Beware of the Mob

The protesters have been out in force lately. Recently we have seen an awful lot of this. The Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East, the riots in Greece, protest marches in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, the “Occupy” movement in the U.S. and Canada and protests in the U.K. about one thing or another. Monarchists should still remember the Prince of Wales having his car attacked in London, which was bad enough but he should thank God he wasn’t in France or his car might have been set on fire as opposed to having eggs thrown at it. There were even riots in China but the ones that got the most coverage were those aimed at the Japanese embassy which anyone with half a brain knows were state-approved riots (very little happens in the PRC that is not state-approved). Personally, whenever it comes to the “mob” taking to the streets I immediately become paranoid and hostile (okay, okay, *more* paranoid and hostile) and start wishing for a little police brutality. For all such complaints these days we really don’t see anything like the Peterloo Massacre anymore (those were the days…). What disturbs me though is the number of people (thankfully comparatively small) who otherwise appear to have some sense and yet sympathize with these raucous mobs.

It is usually safe to say that, for a monarchist, any sort of mob action usually means trouble. I don’t think anyone could make much of an argument from history of mobs restoring or strengthening monarchies. Usually it is quite dramatically the reverse. There are though, some people who I think are right on at least a few things who seem to be swept along by it, like how the “Occupy Wall street” demonstration, in New York at least, included a few libertarians railing about the “corporatism” of government being “in bed” with big business (and I can’t tell you how sick I am of that expression). Obviously, these people were not reflective of the majority of the group which was made up of Marxists, anarchists and the odd radical environmentalist. Some are taken in, but I fail to grasp how it is possible. In almost every case, these people are not exactly being subtle about where their true sympathies lay. Canadian-American commentator Steven Crowder went “undercover” at one of these protests, wearing a red shirt with the hammer and sickle symbol on it and he said the creepiest thing about his excursion was the number of people saying, “I love your shirt”.

Now, keeping in mind that communism has led to the deaths of about a hundred million people in the world (number one in the death toll by far) and ask yourself if anyone, monarchist or otherwise, would sympathize with a group that said the same things about someone with a swastika on their shirt? I doubt it. You can tell a great deal about these groups by how they present themselves. Consider the last time you saw a march/protest by organized labor. Take the recent teachers strike in Chicago for example; everyone was wearing red shirts. That is not an accident folks. At least one even had on one of those oh-so-chic Che Guevara t-shirts that all the hip young commies are wearing these days (which I’m sure they bought from some company that believes in ‘profit sharing’ so it’s totally cool a’right!). Does that seem like anything close to a pro-tradition crowd to anyone? Anyone at all? Turning to the news of marches and protests from Europe and I see a lot of red shirts on display there too. Again -not an accident. Although at least in Europe they are a little more honest about it; their socialists are not ashamed to call themselves socialists in most cases.

A couple of other things about these many protests should cause alarm amongst monarchists. First is the pervasiveness of those damn “Guy Fawkes” masks. Now, I have a rather more complicated view of Guy Fawkes than most people (I think it might have been an inside job and he was left ‘holding the fuse’) but still, these are not a group of people fighting against big, oppressive government. These are people who want the government to do MORE -not less. That doesn’t really fit in with narrative from the movie that popularized those masks (which didn’t make sense anyway, just for the record) but at the end of the day -listen up monarchists- according to official accounts these people are wearing the face of an attempted regicide. Given the above context, what monarchist would be okay with that? The second, and more blatant (at least being more recent, as in the last century as opposed to many) can be seen in Spain. It seems like every time I see a protest in Spain I see the mob carrying the flags of the former second Spanish republic. That would tend to tell me that these are not the “loyal opposition” types.

Do we need a history lesson? For those of you who don’t know, there have been two republics in Spanish history. The first came after the abdication of King Amedeo I, did not last long and was too disorganized to even cause much damage. Then, after the overthrow of King Alfonso XIII, Spain was treated to her second republic -a leftist, Soviet-backed nightmare that saw hordes of people massacred (particularly the religious). To put it in a way the mainstream might find more impressive, in the first few *months* that the second republic existed, more people were put to death than during all the *centuries* that the Spanish Inquisition was in full swing. Their war on religion, tradition and Spanish history so divided and radicalized the country that it came down to a gruesome civil war between the republicans on one side (backed by Stalin and international communist volunteers) and the nationalists on the other (backed by Mussolini and, to a lesser degree, Hitler). Then nationalist leader Francisco Franco was in charge for the rest of his life, and despite his popular image today (and you can check the numbers on this), his dictatorship was practically paradise compared to the orgy of violence that was the republic. It was only after the restoration of the monarchy that people in Spain gained the freedom to have idiotic protests aimed against the idiotic governments that they voted into office time and time again.

It is no exaggeration to say that the second Spanish republic was the darkest and most barbaric period in Spanish history. Yet, we see these idiot protesters carrying Spanish republican flags to all of their public temper-tantrums. This is a clear and unequivocal signal to monarchists. These people are not about order, tradition or upholding timeless values. These are people who have voted idiots into office who passed idiotic policies and now they don’t want to face up to the consequences of their actions. And for anyone who would still applaud them just out of shared hatred for who they are against, remember, the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. The western democracies believed that in World War II regarding Stalin and the result was the Cold War.

Beware of the mob.
They are not our friends.
Good things do not come from them.