Just go

[Today’s run: 3.6 miles (to State Farm)]

Politics has me frazzled, and I don’t think I am the only one. I get on Facebook and half of the stuff is about the riot in Washington and the other half is crackpot theories about how it was some sort of put-up job by Soros… or somebody.

I don’t like riots. I don’t like riots where they burn down the 7-11 and I don’t like riots where they kill a policeman by bashing him with a fire extinguisher.

Protests frequently turn into riots, particularly where the “leaders” either can’t or won’t take control of the direction of the protest and hold a tight reign on anyone in the protest crowd with ill intent. To say Sic ’em and then go watch the mayhem on TV is nothing like control.

I don’t really care what the justification is, it could be something completely, outrageously unjust. I don’t care. When you start throwing rocks and breaking windows you are officially on my bad list.

I think the people who bashed the policeman committed murder and should spend a whole lot of time in prison. And the same for the ones this summer who committed arson (and murder) in the other riots.

So why? Why are we seeing these herds of disaffected people, happy to receive and act on the suggestion that breaking through police lines is a good idea?

The other thing I see is that all of these people claim to be saving the country from some terrible thing. Saving it from structural racism, saving it from communists, saving it from political correctness, saving it from global warming, saving it from fascists, saving it from hidden pedophiles, I’m not complete sure what they are saving me from but I can say now that I’d rather not.

Finally, the forces of disaffection are sometimes in it for power and money. The person who says “we can work this out” is at least aiming for peace. The person who says “no quarter” is not aiming for peace. They may be backed into a corner or they may be grossly mistaken… or they may be pulling your chain.

When I was about 7 or 8 I was hanging around with some other boys my age. An older boy said we should throw mud at cars going by. So when the next car came we did that. No one was hurt, fortunately. The driver came to a stop and gave us a well deserved tongue lashing. The thing that I distinctly remember was that the older boy didn’t throw any mud. When he was saying “Now!” he was already running.

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Another thing — it seems to me that a lot of people have somehow found a voice (a good thing), but, like the ones illegally wandering into the US Senate chamber like tourists, they don’t seem to have an understanding of the power of words. It’s like they have been given this important and powerful thing and they are swinging it around breaking the china and the furniture.