IN AN UNUSUALLY TERSE ENTRY, Steve den Beste admits to having 'bad thoughts': The High Cliff Syndrome
When I've read news reports lately about some kinds of obnoxious protests, I have mused to myself, "Perhaps it's time to issue shoot-to-kill orders to security guards." Perhaps if some people who made grandstanding protests ended up dead, it might cause others to start really thinking about the consequences of their behavior."No, they can't. They seem to have a few teeth missing in the gears that drive their morality. The tragedy here is not that this would be their fate, but that so many others would suffer with them. Posted by Vanderleun at May 21, 2004 6:25 PMObviously I don't think this should really happen. But it does seem to me that a lot of protesters are willing to do the things they do, and say the things they say, and advocate the things they advocate, because they suffer no consequences for it. They have license, but feel no responsibility. There are negative consequences, but someone else suffers the consequences, not the protesters. If such protests had negative consequences for the protesters then protest might become more responsible.
As I was thinking about this, I realized that there are severe consequences for them even if there are no shoot-to-kill standing orders. For domestic anti-war protesters who hate Bush more than they hate bin Laden, and foreign "allies" who fear and resent America more than they fear Islamic extremism, the result of an American defeat in this war will be death, destruction, poverty, misery, and tyranny for them. Their own best interests require an American victory.
I guess the difference between them and us is that we who support the war can see that, and they apparently can't.
