The "Occupy" movement, which the Obama administration and much of the media have embraced, has implications that reach far beyond the passing sensation it has created.
The unwillingness of authorities to put a stop to their
organized disruptions of other people's lives, their trespassing, vandalism and
violence is a de facto suspension, if not repeal, of the 14th Amendment's
requirement that the government provide "equal protection of the
laws" to all its citizens.
How did the "Occupy" movement acquire such
immunity from the laws that the rest of us are expected to obey? Simply by
shouting politically correct slogans and calling themselves representatives of
the 99 percent against the 1 percent.
But just when did the 99 percent elect them as their representatives?
If in fact 99 percent of the people in the country were like these
"Occupy" mobs, we would not have a country. We would have anarchy.
Democracy does not mean mob rule. It means majority rule.
If the "Occupy" movement, or any other mob, actually represents a
majority, then they already have the votes to accomplish legally whatever they
are trying to accomplish by illegal means.
Mob rule means imposing what the mob wants, regardless of what the majority of voters want. It is the antithesis of democracy.
In San Francisco, when the mob smashed the plate-glass
window of a small business shop, the owner put up some plywood to replace the
glass, and the mob wrote graffiti on his plywood. The consequences? None for
the mob, but a citation for the shop owner for not removing the graffiti.
When trespassers blocking other people at the University
of California, Davis refused to disperse, and locked their arms with one
another to prevent the police from being able to physically remove them, the
police finally resorted to pepper spray to break up this human logjam.
The result? The police have been strongly criticized for
enforcing the law. Apparently pepper spray is unpleasant, and people who break
the law are not supposed to have unpleasant things done to them. Which is to
say, we need to take the "enforcement" out of "law
enforcement."
Everybody is not given these exemptions from paying the
consequences of their own illegal acts. Only people who are currently in vogue
with the elites of the left -- in the media, in politics and in academia.
The 14th Amendment? What is the Constitution or the laws
when it comes to ideological soul mates, especially young soul mates who remind
the aging 1960s radicals of their youth?
Neither in this or any other issue can the Constitution
protect us if we don't protect the Constitution. When all is said and done, the
Constitution is a document, a piece of paper.
If we don't vote out of office, or impeach, those who
violate the Constitution, or who refuse to enforce the law, the steady erosion
of Constitutional protections will ultimately render it meaningless. Everything
will just become a question of whose ox is gored and what is the political
expediency of the moment.
There has been much concern, rightly expressed, about the
rusting of bridges around the country, and the crumbling and corrosion of other
parts of the physical infrastructure. But the crumbling of the moral
infrastructure is no less deadly.
The police cannot maintain law and order, even if the
political authorities do not tie their hands in advance or undermine them with
second-guessing after the fact.
The police are the last line of defense against
barbarism, but they are equipped only to handle that minority who are not
stopped by the first lines of defense, beginning with the moral principles
taught at home and upheld by families, schools, and communities.
But if everyone takes the path of least resistance -- if
politicians pander to particular constituencies and judges give only wrist
slaps to particular groups or mobs who are currently in vogue, and educators
indoctrinate their students with "non-judgmental" attitudes -- then the
moral infrastructure corrodes and crumbles.
The moral infrastructure is one of the intangibles,
without which the tangibles don't work. Like the physical infrastructure, its
neglect in the short run invites disaster in the long run.
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