That which is rewarded gets repeated.
This is a drum I've been pounding on for a while now, especially in terms of the 'mostly peaceful' protests of the Left -- most recently on college campuses across the nation. Absent swift and severe consequences, that behavior will repeat itself and escalate.
During the summer of 2020, one of the biggest failures of the Trump administration -- and governors across the country -- was the absent crackdown on the riots that saw major cities like Minneapolis, MN and Kenosha, WI burn to the ground. This was especially galling because, if you recall, people like me were prohibited from having funerals for their loved ones due to COVID.
Funeral? Nope! Wedding? Not a chance! Wanted your kids to go to school? You're LITERALLY KILLING GRANDMA! Yet if you wanted to ransack Seattle? It was fine.
COVID was smart that way. It knew you had a politically righteous cause.
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But I digress.
One of the most egregious and maddening developments of the last several years are the protests that block traffic.
You do not have a right to 'peaceably assemble' in the middle of a highway. You do not have a right to stop traffic heading to O'Hare Airport. You do not have Constitutional protection to interfere with public safety by preventing law enforcement and first responders from traveling.
So when I saw that some of the Just Stop Oil luantics were sent to prison for several years for blocking roadways, it warmed the cockles of my heart.
🧡 "Our politicians, our judiciary and our energy companies should be shocked and deeply embarrassed with how the court has dispensed it's version of justice today."
— Just Stop Oil (@JustStop_Oil) July 22, 2024
⚖️ Listen to Cathy, Cressie's mum, speaking, outside court after 22 year old Cressie was sentenced to 4 years in… pic.twitter.com/ZsC5lm4tgQ
No, Cathy, the only ones who should be embarrassed here are Cressie, your daughter, and you, who have failed her as a parent. She was not entitled to block the road. Cathy should also point the finger at Just Stop Oil, the cult-like political organization that encouraged Cressie to break the law.
This post got the Community Note treatment, and the note reads:
Protest caused over 50,000 hours of vehicle delays, impacted more than 700,000 vehicles, and rendered sections of the M25 motorway “compromised” for over 120 hours and closed parts of Kent, Surrey, Essex, and Hertfordshire.Cambridge student jailed for planned M25 disruption https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/27917
How environmentally conscious of them.
And look -- let's be honest here -- this isn't about environmentalism.
This is about disruption and a communist re-imaginging of the world. When communism fell off in the 1980s, it was rebranded as environmentalism, a core of red wrapped in green. Cressie and Cathy are merely watermelons.
They think they're morally justified in threatening your health and safety, disrupting your day, and making life hard for you.
While they use products that require the oil they allegedly despise. I've noticed none of these people live in green communes free from electricity and plastic products. Everything from their clothing to their phones relies on oil, and until they live like Laura Ingalls Wilder, no one should take them seriously.
And while Cressie's mom whines her daughter will be a guest of the state for the next four years, this is a reminder that folks like Cressie don't care if you go to prison because of their antics. Back in 2022, pro-abortion protesters (and they are cut from the exact same cloth as the Just Stop Oil gang) blocked a road and put parolee at risk for going back to prison.
See? Cressie means well, so it's not fair she goes to prison.
But some random guy? Meh. He can go to jail for her cause.
They're not the good guys here, which is why trying to compare them to Civil Rights activists is both laughable and insulting.
To all the people agreeing with those long prison sentences for Just Stop Oil climate protestors:
— Alex Morss 🦇🌍⏳ (@morss_alex) July 19, 2024
Most of the rights you enjoy were not freely given to you.
They were hard won for you by protestors whom you would have wrongly regarded as your enemies.
Cressie, and the rest of Just Stop Oil, are -- at best -- demanding a regression back to pre-industrial era living standards. A decline in the quality of life for people like you and me: no cars, no travel, no meat. Rules that, naturally, would not apply to them.
They are not fighting for rights, and are not noble crusaders for a cause.
They are domestic terrorists, and destroyers of beauty and culture. Because they are commies.
It is long past time that people like Cressie not only get arrested, but get years behind bars. It's the only way this nonsense stops, and we need more of this.
Until the lesson sinks in and they stop acting like spoiled children.