Too Many Are Pursuing A Policy Of Appeasement
This isn’t just the “minority” argument. If this were “a minority” as many people seem keen to say then tackling them would be easy and straightforward.
The truth is that it’s not, and everyone knows that it’s not, and so the very act of making that argument is a sophisticated excuse for not acting, and the reason nobody wants to act is that they are scared.
They are scared because this isn’t a “minority” at all, or at least it’s not a tiny and insignificant one.
People are scared because there are loads of these goons, and a lot of them are every bit as dangerous as those who stormed the Capitol in the United States, and so making the “small minority” argument allows for a policy of appeasement.
And there is a lot of appeasement going on, and in place you might not expect.
It is evident in the statements from the Government, before and during this, in allowing The Peepul to believe they could break the law with impunity.
When the police allowed crowds to gather, they were appeasing the goons.
When they didn’t disperse them as they grew they were appeasing.
When they allowed the drinking they were ignoring another violation of the law.
So the casual acts of vandalism took place.
Allowed by the police whose statement said that things were progressing “peacefully.”
Peaceful vandalism apparently no longer merits a police response. Fair enough.
But where do you stop turning a blind eye?
Violations of the health regulations, even as the country braces itself for the Indian Variant? No.
Public drinking bans being flouted? No.
Public order offences like interfering with traffic and climbing all over the statues? No.
The sectarian singing was going on all day. No line drawn there.
Pissing all over the monuments? Again, we’ll let that one slide.
So the violence becomes inevitable because these Peepul are belligerent and many of them are drunk and the whole attitude behind the “party” was one of ugliness anyway and so first they turned on each other and still that didn’t cross the line between what you pretend isn’t happening and what you are forced to confront.
Finally, the good citizens of the city are threatened and things are, at last, seen to be “getting out of hand” as if a day of constant criminality wasn’t out of hand, and by the time the machinery cranks up and the police are ready to enforce the law, these lunatics are ready and willing and game enough and arrogant enough to take them on as well.
You could trace the evolution of this all day long.
Indeed, many of us had traced it all week long, predicting exactly these kind of scenes because when the Peepul are allowed the inch they take the mile and if no-one tells them to stop they just keep on going.
Appeasement comes in many forms.
I spoke not that long ago about Show Racism The Red Card Scotland and how they first got onto my radar; they had accused Brendan Rodgers of claiming that Shay Logan brought racist abuse upon himself, when the manager had done no such thing.
At around the same time, the Peepul were furious because the organisation had brought Phil Mac Giolla Bhain in to talk about anti-Irish racism; the anger from that saw Phil ostracised by the organisation, which accused him of being a bigot, and the real bigots were brought in to meet them instead and treated to tea and biscuits and the full sit-down.
I asked them a load of questions at the time and the answers I got back were disquieting; they had been rattled by the sheer volume of the hate poured at them by the Peepul because they had spoken to Phil.
Rather than stand up to it, they bowed down to it.
Which is why for a long time afterwards I referred to them as Show Racism The Red Carpet.
Show Racism The Red Card Scotland has never mentioned anti-Irish racism since; they learned their lesson.
They became appeasers instead, and in the process graduated to the next thing I want to talk about.
They became enablers.