This Will Not End Well

Violence either fizzles out or it escalates. It never stays low-level like this indefinitely, and fizzling is our best-case scenario. Yet I’m not certain that’s what’s going to happen.

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The truth is that these “protestors” have engaged in unlawful behavior over and over again, then demanded they be excused. They are literally demanding amnesty from universities, for crying out loud, and they’ve been downright vile to countless people who support Israel’s right to exist.

People aren’t interested in playing nice.

I’m concerned what happened at UCLA will happen again somewhere else, particularly where there’s absolutely zero interest in university administrators in stepping in and actually doing anything. UCLA’s chancellor talked a big game, but then crumpled.

When that happens, some people are going to decide that if the rules no longer apply, they won’t be bound by them anymore.

Ed Morrissey

That's exactly what will happen, and what did happen at UCLA. College administrators that allow lawbreaking and intimidation to go unanswered are creating an incentive structure that will produce a competition of violence for control of the community. Young men and women will not be bullied forever, and they will eventually organize to operate under the incentive structures these schools allow to develop in their enforcement vacuum.

That is why lawbreaking has to be met with strong disincentives immediately, with real and painful consequences. Florida and Texas understand this. UCLA just learned it the hard way, if they learned it at all. 

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