Protests achieve exactly what?

“This is the moment.” So says Mike Littwin in his Sunday column, salivating at the prospect that the American experiment may finally be coming to an end. (“It’s been a long time coming, but is change really on the way?”, June 13, aspentimes.com)

Yes, this is the moment …

• when we burn a Wendy’s to the ground for no other reason than someone reporting a person passed out in the drive-thru lane;

• when we set 94 fires around the city of Portland for no discernible reason at all, except to keep public servants hopping;

• when we seize six square blocks of private and public property, and the Seattle mayor calls it “democracy” and the possible prelude to another “Summer of Love”;

• when a “Bible-totin’” president is considered more offensive than setting fire to an historic church a few hundred yards from the White House; or more offensive than defacing Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, because why? — Patrick was a white guy? The cathedral represents civilization? The pristine surface presented the perfect canvas for a sensitive young artist and his expression of “social justice”?

• when we topple every statue in sight, even the statue of an abolitionist, because iconoclasm feels so good;

• when we release all the people who do these things immediately, if we arrest them at all, so police can try to re-arrest them another six times.

OK. Some readers will say that I’ve missed the whole point of these “protests.” They’d be right about that.

Chad Klinger

Snowmass Village