A Modest Proposal - Stunt Protest Edition
Give these malevolent attention-seekers exactly what they want, good and hard.
** This is the seventh in a recurring series, in which I offer some modest proposals – in the venerable tradition of Jonathan Swift – for American and international politics. **
Protest culture has gotten out of hand. Whether in the United States or abroad, leftist demonstrations have ramped up over the past few years, their infrastructure supercharged by the global protests of summer 2020. This agitation has taken a wide variety of forms, from mass street demonstrations to targeted small-group actions meant to cause a media sensation or public disruption. No matter the particular tactics or the cause being advocated, the common factor is an escalation in conduct, including moving into direct physical violence. Simultaneously, we have seen a concomitant increase in the woe-is-me and holier-than-thou attitudes of the protesters in question. Every time law enforcement belatedly breaks up these oft-illicit acts of purposeful disturbance, the perpetrators are presented as poor, unfortunate souls who have been sorely mistreated by a fascist/genocidal/tyrannical state apparatus. They become martyrs for the cause du jour and their supposed mistreatment is, naturally, the hottest story in left-wing social media. At least until the next one pops up.
You may think that I would advocate stronger deterrence on the part of politicians, prosecutors, and law enforcement to prevent such malignant, antisocial acts from occurring. That would be a reasonable assumption based on pretty much everything I’ve written or said about crime and punishment. But this time, you’d be wrong. Because I don’t think we should stop these protests. We should let them play out exactly as they deserve to. So, here’s my modest proposal: give the protesters what they want. And give it to them good and hard.
The specific impetus for this idea comes from the woe-is-me leftist protest story of the current moment: a month-long hunger strike by jailed activists from the group known as Palestine Action. These eight prisoners – arrested for their participation in a terror-supporting group that committed violent break-ins, including one in which a police officer was struck with a sledgehammer, breaking her spine – have refused food for more than forty days as a protest against their incarceration and the “genocide” in Gaza they claim the British government supports.1 They have been treated as righteous martyrs for justice, even by the government-run BBC, which centers their plight in a sympathetic article, using quotes almost exclusively from their defense attorneys. One such quote, from a letter to the British government, reads:
“We are concerned that, should this situation be allowed to continue without resolution, there is the real and increasingly likely potential that young British citizens will die in prison, having never even been convicted of an offence. We therefore request an urgent meeting with you, in an attempt to resolve this situation, before it becomes too late to avoid the death of one or more of our clients.”
Let’s be crystal clear here: the “situation” being referenced is the deliberate choice on the part of detainees to refuse all sustenance being given to them at taxpayer expense, unless the government that legally arrested them lets them leave prison. And they are willing to refuse to eat, up to the point of death, to stand on that particular principle.
Okay, then. Enjoy!
Why should any government cave to such obvious blackmail by people who have been arrested for the commission of a crime? Why should they take extraordinary measures to force-feed them? Why should this whole thing get tied up in a complicated legal battle? If the hunger strikers want to starve, let them. At least it’ll save taxpayer dollars.
The same goes for those who ostentatiously glue themselves to busy thoroughfares, priceless artworks in museums, or factory equipment. If they want to permanently stick themselves to something to make a point, draw attention, or disrupt the flow of everyday business, they should be left to do so indefinitely. And if it takes place at a museum, as so many of these ridiculous stunts do, the self-inflicted torture of being forced to remain stuck while slowly descending into madness, hunger, and death would be a novel and unique form of performance art! If leaving the offenders in place is simply too impractical, they should be forcibly removed from the scene by whoever is in closest proximity. Law enforcement should deputize ordinary citizens to act using whatever means are at hand to clear the obstacle and grant them prosecutorial immunity from the resulting actions. If these activists wish to glue themselves to things, they should be made to face the consequences of that choice.
Another common protest tactic involves vandalism of important buildings, statues, or paintings through throwing various substances at them. Sometimes that is tomato soup, sometimes paint, and sometimes a caustic or foul-smelling liquid. In these cases, turnabout must be fair play. The activists responsible for the damage should be put on public display and be pelted by members of the public with the same substance they used. In a similar vein, those who choose to forcibly occupy the property of another so as to exclude them from it or otherwise cause them harm should be both locked into the property and have their own property confiscated by the relevant authorities to compensate for the loss. If you want to take over an academic building or library, you best hope you know how to live off of whatever you find inside. If the property owner wants a bit more compensation from the unwanted activist escapade, he could livestream the security cameras and turn the outcome into the best Lord of the Flies remake ever.
These are all practical, simple solutions to a very real problem: left-wing stunt protest culture. Far too often, these children of privilege are allowed to claim the mantle of victimhood after facing a minor slap on the wrist for what is clearly illegal activity. I say no more. These are adults and should be treated as such. No more should they be politely escorted away from the scene of the crime, after being allowed to publicly regurgitate whatever dumb agitprop they have internalized. No more should their brave, indeed heroic, actions be treated as the embarrassing price of progressive political rhetoric. No more should they be treated with kid gloves. They deserve better. They deserve to get exactly what they want.
Let them glue themselves to walls and stay there forever. Let them permanently remain in the buildings they unlawfully occupy. And let them starve themselves to death in prison for no reason at all. If this is what they want, so be it. I, for one, think they should strive to live out their dreams. And who are we to get in the way of that?
The current Labour government is quite hostile to Israel, particularly under the early tenure of then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy. They have harshly criticized the war in Gaza, stopped weapons sales to Jerusalem, and allowed for mass pro-Hamas protests to target vulnerable Jews across the country with nary a police response. And still this is considered “complicity” by the activist class. Nothing is ever enough for people who make their living by pushing radicalism.