With springtime finally here (check local listings for the springtime in your area), college campuses (or would that be campusi?) are abuzz with activity. Sure, some are preparing for finals, dissertations, and summer internships, but many are taking the nice weather to…protest a war half a world away.
Yes, from sea to shining sea, student activists are rising up to show support to Palestine in its war against those evil mean nasty no-good Israelis. And Leftists are eating it up, or at least they’re trying to have it catered because “humanitarian aid” or some such bullshit. The Leftists of yesterday are enjoying the Leftists of today as the latter group does its best to LARP as the former.
But one of these things is not like the other. And none of these things belong on a college campus. Let’s delve into the wonderful world of protests.
protests
What the Left thinks it means – demonstrations designed to raise awareness and initiate desired social change
What it really means – college students being assholes
The right to protest is solidified in the First Amendment in a few different ways, namely the right to free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to redress grievances. All of these aren’t bad in and of themselves. After all, if I didn’t have a First Amendment right, I wouldn’t be able to provide you with at least semi-intelligent blog posts on a regular basis.
You can stop typing your letters to have the First Amendment repealed, thank you very much.
Anyway, protests are a good test of how strong our commitment to the First Amendment is. At their core, they’re designed to challenge our way of thinking and consider an alternative. At least, that was before it became fashionable to start taking over campus buildings in the name of whatever cause is hip at the time. During the 60s and early 70s, it was America’s involvement in Vietnam. During my college years, it was America’s involvement in Iraq during Operation Desert Shield/Operation Desert Storm. At the turn of the 21st Century, it was America’s involvement in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries following 9/11. And in each one of these, there is an argument to be made about the protesters being on the right side of the issue. Granted, some arguments are dumber than others, but you get the idea.
The current crop of protesters, though…I’m just not feeling it. The best way I can describe it is college students are upset Israel is taking military action against people who killed a bunch of people and kidnapped others. Oh, and America and different colleges and universities across the country support Israel and/or take money from them. Obviously, this must be addressed! After all, we don’t want Israel to think they can actually defend themselves against people who want Jews exterminated, right?
This notion stems from the Left’s love of the underdogs, or at least politically expedient underdogs. You don’t see Leftists taking over campus buildings to protest the lack of white members of the Congressional Black Caucus, but you will see them expressing unwavering support for Palestinians, Ukrainians, and anyone else who is trying to fight the good fight against a bigger, more powerful enemy.
Oh, and just so happens to fit into a neat Leftist narrative. Palestinians are dying by the gajillions, guys! And those poor Ukrainians are having to fight a war with only toothpicks, some half-used bottles of Elmer’s Glue, and the occasional rubber band! It’s only moral to show their support for these brave fighters who only want a better life for themselves.
And, you know, kill enough of the enemy so they can take stuff.
So, to show their solidarity with the people actually doing the fighting, college students are…staying as far away from the front lines as possible and creating their own mini versions of the CHAZ/CHOP in Portland. But instead of being able to sustain themselves, these brave moral souls are making demands for everything from food to banana-free zones to building materials.
That’s right, kids. They’re holding private property hostage.
And to no one’s surprise, college and university administrators let it go until there’s enough pressure on them to do something. And do something they did! Some cancelled the rest of the semester. Some decided to go virtual for the rest of the semester. And a few grew some balls and brought in law enforcement to take down the encampments or suspended students involved in the protests.
It’s clear to me who the masterminds behind the current movement are: fucking idiots.
Seriously, it’s been bandied about that your fiend…I mean friend and mine, Uncle George Soros, is behind the current crop of campus uprisings. Of course, fact checkers have already tried to debunk it, so that tells me he’s definitely involved at some level. Maybe not directly, but his talon-like fingers are in there somehow because, well, he’s George Fucking Soros!
To be fair to the fact checkers, there are layers upon layers upon layers to the way Uncle George funds Leftist sinkholes…I mean projects. But in most cases, the money gets wasted because he’s relying on people who are fucking idiots to do his bidding.
Like…the student protesters! See! It all connects!
While the previously aforementioned protests tended to be more on the peaceful (and less destructive) side, the current group of protesters have been taught in the ways of BLM and Antifa, which sets up an interesting parallel with a couple of figures from the 60s protests, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. At the start of the civil rights movement of the time, the two figures took diametrically opposite stances on how to advance the cause. King sought peaceful non-compliance, while Malcolm X sought more direct action, up to and including violence. Today’s protesters seem much more aligned with the Malcolm X approach of “by any means necessary” and are more than willing to shed blood to bring about change.
Not their blood, mind you. That would be insane! Now, someone else’s blood, that’s perfectly fine to fuck with.
The problem with this approach, however, comes in the form of criminal activities. At the very least, any protester who takes over a campus building and stays there beyond a reasonable request to vacate is guilty of trespassing. Not a serious crime, but a crime nonetheless. Then, there’s destruction of public property, graffiti, discrimination against pro-Israeli students through the use of wristbands, terroristic threats, and many other possible crimes that, if prosecuted, would land more than a few of the protesters in the Big House for a long time.
Therein lies the question: will they be prosecuted? Given how Leftists enjoy letting criminals run free, there’s a good chance most of them will get off with a slap on the wrist and a mark on their permanent record, which by now has been converted to a downloadable file on iTunes. And while a whiff of a criminal record might be enough to make potential employers run away from these idiots, there are some who are willing to hire them.
Yeah. Ask Bud Light and Planet Fitness how capitulating to the Left worked for them. Spoiler Alert: it tanked their companies so much Michael Dukakis was seen riding in them.
It’s the disregard for the law that separates the previous protests from the current crop. Sure, you had some criminal activity with some of the earlier protests I mentioned, but not nearly to the levels we’re currently seeing. And a lot less whining. It’s hard to be seen as a true revolutionary when you’re begging the educational entity you’re protesting for food so you can continue to protest the same educational entity.
Kinda makes you reconsider forgiving college debt, doesn’t it?
Regardless of where you stand on the war in Gaza, the fact remains the protesters are their own worst enemies, but they’re also doubling as President Brick Tamland’s worst enemies if MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough is any indication. More importantly, though, these protests show how far the Left has fallen as an engine for change. For all the positive press they’re getting from Leftists in the media, the needle isn’t moving in Palestine’s favor. If anything, they’re turning off more people than they’re gaining because they’re going about it the wrong way and looking like assholes in the process. Try getting people who are barely making ends meet to get on your side by blocking roadways with stupid marches which prevent them from going to or coming from work.
And even with the backdrop of academia, it’s hard for me to not laugh at the sheer absurdity of the protests themselves. I mean, will a Palestinian child be saved if Hippie McBonghit holes up in one of the administration buildings? Nope! Will there be a ceasefire if more students threaten Jewish students to the point they can’t even attend class without being accosted? No. Will the Palestinians be able to get a foothold in Gaza if the University of Southern Dumbfuckistan decides to divest itself from any Israeli sources of income? Oooh, sor-ray.
No matter what they do, the protesters are fighting a battle so delusional and futile Don Quixote is telling them to knock it off. But those of us outside the Leftist bubble have time on our side. The recent crop of protesters from Occupy Wall Street to the current dipshits aren’t ready for shit to go sideways. Once the current semester ends and there are fewer people to annoy, what will they do? They’re attention whores, and they will be deprived of the one thing they need more than anything: people paying attention to them. If these protests go further into summer (which I honestly doubt), they will have to deal with summer weather conditions, including heat, humidity, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and so on. Hell, a lot of the BLM protests broke up when the temperature dropped. And these marshmallow warriors don’t appear to be any different.
But I, for one, hope they prove me wrong. After all, it’s hard to find good comedy these days.