Protest flourishes over an individual’s bad action but largely absent over systematic oppression of rights

What is the difference between a nefarious street mob shutting down your business and interfering with your ability to travel where you want, and local or state government officials doing same under the cover of dubious laws? Effectively there is little difference. Nefarious intent may seem worse than incompetence but when the results are similar – destruction of economic and civil rights of good people – it’s the outcome that matters not the intent.

Many officials around the country were not just threatening but following through with thousand dollar fines and arresting people for not following their dubious orders to not work, wear a face diaper, or a plethora of other silly things. Now many of those same local and state officials refuse to stop looting, arson, and violence in the streets of their cities and even make excuses for the behavior.

It’s so over-the-top stupid that New Jersey’s face-diaper wearing Democrat governor said you can’t compare the right to protesting the shutdown of your business to protesting police brutality. In his mind, as well as many others, the systematic unjust action of the state that ruins your life is OK and not worthy of protest but another injustice of an individual police officer, not acting under the orders of the government, is worthy of protest, violent protest if needed.

Tickets for getting a haircut.

And here you have what bothers me most in all of this.

People are right to be angry and seek to redress their governments when agents of those governments do bad things but, they should be exponentially more angry when government itself, not just a bad actor, uses power we loan it to systematically infringe on our natural and basic civil rights.

Why weren’t there thousands in the streets with “peaceful” protest over that?