Living Lives of Noisy Desperation
As the anti-Israel protests on America’s campuses grow louder, dismayed pundits have repeatedly said, “I never thought I’d see this happen in America.” By innuendo, they are referring to the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany in the thirties and forties. There is, however, a big difference between Nazi Germany and modern-day America. Hitler made a strategic decision to use Jews as a scapegoat for all of Germany’s problems, while the anti-Semitism we’re seeing on college campuses is just one part of a much bigger problem.
The campus protests are not just about Jews or Israel or even “Zionism.” “Death to America” has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, but it has everything to do with anti-civilization, anti-capitalism, anti-freedom, and anti-peace. The angry young troglodytes stirring the embers of hate are focused on the destruction of everything that is good, civil, and meaningful in the modern world.
You cannot reason with immature simpletons with tablecloths wrapped around their heads, because facts are of no interest to them. The only thing that appeases them is the suffering of others. Thoreau believed that most people “lead lives of quiet desperation,” usually the result of a lack of purpose in their cushy suburban upbringing. Self-improvement requires hard work and discipline, traits they are sorely lacking.
Instead, they take a less demanding route and opt to become true believers following DEI goons who call for the destruction of their proclaimed enemies. Their misery makes them desperate, but, unfortunately, they are not willing to suffer in silence. Since destruction is their aim, they are no less psychotic than serial killers, because they have zero remorse for randomly destroying other people’s lives.
The so-called Palestinian problem that has become their current lightning rod is just another in a long list of artificial grievances like George Floyd, climate change, and, above all, Donald Trump. It is clear from their wailing and makeshift signs that they are devoid of knowledge, which they advertise to the world when they ramble on about “Israeli genocide.” The truth, of course, is 180 degrees in the opposite direction. The empirical evidence makes it clear that Israel takes extraordinary precautions to avoid causing civilian casualties, while Hamas goes so far as to boast about its vile genocide tactics.
Their lack of knowledge is also glaring when they babble on about Israeli occupation. Clearly, they have no clue that Jews have lived in the “biblical Holy Land” for 4,000 years. The only thing that is different today is that in 1948 the British, who controlled the area at the time, drew up specific borders for a Jewish homeland and officially named it Israel.
Unable to contain their anti-Semitic hatred, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan attacked Israel in 1967, which led to Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Arabs have been complaining about their loss of land ever since, rather than acknowledging Geography Rule No. 1: If you don’t want your land taken from you, don’t attack other countries!
The Arabs’ unprovoked attack and subsequent loss of land triggered the mass psychosis that has permeated the Middle East for decades. Continually fueling this mass psychosis is the fact that from a patch of barren desert the size of New jersey, Israel’s citizens have built one of the most civilized, compassionate, prosperous societies on earth, a society where Arabs and Muslims enjoy the same rights as Jewish citizens. This reality drives the haters crazy, because the idea of peaceful coexistence is antithetical to their culture of hate and violence.
Today, compulsive Middle East haters have allies throughout the world, because the desire to destroy is a contagious mental disorder. Even in the United States, once the most civilized country on earth, one of the major political parties now embraces the psychology of hate and violence, with its members promoting lawlessness and the destruction of wealth without regard to the damage they cause to innocent people.
I lived through the Vietnam protests on college campuses, so I’ve seen this movie before. The Vietnam protests spawned terrorists like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, key figures in the infamous Weather Underground. But the Vietnam protests were different from today’s protests in one significant way: The laser focus of the Vietnam protests was to end the war in Southeast Asia. By contrast, today’s protests are all over the lot. Do not be misled: These are the same people who engage in smash-and-grab robberies, drag-queen shows for children, promoting open borders, etc.
The overriding objective of today’s protesters is not to “free Palestine,” but to bring down the existing order of Western civilization and punish those who stand in their way. In doing so, chaos is their weapon of choice, because well-orchestrated chaos tends to level everything in its path.
That said, the immediate issue of punk kids taking over college campuses is not the problem. The real problem is college administrators who refuse, or lack the courage, to do anything about it. The solution is not complicated: Expel the student rioters immediately, no exceptions. Repeat, expel, not suspend. Seeing their futures go down the drain would have a chilling effect on others who might think about engaging in childish campus rabble-rousing.
In addition, those who advocate for violence against Jews, Americans, or anyone else for that matter should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Catch and release doesn’t work. A little time behind bars can do wonders for helping spoiled, confused kids adjust their views of reality.
In closing, let me make it clear that I, too, am in favor of “liberating Palestine,” and there is only one way to do that. Palestine will be liberated when the Palestinians throw out the Hamas barbarians who steal their humanitarian-aid resources, use them as human shields, and bring them nothing but misery. So long as more than 70 percent of Palestinians approve of Hamas and the October 7 massacre they carried out in Israel, they will continue to live lives of noisy desperation.
Robert Ringer is an American icon whose unique insights into life have helped millions of readers worldwide. He is also the author of two New York Times #1 bestselling books, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.
From robertringer.com