Mark Steyn put us on notice long ago:
If it were just terrorists bombing buildings and public transit, it would be easier; even the feeblest Eurowimp jurisdiction is obliged to act when the street is piled with corpses. But there’s an old technique well understood by the smarter bullies. If you want to break a man, don’t attack him head on, don’t brutalize him; pain and torture can awaken a stubborn resistance in all but the weakest. But just make him slightly uncomfortable, disrupt his life at the margin, and he’ll look for the easiest path to re-normalization. There are fellows rampaging through the streets because of some cartoons? Why, surely the most painless solution would be if we all agreed not to publish such cartoons. [From Mark Steyn’s America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It]
That category “smarter bullies” apprently doesn’t include anti-Israel / “pro-HAMAS” activists:
The communists and other Hamas supporters stormed the [Macy’s New York City] Thanksgiving Day parade and tried to stop it. They aren’t Americans. They want to destroy America.
And it is so.
Time was, this would have been called “disturbing the peace.” Apparently, these days you can legitimately disturb the peace if you’re promoting the right Cause. At least in a “blue” city.
If you just want it to stop for a little while, you give in to it: you fold up your banners, deflate your floats, and go home. But that is positive reinforcement for the disruptors’ tactic. If there’s anyone out there who doesn’t grasp that dynamic, he’s never trained a puppy.
If you want it to stop and never happen again, you punish it so harshly that the “protestors” will feel it for years to come. I suppose people foolish enough to allow Leftists to “govern” them have a hard time grasping that.
Apologies, Gentle Reader. Not only am I writing this after a day of overconsumption that’s left me feeling as if I’ve swallowed a beach ball, I’m doing so on Notepad. Please pardon any typos.
2 comments
I’ve been saying for years that the way to stop protesters from gluing themselves to roads or museum walls is one word: chainsaw. It’s probably only necessary to demonstrate it once, but maybe not even that. Perhaps just making a public showing of taking out a large chainsaw, cranking it up and bringing it so close to the wrist that the protester wets themself. The problem, as you say, is that the thing most likely to make it necessary to remove a hand is to not remove one, and instead show it’s a bluff.
The problem is that in those big blue cities, the amputee will be awarded millions and the public servant will be punished.
As a young (TOO young) father, I fell into that liberal trap of “time outs” and non-corporal punishments. This went on for near ten years, until self and other were divorced and on different paths. I was ‘directed’ by the courts to maintain the mothers wishes in discipline, and I did try,,,
Until one day when the demon in the back seat pushed my buttons just one too many. I laid on that young girls butt with bare hand until we were both in pain. No bruises, just reddened skin and stinging sensations,,, but it was enough.
When my daughter had littles of her own, she adopted my ‘don’t spare the rod’ attitude, while at the same time not abuse either: that rod is always there, and known by the children. They are some of the best behaved kids I have seen in ages.
I asked my daughter about it, and her response was, ‘I recall that whoopin’, and I never pushed you again. I don’t want my kids to be like I was.’
We ‘joke’ that ‘these people don’t know what it means to be punched in the face’ but we really mean, ‘no one tanned that ‘boys’ butt when he needed it’ Punishment, like with a puppy piddling on carpet, must be swift, and appropriate to the circumstances. If that means a body laying in a pool of blood,,,, I have no problems with that; let the brighter aspects use it as a lesson.