Article by Patricia McCarthy in "The American Thinker":
As Americans watch some of our major cities ravaged by
rioting, looting and the vandalization or destruction of monuments to
our nation’s past with impunity, it is, for those of us of a certain
age, a moment to reflect on the depredations of the French Revolution.
But let us not be confused by the differences.
The French Revolution took its cues from our own
Revolutionary War for independence from England but theirs went all
wrong. The devastatingly poor of Paris were well and truly abused by
the Parisian aristocracy. They were treated as less than human.
Of course, the British aristocracy thought the same of the
American colonists, but they were by an ocean removed and the colonists
were made of sterner stuff than the Brits sent to defeat them for
England.
The Jacqueries of France in 1789 had good reason to set about
murdering their abusers and of course got rabidly carried away, killing
by guillotine every member of the aristocracy they could capture as
well as anyone even remotely related to them, no matter how
innocent. Sound familiar?
Our rioters and looters of late have been gleefully knocking
down statues of great or not so great men of our past with relish and
abandon. The difference is that our monument-destroyers have no clue
who the bronzed and marbleized men they are tearing down were or why
they were memorialized. Sure, the Confederate generals are easy, but
they are ruining countless statues of abolitionists, generals who fought
against slavery, men like Gandhi and Churchill. A woman in the UK who
had defaced a statue of Churchill, when asked who he was, had no idea;
none at all.
Higher education has failed two generations of university students, for that is precisely who is showing up to “burn down the whole system” as a BLM “leader” Hawk Newsome in NY told several
gushing cable news hosts. They are going to “shove legislation down
our throats.” These violent rioters are insisting their demands be met
or else! Or else?
It seems they actually think that 300+ million people are
going to kneel down and cave to their accusations of racism when in fact
this is the least racist nation on the planet. Unlike the French
Revolution when masses of truly impoverished people rebelled against
their self-appointed betters, this time, here in 2020, it is the
self-appointed elites who are inciting the protesters for their own
ends, their principal goal being to defeat President Trump.
Black Lives Matter and Antifa are well-funded Marxist groups
whose intentions are absolutely to burn down America as founded. They
are merely the latest incarnations of SDS and the Weather Underground
and all the other sundry narcissistic anti-American organizations that
see themselves as leading this century’s cultural revolution.
They’ve not been taught how badly these enterprises can end. Robespierre? Stalin? Mao? Who are they?
As for men like Churchill, Eisenhower and Reagan who saved
Western Civilization, these anarchists know nothing. They only know
they want to tear it all down because this country is so racist, so
inequitable. The fact that our African Americans, like all Americans,
immigrant or native born, have a better quality of life here than in any
other country is not at all relevant to these malcontents. They thrive
on anger. It’s how they’ve been taught to see their world, as perennial
victims.
Identity politics has ruined the lives of all those who buy
into this nonsense. For this we must blame the academics, who have so
determinedly inculcated their students with either a victim mentality
or a guilty-white-privilege mentality, and the parents who raised kids
who were so unable to think critically they were easily indoctrinated
with these late 20th century maladies that have so damaged the American
psyche.
It is tragically clear that the childish “leaders” of
CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle, of the anti-police movement, the
monument-destroying thugs and the rest of the idle young who lack an
ounce of gratitude for being born in the greatest nation ever founded
are characterized by one thing above all: ignorance. This includes the
idiot mayors and governors who support and defend these dissidents who
take their cities hostage as they prostrate themselves before them.
The delicious schadenfreude in all this is that among the
violent protesters there are no truckers, plumbers, electricians,
mechanics, pharmacists, doctors, police, fire-fighters, grocery store
workers, and other salt of the earth Americans. Those people are busy
keeping the rest of us up and running. They did not attend a
prestigious university that taught them to hate the country of their
birth or choice. They do feel gratitude for the blessings this country
affords them. They are our heroes.
As for the academics who inculcate anger and rage in their
privileged students year after year, we should have contempt for
them. As for the poor, ignorant and fatherless young people condemned
to failing schools in Democrat-run cities who naturally succumb to the
drug, gang, and crime culture promulgated by their elected officials,
they are the tools of the Democrats who think their acting out will
defeat Trump. The Democrats are shameless abusers of their most
vulnerable supporters that they take for granted.
The French people who rightfully, in the beginning, revolted
against their oppressors, became like them in the end, murderous and
callous in their lust for the guillotined heads of the ruling class that
had so demeaned them. Our violent protesters are intent upon erasing
vestiges of America’s past. They are like spoiled children playing at a
war they cannot and will not win.
President Trump has so far left dealing with these minor but
dangerous bullies to the Democrat mayors and governors who have given
them free rein. If these wanna-be tyrants continue on their path of
mindless destruction, he may have to act. The Dems are praying for a
police or military intervention, a few dead at the hand of the National
Guard, perhaps a Kent State redux.
Make no mistake; actual lives do not matter to the left, no
matter what their race, class or gender. Our American Democrats, like
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, are an unrepentant bunch of pols. If
dead Americans serve their purpose, they are all in.
On Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi accused the Republicans of
murdering George Floyd! How rich is that? Even that Minneapolis cop is
a Democrat as is the governor, mayor and all but five of Minnesota’s
federal elected representatives. The America-hating Ilhan Omar is in
favor of disbanding the city’s police force. That is not going well, as
any ten-year old might have predicted.
We are not seeing a repeat of the French Revolution; not at
all, no matter how righteous this band of rioters think they are. We
are seeing something similar to what characterized the 1960s, even as
the Republicans passed the Civil Rights laws against Democrat
opposition. Domestic terrorists were the order of the day then; rich
white people like Tom Hayden and Bill Ayers and their pals riled up the
college students of yore in 1968 and Nixon was elected in a landslide.
The people orchestrating the current violent and non-violent
protests are users and abusers. The people they recruit (and often pay)
to riot are not the victims of a classist aristocracy but of the
ever-racist and power-mad Democrat party.