When I was a little kid, I had two brothers and three sisters. One of us, I can’t remember which, had received as a gift one of those paddle thingies with the elastic band and a rubber ball attached. The life expectancy that toy wasn’t great, so the ball was quickly separated from the paddle and lost.
But we still had the paddle.
When one of us did something particularly bad, like pitch a fit and break something or hurt someone else in anger, we were told to go find that paddle. Some kids had to go cut their own switch, we had to find the paddle and bring back it so we could get an ass whupping.
I hated that damn paddle. But it worked. We all learned to respect other people and their property, and not to react with violence when we were upset about something. We learned what acceptable behavior was, and what it wasn’t.
Fast forward 15 years, I had my own son. The only time I tried spanking him was when he broke a window while upset about something. I don’t know if it was because he was exceptionally wiggly or because my heart wasn’t into it, but he never did get his ass whupped that day. We reasoned with him instead. We explained why his behavior wasn’t acceptable and what was expected of him in the future.
And it worked. That was the first and last time I ever even considered spanking him, and he grew into a fine, responsible man. He learned that reacting with violence isn’t acceptable and that destroying things out of anger just isn’t done in a civilized world.
So, we know two things that work to change a person’s behavior. Punishment and reason. Which approach you have to use depends on the person you’re trying to influence.
Do you know what doesn’t work? Ignoring the behavior and hoping that it goes away or encouraging the bad behavior. Neither of those will produce the desired result. If you encourage the bad behavior or simply ignore it, you teach the bad actor that they’re demonstrating acceptable behavior and you get more bad behavior.
Fast forward another 30 years and we’re here at the present. Over the last 10 months, we’ve seen Antifa and BLM supporters having a tantrum and reacting by rioting, looting, destroying other people’s property and even worse, hurting and killing people.
How did the Democrats respond? Top Democrats stated that “Antifa is a myth” and Joe Biden himself said, “Antifa is an idea”. Their response was to ignore the rioters and call them “mostly peaceful protesters”. They encouraged the rioters by supporting Antifa and Black Lives Matter. They limited officer’s ability to respond, defunded the police and refused help when offered by President Trump. In other words, they simultaneously ignored and encouraged the bad behavior. They did the things that are guaranteed to get you more violence.
Today is election day. Businesses all over the nation are boarding up their windows in anticipation of the election results. They’re not reinforcing their storefronts because they’re worried about peaceful protests. They’re nailing up plywood because they’re afraid of riots, looting and violence. They’re afraid of more of the same thing we’ve been seeing for months. And rightfully so.
The Democrats had most of the year to either reason with the rioters or use force to show them that their bad behavior is unacceptable. Either approach would have helped. But they did neither. Instead of teaching the bad actors that their behavior wasn’t going to be tolerated, they taught them that rioting, looting, murder and mayhem is a “right” and that there were few, if any repercussions for perpetrating violence.
So, any violent protests that may occur over the next few days is because the Democrats taught people that it is OK to do so. Because they didn’t just teach Antifa or followers of BLM that violence was acceptable, they taught everyone.
Regardless of who commits the violence, whether it’s Biden supporters or Trump supporters or both, it’s the fault of the Democratic party. Because their tactics did nothing to lessen the rioting and looting. Instead, their actions have guaranteed there will be more violence.
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