So many things have happened this week, it’s hard to know where to start; so I’ll begin with a brief history lesson.
Consider Æthelred the Unready, king of England from A.D. 978 to 1016. He was a weak ruler who was unable to muster either the interest or the courage to fight off the marauding “Danes” (Vikings) who were pillaging his shores. Instead he appeased them by taxing citizens and paying enormous amounts from his treasury to the Vikings to stop pillaging. How did this strategy work? Well, it taught the Vikings that they could take treasure from the king until they wanted more, after which they merely had to perform some brutal raids on coastal villages and sack a few churches to get the king to fork over more cash. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat – until the Danes, led by Sweyn the Forkbeard, just took over in 1013.
More recently, Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy with Nazi Germany has been blamed for allowing Hitler to grow strong enough to conduct the atrocious acts that defined World War II.
The point of these historical references is the futility of appeasing an enemy.
Oh sure, appeasement is often a quick easy fix for short-term difficulties; but anyone knows it’s a rotten strategy for long-term stability. The problem is, appeasement continually shifts boundaries. What was good enough yesterday is not good enough today.
Bullies and thugs aren’t dumb. They know weak politicians and useful idiots when they see them. Weakness is not admired by bullies and terrorists, who only understand one rule: Might Makes Right. When politicians or activists attempt to appease terrorists (domestic or otherwise), they simply become slaves to their demands, held hostage by guilt or political correctness or other emasculating emotions that render them helpless in the face of increased lawlessness and bullying. The politicians and activists then make endless excuses for the bullies while concocting more elaborate ways to appease.
The ultimate results of appeasement are far worse than if strong actions were taken in the first place. The appease-ee begins to think of the appeasement bribes as a “right,” while the appeaser grows weary at the payoff’s failure to end the bad behavior. Resentment builds. People can only be pushed so far.
Today we’re seeing the tactic of appeasement in spades, employed by those unable to learn from history:
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and many of their fellow Democrats knelt in silence at the U.S. Capitol;
- FBI bends its knee to the mob;
- Universities scramble to out-do each other in appeasement;
- School districts jettison police officers from campuses amid protests;
- White protesters wash the feet of black protest organizers and beg for forgiveness.
What has been the result of this literal foot-kissing? Why, more demands, of course (big surprise). Now that some politicians and useful idiots have kissed the derrières of violent activists, what’s next? Are all their sins now expunged? Of course not. All they’ve done is admit their “guilt.”
As many “woke” people are discovering, nothing is ever good enough. If you literally kiss the feet of a terrorist group today, what must you kiss tomorrow to keep in their good graces?
“Is there anything more disgusting than an American on his knees before a tyrant?” asks Melissa Mackenzie in the American Spectator. “The Left (yes, Antifa, and yes, BLM, the communist movement) wants to see all of America cower, bow, scrape, and beg for forgiveness for their existence and for crimes they never committed. They hate their own country. They want, as Barack Obama said, to remake America. To transform it into a communist society. They hate anyone who disagrees with them. They are willing to use the traumas of anyone, even a dead man, to fortify their power. … They don’t care about the black business and homeowners in burned-out cities. They breezily use these people for their political ends. If black people and other minorities must live in razed ghettos, it’s fine so long as they possess power. … Making people bow is icing on the cake. It’s psychopathic and evil.”
The latest insane demand by the domestic terrorists and their useful idiots is to defund police departments – and many politicians are appeasing them. But “fewer than 20 percent of Americans of all parties supported any cutting of police funding – a finding consistent with decades of polling,” reports Free Beacon, which calls this appeasement “part of a broader shift among those in the [Democratic] party looking to signal their distance from or hostility to cops and prove their progressive credentials.”
Columnist John Daniel Davidson pointed out that if you want to know what disbanding the police looks like, look at Mexico. “Let’s say these ultra-progressive municipal governments could get their wish and abolish the police in their cities entirely,” he writes. “What would happen? Inevitably, an armed group would emerge and impose a monopoly on the use of force.”
And golly gee whiz, that’s just what’s happening in Seattle, where Antifa terrorists have seized control of six square blocks within the city they’re calling “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” or CHAZ. It took less than two days for a local rapper to take over as a warlord, patrol the area with firearms, and beat the snot out of anyone he didn’t like. His people are already extorting shopkeepers for money. CHAZ residents are now experiencing rapes, robberies, and other violent acts … and police are not allowed to respond.
Antifa has now released a comprehensive list of “demands.”
And here’s the thing: Do you think appeasing these warlords will work? If every single demand were met, how long before a new list would be issued?
For a heartbreaking perspective from the side of law enforcement, read this essay entitled “America, we are leaving.” Read every word. Read it and weep. The vast, vast majority of law enforcement officers deserve our gratitude, not our hatred. Without LEOs, America will descend into anarchy ruled by warlords.
Does anyone honestly think things will be hunky-dory without a police presence? Or will up-and-coming warlords, drunk with power, take advantage of the situation to rampage around the community, looting, raping, robbing and murdering without any checks on their violence and depravity?
But, apparently, logic is beyond the left.
