Protests - Nothing New Under The Sun

A lot of people including former leftists and now libertarian Tim Pool feel like America is on the verge of a civil war because of what's happening in Seattle and across the country.  He says he takes a broader view and it's true, but he and others do not seem to take history into consideration.  In 1967 I was one year old.  But I know it was a summer of riots.  There were a lot of riots in the United States' history Watts (1965),  the Democrat convention protests in 1968, Kent State (1970), the Rodney King riots of 1992,  Occupy Wall Street in 2011, Ferguson (2014) to mention some of the long history.

Washington D.C. 1968

This is not going to end America, or cause a civil war, as many on both the left and right (or center, as in the case of Tim Pool) claim.  This is nothing new under the sun. Violence and protests, whether justified or stupid and radical are a sign of a healthy free society.  You think this could happen in China or Russia or Yemen?  That is not to say there is no cause for concern; a lot of what is happening is a sign that there is a vast underclass with respect to historical knowledge and American pride.

America is the greatest country on earth - this coming from a non-American who has nevertheless been to your country countless time and truly appreciates it.  And yet this under-educated (or deliberately mis-educated) generation, along with similarly misinformed special interest groups are going to come away from this with the same sense of self-importance of the similarly coddled baby-boom generation - thinking that they either succeeded or tried to change the world.

If they succeed it will have been for the worse.  I argued when president Obama used to argue for change and people were clamoring for it, that not all change is for the good.  A meteorite hitting a populated city is a change, and also a disaster.  So too is every weakening of the founding principles of America.  

But my own myopic  thoughts come into play here too.  I used to think that America could withstand 4 years, then 8 years of an Obama presidency. But while I was confident, I was not 100% certain of it.  America did survive, and it will survive this apparent revolutionary fervor of today.  

That's not the real threat though is it?  The real threat is the evolutionary march of socialists to slowly crumble the truly brilliant notion of what America stands for  - individual liberty, individual responsibility, free markets and equal opportunity for all.  Socialists, the Soviets, China, post modernists, communists and ill informed wealthy glitterati have all been trying to slowly chip away at those ideas, through education, entertainment, legal institutions and any other avenue possible for as long as they have been around.  Because that too is nothing new under the sun.  And that, is the real threat to America.