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A society run by mob rule

In the past week several ugly events have illustrated forcefully how mob rule now dictates who can or cannot speak freely in America. Worse, these events show that we are no longer a civilized social order run by reason. Instead, we have become a culture where whoever can throw the loudest tantrum dictates policy.

First we have the horrible events last week at the State University of New York-Binghamton.

To understand how disgusting and despicable the first story above is, it is necessary for you to watch the video below. Pay special attention to the taller girl in the fur-lined parka who at about four minutes keeps looking at the camera-person (whom I think is also a girl) and aggressively and repeatedly asking, “Why are you shaking so? Why are you shaking so?” The reason is obvious. The girl filming is one the conservative students, and she is justifiably frightened. The taller girl, hostile and irrationally angry because a conservative dared to advocate opinions she doesn’t like, is clearly being physically threatening. As are all of her leftist compatriots.

The response of the college administration to this atrocious behavior was even more vile, essentially endorsing the actions of the mob:

On Monday, November 18, Vice President for Student Affairs Brian Rose released a statement. He said the College Republicans and Turning Point USA did not have official permission to be tabling that day, that they twice refused to leave, and that their messaging and actions were “provocative.”

“The groups’ display included provocative posters with gun imagery, this being the same day as the Saugus High School shooting. Self-evidently from the nature of their display and their refusal to comply with procedures for reserving the space in question, the groups intended to be provocative,” Rose stated.

With that, the College Republicans may face some sort of consequences, Rose stated. “Had the group followed procedures, the University would have had the opportunity to plan for what was self-evidently a provocative presentation in a manner that may have facilitated expressive activity by both the tabling groups and those who wished to demonstrate against them. Any future action taken against the College Republicans will pertain to their violation of University and SA policies and procedures and not to the content of their message,” Rose stated.

He added the protesters will not face disciplinary measures: “There were also protesters who acted in a manner that may have violated University rules. In the context of the incident and in keeping with the principles and values noted above, the University did not seek to identify or charge any protesters.” [emphasis in original]

In fact, Mr. Ross’s statement is a lie. The conservative students had done nothing that violated school procedures, as many groups had routinely set up tables in this area in the past in exactly the same manner, with school approval.

What Mr. Ross has done, however, is signaled to this mob that they have his endorsement, that they can now with impunity attack conservatives on campus, in any way they like, whenever they wish, with no fear of punishment.

Then there were the events at Berkeley: Masked students and outside agitators block attendees from Coulter speech at UC-Berkeley.

This story is essentially a repeat of what happened in 2017 when other conservatives tried to give a speech at UC-Berkeley, with the exception that this time there actually was a police presence actually trying to prevent violence. A look at the videos (more available here and here) suggests that, though the speech went ahead, these police efforts were generally unsuccessful. The mob was going to get its pound of flesh, and knew that at most its members would only get a slap on the wrist for doing so.

This problem of mob rule however is not confined to leftists and fascists. We have become a global society that sets its political policy based not on reasoned debate and thoughtful analysis but instead on who can coordinate the largest political demonstrations.

Want to defend gay rights? Hold a parade! Hold lots of parades, in Washington, in Israel, in Atlanta, to name only a few, and even assign a defeated Democratic Party politician as grand marshal for one parade to protest her defeat.

Want to defend heterosexual rights? Hold your own parade in Boston. And to troll the gay community, make your parade marshal a conservative gay commentator!

Whoever carries the most signs and puts together the largest crowds is all that matters, nothing else. Sometimes the protests are caused by hate and a close-minded desire to silence all opposition, as in the first cases cited above. Sometimes they occur because of the oppressiveness of governmental control, as in Hong Kong and recently in Iran.

While the latter protests might be justified because the citizens of these oppressive regimes have little or no other option, the use of mob protests is merely a symptom of a society’s larger illness. Either it is not possible to use reasoned and open debate to settle society’s disagreements, or there is an effort to prevent reasoned debate from having a place at the table.

Nor is this mob rule limited to public protests. Consider the mobs that populate Twitter and all of social media. Say something someone doesn’t like on Twitter, and a crowd of self-righteous critics will pounce, working to not only silence you, but to get you fired from your job and ostracized from society.

None of this behavior really has anything to do with establishing justice or a civilized society. All these protests and parades really are are a gathering of a mob, screaming and yelling to demand its way. No one thinks much about anything during such events. Instead, they feel part of a greater cause, united in action, no matter what that action might be, or how violent or thoughtless.

In other words, it isn’t what you think that matters, but how you feel.

Sadly, this is what all modern political discussion has become. Do politicians and pundits thoughtfully analyze the issues of the day on television? Hardly. Instead they shout personal attacks, often based on no facts, simply to gin up ratings. Or they schedule Congressional hearings based not on any facts but on hearsay and slanders and fake charges, all for the purpose of blindly destroying their opponents.

In a sense these actions make them a mini-mob of one or a few, all focused on emotional attacks rather than looking at the issues in depth.

This is not how America used to function. I know from personal experience that the general public in the U.S. once frowned strongly on the use of public protest, not because they wished to silence opposition and dissent, but they looked at it as a childish and improper way to debate the issues of the day.

I sensed this social attitude during the first protest demonstration I ever attended, against the Vietnam War in 1966. After participating for several hours I increasingly felt uncomfortable about what I was doing. There was something about it that made me feel like a sheep. As we protested we had time to talk to each other instead of chant, and I found that my fellow marchers were not happy if I took an independent look at their positions. It wasn’t so much that I was disagreeing with them, but I was finding their level of knowledge about the Vietnam War to be woefully incomplete. They were simply glad to be part of that protest mob, unified in action, and didn’t like it if someone threatened their simplistic view of the issues.

They knew little about the history behind the war, the protest was doing nothing to educate them, and in fact was preventing them learning anything. It was instead fueling their ignorant and shallow emotions.

I did not like this, and decided it was time to leave. I quietly slipped away. I might be against the Vietnam war, but I was not going to be a sheep.

Part of the reason I was able to resist the peer pressure of this mob and make this decision was that in the 1960s I had read and heard more than a few opinions expressing these same thoughts. The culture did not oppose dissent; it just strongly believed that protests were simply not a good way to do things. This belief had struck a cord in my soul, especially after I had been a protester myself.

Since then I have participated in only a handful of other demonstrations, one in favor of Israel around 2005, and several Tea Party events in 2008 and 2009. Each time, I came away feeling the same. We had really done nothing but heighten the emotions, without enlightening anyone about the issues involved.

Unfortunately, my disdain of protests has become the exception to the rule. Americans now endorse the idea of protest as political debate. They might disagree with a demonstration, but their answer is to organize more protests in response. No one takes a breath and thinks. Instead, the goal is to gather a larger crowd with bigger signs and louder chants.

The result is consensus by mob, and decisions that are shallow, childish, and thoughtless. No wonder so many of our city and state governments are facing bankruptcy and lawless societies, while the federal government is bankrupt and fails in practically every task it tries to do.

Can this change? Yes, though I am doubtful and pessimistic. It will take an effort by every adult American, at all times, including accepting some sacrifices, such as giving up much of the worst types of behavior on social media.

American need to make an effort to once again become civilized adults, embarrassed when they find themselves doing childish things simply because it satisfies their childish emotions. That is not how a mature person behaves.

Or a mature civilization. There is a reason that “civil” is the central core of that word.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

11 comments

  • Edward_2

    Third World Mob Rule – Shouting, Threatening, Illogic, talking Gibberish.

    Free Speech for Me,
    But Not For Thee.

    Alumni should withhold donating to their Alma Mater until Free Speech is restored.

  • Edward_2: Unfortunately, both universities (UC-Berkeley and SUNY-Binghampton) mentioned here are state universities, funded from public monies. There might be alumni donations, but they aren’t the bulk of where the money comes from.

  • Edward

    Robert,
    The University of California has a large budget, but a surprisingly little percentage of it comes from the state. This link gives the revenue sources and amounts, and a button on the right side will present the Berkeley campus’s portion:
    https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/revenue-and-expense-data

    The state of California’s educational appropriations, in conjunction with student tuition and fees, are the core components that support the instructional mission of the university. … Gifts to the university allow crucial flexibility to faculty for support of their fundamental activities or new academic initiatives.

    It reads as though alumni donations and other gifts support the faculty. Withholding donations may have an affect on exactly those who do the most damage to the students’s education.

    Why do the students think it is acceptable to block the entrance to the auditorium? Why do the students think it is acceptable to chant for violence against Ann Coulter? It seems that the faculty and administration continue to fail in educating them as to how inappropriate this behavior is.

    It is one thing to hold a rally at the stairs to Sproul Hall to voice an opinion that the university should divest from South Africa, which was one of the issues when I went to college, but it is another to block traffic or suggest violence against the opposition. Violence against the opposition is what certain European political parties did in order to gain political power in the 1930s. Do today’s students know this, and if so then why do they behave this way? We certainly do not want to see a repeat of those times.

    I remember several times, when I was in college, students walking away from a rally saying how it was like the 1960s. It seemed that the students were more interested in being part of a mob, attempting to live the past, than in the issue at hand. I did not attend such rallies, so I do not know what kind of facts the rallies presented, if any.

    One of my engineering professors decided to do as suggested by the television promotions and announced that he would spend one class discussing the TV movie “The Day After.” I did not attend that class, because it was a waste of time and tuition to spend an hour agreeing that nuclear war is bad. Duh.

    Even as far back as the mid 1980s, college engineering professors were beginning to indoctrinate their students.

  • DefendUSA

    Get your hands on a copy of The Ox-Bow Incident. It tells you all you need to know about mob rule. Have you heard of Evan Coine Maloney and his Brain Trust Terminal…The blog may be defunct, as it was 2005, but the essence of it all was indoctrination. Since then, my four kids attended college and have seen it up close. As parents we taught them to question everything. And as long as you can back it up, there are still some open minds. Never stop trying.
    We have to hope that our civility stops the mob in the long run.

  • DefendUSA: I am an historian, which means my pleasure reading is often unusual. Right now I am reading essays about the South after the Civil War, and the failure of Reconstruction.

    What I have learned is that it failed because people of good will remained civil, while the racists took over the Democratic Party, using use force, violence, and intimidation. They then used those same tactics to oppress the blacks in the south and drive the good whites into submission.

    We are in the same situation now. We are allowing these thugs to get away with their violence, and thus they are driving their opposition into hiding and silence.

    Be warned. We are repeating the worst sort of history.

  • wayne

    “Reconstruction: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
    PragerU
    September 2019
    https://youtu.be/icOFEc5uVts
    5:49

  • Oh no! Are the Republicans acting like the radicals on campuses in the 60’s? Turnaround can be a [deleted]!

  • D. McGlynn: Just a mild warning that I do not allow obscenities on Behind the Black. Look at the rules in the right column just above the section for the last ten comments. (On a mobile phone this box will be on the bottom of the page.)

    And replacing a single letter with an asterisk is not sufficient.

    You might also want to reread the essay in which this comment is part. I expect and want people to act as adults.

  • Slatey Cleavage

    1933 Germany.
    Everything the left does these days reminds me of that.

  • Slatey Cleavage

    1933 Germany.

    Everything the left does these days reminds me of that.

    Censorship was rampant throughout Nazi Germany. Censorship ensured that Germans could only see what the Nazi hierarchy wanted people to see, hear what they wanted them to hear and read only what the Nazis deemed acceptable. The Nazi police dealt with anyone who went outside of these boundaries. Censorship dominated the lives of the ordinary citizen in Nazi Germany.

    https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/censorship-in-nazi-germany/

  • Cotour

    The extreme Left, I.E. Bernie supporter and operative = violence, embraces murder and gulags for the cause.

    Kyle Jurek, “Reign Of Terror”.

    https://youtu.be/BsUAvh_PCWA (Adult language warning)

    Can’t make it up, Bernie should do well against Trump. I would almost like for a person like a Warren or a Bernie to win. Why? Because the resulting depression that would result would ensure that Conservatives would dominate for decades.

    And to be fair there are extremist nuts like this guy on both sides, but this guy sounds very serious, is probably a beta male, BS artist much like “Nick The Knife” Fuente.

    The people of America are watching and will soon comment.

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