It Was Bound to Happen

The only questions were when and under what pretext

Violence was inevitable. No reason would be needed, just an excuse. The excuse is the enforcement of immigration law. The ensuing anarchy – and that’s what this is – cannot be tolerated. Much like bullies, the people who coordinated and are stage managing these ‘protests’ understand only one language. Do the powers that be have the courage to speak it? The paid mobs that began in LA have spread to other cities, with the chaos partially funded by you and me.

We are paying for the piles of cinder blocks to be thrown at law enforcement. We are paying for the face shields that are being handed out. It’s not hard to imagine the distribution network similarly providing weapons to test the limits of what authorities will and will not do. There will be casualties. They are inevitable. When riots in 2020 engulfed one major city after another, the law enforcement response was to do as little as possible. That is not tenable this time. There will have to be an FAFO moment. You do not stop looting, arson, and general mayhem with arrests and curfews; you stop it with force.

It is important to remember 2020. That was when the mob learned that it could rule the streets and very little has happened since then to change minds. While his state was the scene of multiple protests, Gavin Newsom dispatched armed agents to shut down a preschool that was not forcing three-year-olds to wear masks. This is the same Newsom who now wants to sue Trump over using National Guard troops as if this were a zoning dispute instead of a threat to public order and social cohesion.

Amid the seriousness of what has rolled out of LA for days – see here, here, and here – there have also been some lighter moments and a head-scratcher or two. The signature image, thus far, is that of a masked man standing atop the burned-out hull of a police cruiser, waving the Mexican flag. Because nothing says commitment to the cause like carrying the flag of a country you refuse to live in while spitting on the one that houses you.

He is hardly the only example of this. Others showed their gratitude toward the place they chose to move to by burning its flag. The whole thing brings to mind a smart-ass remark about America being so horrible that even the people who hate the place will not leave.

Protest organizers have since figured out that waving Mexican flags is a bad look, so they handed out American flags for the paid rabble to use. And there was this gem from an LA news anchor who was apparently intent on uttering the most brain-dead thing imaginable for his viewers – “it’s just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn.” I enjoy a good car burning as much as the next mask-wearing, brick-toting anarchist, but it’s not likely the newsman would have been so cavalier if this happened in his neighborhood.

Oddly missing in action are the people who love to lecture the rest of us about the rule of law. This American staple was said to be under direct assault when judges who violated the law were arrested. At least one publication says the rule of law no longer exists. Until and unless the rioters are brought to heel, that statement is largely correct, but not in the way the author meant. Mobs are violating whatever laws they can and getting a pass, because it’s okay when responding to Orange McBadman.

Extreme circumstances call for extreme action. We have talked in the past about Pendulum Theory and that when the arm starts to swing back, it never stops at the mid-point. Never. Like Newton’s third law of motion, an action will prompt an equal and opposite reaction. After four years of open borders and general lawlessness, even a half-hearted govt response will look extreme. That’s okay. People voted for that. Few expected it to be pretty.

Was there a way to avoid violence? No. Because a mayor and a governor did nothing while local cops were being overwhelmed. After days of inaction, the Mayor of LA was permitted by her handlers to post some empty words about criminality being wrong. Those words will be ignored by state residents who have seen officials turn a blind eye to crime for years. That is their expectation - nothing will happen this time, either. Until it does. Which it must. Otherwise, nothing will change and conditions will worsen. Stupidity will only stop when the consequences are severe enough to make someone think twice about being stupid.