Interesting piece by Reynolds.
Basic idea: The Regine wants to empower its street thugs to bully and harass citizens.
When citizens push back against the thugs, suddenly the Regime fears "disorder" -- disorder meaning, now our street militias might get roughed up, we'd better send in the cops to restore order. We can't have citizens roughing up our brigands!!!
Pushing back, he writes, is the only way to bring The Regime's attention to the disorder they are allowing/encouraging.
Pushback Works
Campus political violence and the moral and practical aspects of resistance.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
May 08, 2024
Pushback works.
That's the lesson of the pro-Hamas protests on college campuses, and the reaction to them. It's a lesson that many of us need to take to heart.
With support from lefty foundations and NGOs, and training from professional leftists activists, pro-Hamas encampments were established at campuses all across America. Libraries were the victim of rampages, Jewish students literally wound up hiding in attics, were assaulted, and were taunted and greeted with chants of "go back to Poland." "Checkpoints" manned by Hamas sympathizers barred Jewish students, or anyone who wouldn't renounce "Zionism," from some parts of campus. American flags were torn down and replaced with Palestinian flags. It looked as if the protesters had the momentum, as university administrations responded supinely. And then, something happened.
People fought back. Mostly fraternity guys, who in this season have become the defenders of Western civilization.
For decades, of course, leftist mobs on campus have run wild without much pushback. Their threats and destruction have been excused as just a "passion for justice" or some such twaddle. While university administrators demand exquisite sensitivity to the feelings of favored groups, everyone else is told to just put up with lefty excesses.
But a funny thing happened: When people started pushing back, suddenly the administrators got some backbone.
To be fair, the pushback hasn't just been from frat guys. There had been pressure from donors sufficient to get some university presidents fired, but when it came to getting the encampments moved off campus, it was the on-campus resistance that did it.
It wasn't just frat guys. UCLA told its police not to do anything to the pro-Hamas encampment even after a pro-Israel Jewish girl was beaten unconscious. It was attacked by pro-Israel students and neighbors, and torn down, while the police didn't arrive to the encampment -- which reportedly was emblazoned with "All Cops Are Bastards" and the like -- for two hours. But afterwards, UCLA removed the encampment.
Since then, Columbia, the University of Chicago, MIT, and Harvard have all done the same. [CORRRECTION: There were reports that Harvard was shutting its encampment down, but it's still there.]
The fact is, if nobody resists, most people will go with the flow even if they don't like it. And administrators won't lift a finger to protect unpopular minorities from one-sided violence. But as soon as the violence becomes two-sided, they fear expanding disorder and act to bring things under control. When you're being assaulted and terrorized, that's your problem. When you fight back, you make it everybody's problem, and the authorities are under pressure to act.
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In addition, they note the moral aspect of resistance: Resistance breeds resistance, courage promotes courage, and the aggressors tend to rethink things when it looks as if they might be the victims, not just the perpetrators, of violence...