Not the Headlines Extra Political Violence

The Listening To presents not the headlines extra. They say the wheels of justice turn slowly, as do the wheels of legislation. It's often hard for the government to keep up with the speed at which our society is changing. That doesn't necessarily mean we have to slow down to wait for the government to catch up, nor does it mean that the government should be in a hurry. Government needs to be deliberate, as it's very difficult to undo what the government does. Maybe if our lawmakers worked for 50 weeks a year, the process would move more quickly, but that's a different subject. As it is, the speed at which government moves can sometimes be a hindrance to progress. But just as you can't rush how long it takes to bake a cake in the oven, you can't rush the deliberative process that controls how the United States government operates, makes laws, or holds elections, or does any of the administrative stuff that affects our lives. But in the 30 or so years that the Internet has been gaining more of our attention, we've become impatient with the pace of government. Even before the Internet, the 24-hour news cycle, pioneered by Ted Turner and CNN, created an environment that demanded instant updates, and with that, we evolved into demanding instant results. Results based on the most recent data. The desired results may vary by person or group or political party, but what's important is that the results are now. But right now doesn't happen very often in politics, especially if your party isn't in power. You might have to wait another two or four years for the tide to turn if you have good candidates who win until you can hope to get the results you want. But in the age of instant information and the demand for instant results, you might feel powerless because you're not moving in a positive direction. You're stalled out and unable to get any steam for your vision. You can't wait another two or more years. You need to make a difference now. You need to generate a following or get in the headlines or somehow gather attention to your cause. You run out of patience because you don't understand the role of government in our society, and you think violence will move your cause forward or at least disrupt the other group's cause. The riots in Los Angeles over ICE enforcement, or the violence that took place in several cities around the country during the laughable No Kings protests are because people on the left don't have the patience required to live under the Constitution of the United States of America. They don't respect the process. They don't want to follow the rules that were established almost 250 years ago. The same Constitution that makes the United States the world's superpower. So they react violently with no real purpose, as the violence will usually only lead to people getting arrested and no real society change to speak of. Just take a look at how much Black Lives Matter has done for black people since the 2020 riots. As it turns out, the so-called progressives are trying to haul the rest of us into a regression. Eric Schmidt, the junior senator from Missouri, was on TV on Father's Day and pointed out that, and I'm paraphrasing, politics is what we're supposed to use instead of violence. It's why we have politics. Prior to politics, differences of ideals were settled with violence. Whomever won the battle won the argument. It took a while, but eventually even the people who could win the battle realized that it wasn't the best way to run the place. So instead, we and when I say we, I mean the ancient Greeks, came up with democracy. It didn't catch on right away, and it needed to be refined over time, but by the time the founding fathers of the United States came along, we knew enough about the voting process to make it work. And it has. It replaced violence as a way of governing, and we're all better off for it. But those people in the streets of LA and elsewhere aren't progressive at all. They still believe that violence is the way to govern, and that the Constitution of the United States is invalid. So when the legacy media tells you that the mostly peaceful protesters are only displaying pride in their heritage or just having fun watching cars burn, they could be right. They're not protesting for anything, only against anything. Their protests will not result in positive change, only damage and injury and heartache for the people and businesses that hoped to thrive there, but are now ruined. It is merely violence for violence's sake, by people who have no respect for American values, the Constitution, or other people. They think they're somehow defending democracy while they're doing nothing of the sort. These rioters and the people who fund them need to learn to have patience with the pace of a constitutional republic. Regardless of what you may think, we don't govern on the internet. We govern in deliberative chambers, following a set of rules that don't include any kind of violence. Those who are promoting violence only want to take us back to how it was before politics, when the most violent got their way. They might call themselves progressives, but I don't see any progress in going back to when violence was how you got your way.