Beware the Rule of
the Riot-makers!
In the face of the recent
riots, many try to distinguish between protesters and the “radical elements”
who riot. The former are always good and even patriotic. The latter are
lamentable and perhaps criminal. In the words of Gen. James Mattis, the riots are
the work of “a small number of lawbreakers” that detract from the overall quest
for justice.
The
general, who is a scholar, should know better. When protests that turn into
riots happen everywhere at the same time, using similar tactics and slogans, it
is not the work of a small number of lawbreakers. When pallets of bricks
allegedly appear near places of looting, this is not the work of random
opportunists. When the bailed-out rioters enjoy the universal support of the
liberal media, politicians, celebrities, business leaders and clergy, something
bigger is at play.
This now-worldwide effort is
guided by those who know how to direct and articulate events toward a
determined goal. These riots are not spontaneous or random. Things like this
need organization, thought and narrative. Riots need riot-makers.
Protesters Need to Condemn
Rioters
Of
course, most protesters are not riot-makers. Many just want to manifest their
anger over the death of George Floyd. However, when violent groups turn
peaceful protests into riots, the riot-makers use the cover and momentum of the
protesters to advance their violent class struggle narrative.
Likewise,
not all riot-makers participate in the riots, but they, above all, facilitate
them. The final goal is to give the impression that everyone supports their
struggle. When protesters fail to condemn rioters, they allow this impression
to prevail.
Thus, protesters should immediately condemn and disassociate
themselves from the violence. There is nothing patriotic about the wanton
destruction of property that has ruined the lives of thousands of
Americans. Indeed, the life of George Floyd is not worth
intrinsically more than the life of David Dorn, the black ex-police captain murdered by
rioters in St. Louis. Do not all black lives matter? Why is one mourned, and
the other ignored?
A Need for Violence
However,
riot-makers see the situation differently. They need violence because they are
writing the narrative that everyone is following. It is the same tired
narrative of the left that history is an eternal struggle between the
exploiters and the exploited. Rioter-makers do not want social harmony since it
impedes the advance of the revolutionary process that they think will assure
them of victory.
The
radical left has capitalized on the riots to foment class struggle on a mass
scale. Indeed, all the familiar characters in this drama remain the same.
Pro-abortionists, LGBT activists, socialists, feminists and even Satanists join
ranks in this revolution against the established order.
Framing the Debate as a
Systemic Crisis
This
struggle explains why the riot-makers inside the left, the media and the
liberal establishment frame this crisis as a “systemic” crisis. They know that
a systemic crisis can only be changed by bringing down the system. They can
claim that violence is the only way rioters can express their helplessness in
the face of the massive system that oppresses them.
In a systemic crisis, there can
be no solutions to the very real and concrete problems. The riot-makers make
impossible demands that they know have no solutions inside the present system.
When the riot-makers take control, the “offending” class can never change
enough to suit them. They rule with cruel tyranny over actions and even
thoughts.
The
only thing accepted by the riot-makers is concessions and submission. The
established order must invent the concessions it will make to facilitate its
self-destruction. Everyone must apologize and surrender. Thus, city governments
voluntarily offer to defund or even abolish their police. They tie the hands of
their officers while rioters attack and kill these brave defenders of the thin
blue line. Civil and business leaders trip over each other in seeing who
can surrender the most in this macabre dance toward society’s dissolution.
Moreover,
the riot-makers see violence as a means to accelerate change. If the object of
their revolution is to destroy the established order, it must be physically
threatened to scare the comfortable bourgeois to concede. Riots
fast-forward so-called historical processes and avoid the ugly defeats suffered
through slower democratic processes.
Avoiding Moral Issues
Framing
the debate as a systemic crisis allows the riot-makers to avoid anyone from
raising moral questions about their action. A systemic crisis absolves people
of personal responsibility and free will since they insist the system
determines how people behave.
It also hides the real problem.
Indeed, it is much greater than racism, which is only a consequence. This
problem is a moral crisis of massive proportions that is tearing America apart.
This crisis happened because modern society developed styles of life that teach
individuals not to assume moral responsibility for their actions. It created
conditions whereby people became slaves to their unbridled passions. The result
is a sinful society that becomes ever more disordered.
In
the present war against order, the riot-makers now fight with increased rage
against the remnants of the natural moral law that seeks to restrain them—even
if only by fallible police. They want their bricks to bring down the present
decadent system, full of family, cultural and even economic institutions that
remind people of the Christian order that still survives in these times. The
most radical riot-makers rage against God and His Law.
For
this reason, the left seeks to avoid addressing the moral dimension. A moral
worldview assumes human freedom and makes harmonious change possible. Moral law
proposes solutions that work in union with human nature, not against it.
Christian charity works toward ordering society and helping the needy.
When the issue is framed in
moral terms, as it should be, the riot-makers will always lose. They avoid
this. They fear the moral reawakening of an America that will call upon God and
seal their defeat.
As seen on LifeSiteNews.
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