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Quote of the Day - The Weak and The Strong

Seawriter
@Seawriter
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The weak grow strong by effrontery. The strong grow weak through inhibition. - Henry Kissinger

This quote sums up what is happening in France in one sentence. The rioters are weak, France's underclass, those who do not fit into French society. Yet they act as though they are the powerful. That they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want. So far, they have proved right. No one is stopping them.

That is the flip side of the quote. The rioters only have the power granted by the French government, national and local. The state is literally doing nothing to stop the rioters. Instead they are advising small business owners, citizens who send 60% of their income to the government through taxes, to hire private security.

This would end tomorrow if the government behaved with strength. They could send armed gendarmes - or even Foreign Legionnaires - into the streets where the rioters are and meet the rioters with Napoleon's "whiff of grape." The rioting would stop immediately. Then prosecute rioters, giving them long sentences, the type of sentences Europeans normally reserve for meme-makers mocking the government. The riots would not resume. The cost would be too high for the rioters.

This applies in the US as well. Cities become lawless by choice, normally made by local governments. One only has to look at how Washington, DC became a safer and cleaner place after federal intervention.

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Discussion (6)

  • Postmodern Hoplite@PostmodernHoplite

    It’s a strange paradox, isn’t it? On the one hand, Administrative State will pander to, and even sympathize with, those who are rioting.

    On the other hand, the actual members of the bureaucracies hold the people rioting with the same contempt as they hold the general populace: as rather stupid and dim-witted children requiring the care of a beneficent state.

  • Front Seat Cat@FrontSeatCat

    There's another big protest underway today, but supposedly the authorities are beefing it up now. The Louve Museum is closed and other museums. This has spread to Milan and other countries. It's not about the cost of living or students unhappy with school. This is a planned invasion -

  • Seawriter@Seawriter
    ReplyingtoPostmodern Hoplite

    Postmodern Hoplite (View Comment):

    It’s a strange paradox, isn’t it? On the one hand, Administrative State will pander to, and even sympathize with, those who are rioting.

    On the other hand, the actual members of the bureaucracies hold the people rioting with the same contempt as they hold the general populace: as rather stupid and dim-witted children requiring the care of a beneficent state.

    It's not strange. Disorder increases the power of the administrative state in two ways. It cows the normals, and increases poverty. And poor people have to rely on the state for survival. The middle class does not. The middle class might even tell the Administrative State to pound sand. Poor people cannot.

  • GLDIII Purveyor of Splendid Malpropisms@GLDIII
    ReplyingtoSeawriter

    Postmodern Hoplite (View Comment):

    It’s a strange paradox, isn’t it? On the one hand, Administrative State will pander to, and even sympathize with, those who are rioting.

    On the other hand, the actual members of the bureaucracies hold the people rioting with the same contempt as they hold the general populace: as rather stupid and dim-witted children requiring the care of a beneficent state.

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    It's not strange. Disorder increases the power of the administrative state in two ways. It cows the normals, and increases poverty. And poor people have to rely on the state for survival. The middle class does not. The middle class might even tell the Administrative State to pound sand. Poor people cannot.

    As one Democrat from Iowa noted “we have guns”.

    Our founders were not dummies and understood the human heart and the concept of original sin. Never let the left disarm us. We are innately entitled to self defense for and ours.

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