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Cheap Seats 2020Here and Now - 07/08 
By Rich Trzupek
America in 2020 features a whole lot of conversations about how we should be and how we ought to have been. By using the term “conversations” I refer, of course, to the now common practice of so-called young “adults” on the left screaming and stamping their feet unless they get their way.
These children – for that’s what they are – want to do away with the rule of law, public discourse and American history. They insist all these actions are necessary in order to transform our nation into a just society. We must dismantle all that has been built, condemn those who built it and beg forgiveness for our sins.
It has been amazing to see how many politicians, corporations, entertainers and other public figures have caved in to the mob of petulant puppies and how fast they have done so. It’s revolting and it’s sad. I know that America in 2020 is not America in 1940, but I assumed we had some backbone left. It appears we do not.
The thing is that it’s not even about America per se. It’s about the rule of law. What makes America different is what makes all countries that choose the representative republic as their form of government: The law is the final word. Not the politicians. Not law enforcement. Not religion. And not the mob. We are a nation of laws or we are nothing.
There is nothing new nor clever about disgruntled masses tearing down civilized societies. Anyone who understands history knows that revolution is a natural part of societal evolution. But not all revolutions are created equal. Some revolutions are about improving things and some revolutions are about destroying things.
The latter is the dangerous, ultimately bloody sort of revolution. Revolutions of destruction are revolutions that demand purity, a purity that can only be achieved by eliminating all impure thoughts and those that spread them.
The French Reign of Terror, Pol Pot’s killing fields in Cambodia, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, Hitler’s Final Solution, the bloody purges of Lenin and Stalin and their successors, Fidel and Che’s mass executions – all of these movements and so many more that have led to the massacre of tens of millions of innocent men and women have been the result of puritan revolutions.
These revolutions tolerate no dissent, invite no discussion and offer no mercy to heretics. The right words must be used at all times and the right positions must be supported. Moreover, it becomes everyone’s duty to denounce those who fail to do so. Not denouncing the heretic makes you every bit as guilty as the heretic himself.
The law becomes whatever the puritans decide it is and, no matter the failings of the previous regime, law enforcement becomes more arbitrary and far more bloody in a puritan revolution. So has it has been as the whining children take over sections of once proud cities like Seattle, Atlanta, New York and Chicago. The rare excess of trained, professional police officers subject to the law is replaced by the constant and bloody excesses of the new authorities within the mob, in which might most definitely make right.
There is another sort of revolutions, though it is much rarer. This is the revolution that does not seek to tear down, but to build upon. Those engaging in this sort of revolution look to the past for lessons on how to build a better future, rather than condemning those equally imperfect beings who helped build that past.
This Saturday last those of us who understand history and know that change is achieved gradually and that all heroes are subject to the natural limitations of their times were proud to celebrate the birth of a nation that began with a revolution designed to build, not destroy, and we honored those who led it. They were giants of their time, towering far above the pipsqueaks in the mob trying to tear them down.
Email: richtrzupek@gmail.com
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