied and pasted from some other community’s struggle because whoever penned them had no context for what’s actually going on in Olympia and Thurston County…This wasn’t activism, this was nihilism. And it caused so much unnecessary preventable harm.” Exactly and it is refreshing to hear it put that way by an elected official. But we would guess, when it comes to denouncing leftist violence, she is in the Washington state minority.

The scenario? USA Today, “At 11 a.m. Sunday guests inside the Red Lion Hotel began calling 911 to report a group was attempting to ‘take over the hotel’ and an employee was allegedly assaulted, according to the Olympia Police Department. Police estimated about 45 members of the activist group Oly Housing Now were inside and outside the hotel, some of whom were allegedly armed with hatchets, batons and knives. Seven people were arrested on charges, including burglary and trespassing, according to KIRO-TV, and more arrests were expected. About 40 rooms in the hotel were booked at the time and guests sheltered in their rooms while employees were escorted out of the basement.” This was an example of thugs taking over private property. It is devoid of real ideological or policy motivations. Just thieving thugs who thought they could get away with it in a leftist state.