We Are Not France--Yet

What happens when large numbers of people oppose not merely a particular law (e.g., Prohibition or the 55-mph speed limit), but reject the legitimacy of the entire legal system and its foundations—and resort to violence to express that rejection? When dealing with a small number of such outlaws, law enforcement and our expensive judicial processes can be deployed. But what happens when their numbers become too large for those institutions to cope?

The United States currently lacks the law enforcement personnel and courtroom capacity to prosecute all the theft of public funds since COVID, investigate and individually prosecute potentially tens of thousands of cases of illegal voting, or identify and remove millions of illegal aliens. These difficulties are compounded, in most instances, by the noncooperation of officials entrusted with upholding and enforcing the law.

If the USA is forced to accept massive theft of public resources and widespread violation of fundamental laws as a norm, what does that presage?

France faces a more acute problem of scale. If estimates of the multitude engaged in riot-related criminal activity—800,000 according to reports—are accurate, the country plainly lacks the resources to arrest, charge, and prosecute every offender through ordinary legal processes and would therefore be unable to create normal, legal disincentives to persist in destructive acts.

At what point does a society recognize that it faces something more serious than a law-enforcement problem? What if this is instead a struggle for the survival of its constitutional order? At what point does the scale of lawlessness overwhelm the capacity of ordinary institutions to respond in the manner they were designed to act?

France still possesses the Salvation Islands, including Devil's Island, a once-notorious penal colony. That destination as a “temporary” processing center might have a salutary effect. Forcing an ‘us v. them’ dichotomy with reduced or delayed process for ‘them’ along with rapidly deployed consequences, at gunpoint if necessary, should not be peremptorily ruled out.

In contrast, simply urging dialogue and “listening” to protesters, however, is not a rational response when violence threatens public order and the authority of the law. A society cannot preserve its institutions or itself if it is unwilling or unable to enforce the rules on which they depend nor defeat violent enemies with force.

I hope France rises to that challenge. I also hope the United States can arrest its own institutional decay before we find ourselves in a similar predicament.

Historical note: In 1794 George Washington personally led troops to crush the Whiskey Rebellion. One official who attempted "dialogue" was tarred and feathered. Another had his home attacked. Beatdown first; then law, order and due process can follow. Washington later pardoned two of the rebels convicted of treason. Win first. Then show mercy.