Essays in Idleness

There is nothing unChristian about getting angry once in a while. Perhaps one might say it gets less Christian the more it happens. But the injustices of this world are real; they are not props in a game show. Righteous indignation is not an impossibility.

The idea that one’s anger justifies bad behaviour is, however, a crock. It may take a cool head to recognize this truth, which is an additional argument against going off one’s head. Among the civilized, there are laws designed to make revenge unnecessary, and it is an horrific thing when these laws are overwhelmed; or worse, set aside.

What I find most outrageous about events in Minneapolis, and the copy-cat riots in other liberal-governed cities, is that they are permitted. The police are typically ordered to stand down, in the face of arson and looting. Nor is any effort made to identify and prosecute the fiends, later. The authorities simply wait for the anger to burn out, as a forest fire will do, eventually. Often they try to assuage the rioters by “taking action” — with rushed, criminally stupid, cosmetic “reforms.”

For at least forty years I have been trying to point to a truth long established by research: that there is no such thing as a spontaneous riot. Or longer, arguably, for I was first caught within a riot in Lahore, Pakistan, as a child of seven. (I’ve claimed that childhood experience made me a lifelong Tory.) But in my “cancelled” career as a hack journalist, and out of my own curiosity, I have studied several riots since then — from the inside.

To a trained observer, the organizers of the riot stand out. They are dressed distinctly, they are giving orders; they are directing the attacks. They will usually be wearing expensive communications equipment. A drama coach would notice that their harangues are premeditated and rehearsed, to stir violence. That anger in the crowd was available to them, as their raw material, goes without saying; their art consists of “weaponizing” it.

Fascists — the real ones, in pre-war Italy and Germany — were masters of this art. So were the Communists with whom they had streetfights. The blackshirts today, a near-monopoly of the Left, descend from this rich tradition. When Antifa and other leftist scum shut down public discussions in universities and elsewhere, they may use the latest technology, but to old-fashioned ends.

What is alarming is not that these people exist — radical evil is a fact in human nature — but that they are given permission to act lawlessly. Rather than arrest and prosecute them, the liberal authorities agree to silence the legitimate speaker. They are trying to avoid confrontation, with people who sought confrontation, and will seek a larger confrontation next time. The prestige of these devils in human flesh is increased by their victories.

An injustice, such as the apparent murder of George Flynn by a vicious cop, while three more stood and watched, was the pretext for the riots. It was convenient for aggravating racial tensions, by which the Democrat party hopes to retrieve black votes that had been getting away from them. I would not wish to omit this dimension of the permission they grant to rioters. Politics are a cynical business.

But note, the mostly white folk in Antifa, prefer black neighbourhoods to start race riots, for that is where resentments will be easiest to exploit. (Masks help to conceal their whiteness.) This means that the victims of the riots, whose property and businesses are gutted, will also be mostly black. The media elide this aspect of the lawlessness, because they want Republicans to be defeated, too.

The moral stench is overpowering.

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BOB & DOUG. It has been half a century since, it seemed to me, the USA space programme was the most exciting thing in our solar system. Those were days before one referred to astronauts as “Bob and Doug,” or had drone ships with names like, Of Course I Still Love You, to recover the launching stages. Recall, once again, those exhilarating words: “Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Today, I think of manned, extraterrestrial missions only as an extravagant form of entertainment. But what a magnificent entertainment — golly and hurrah!