Treat Barbarians Like Barbarians

Ace of Spades is, as Vox Day noted, coming around, as evidenced by a recent post on how "How Losing My Political Values Helped Me Gain My Freedom":

Donald Trump isn't the bully; he only insults and abuses people in power who have attacked him. They're the fucking bullies. The left, with their smears, their witch hunts, their slanders, their insults, their riots, their violence, and their weaponizing of the federal bureaucracy.

There aren't any rules anymore because the left only applies them one way. And in doing so, they've left what once was a civil compact between the two parties in smoldering ruins.

I have no personal investment in Donald Trump. He is a tool to punish the left and roll back their ill-gotten gains, no more and no less. If he succeeds even partially in those two things, then I'll consider his election a win.

Further, I no longer have any investment in any particular political values, save one: The rules created by the left will be applied to the left as equally and punitively as they have applied them to the right. And when they beg for mercy, I'll begin to reconsider. Or maybe not. Because fuck these people.

Civilized behavior is for civilized people. When people violate those standards, we must push back. And as noted in a Campbell essay Pournelle included in his Imperial Stars anthology for Baen, the barbarians are just as likely to come from within.

I noted in a very late comment there:

Civilized behavior is something we owe civilized people.

People who demonstrate they don't care about that - those who put themselves outside the law, also, morally, put themselves outside the limits.

Some, as in the prisoners dilemma, will, once you punch back, back off and say "sorry" and straighten out and act right.

Others will double down. Worse, even if you don't punch back, they'll take it as weakness and double down, triple down, and then cry if you ever even say "no."

It may only be a "minority" of the left, but it's a LOUD one. Many of the offenders are in positions of power, status, adn influence. And those in positions of status who do not engage in this behavior nevertheless cover for it.

I dare any leftist to find me a case of protests similar to Friday's after Obamas inauguration. Even if they manage, or go "muh abortion clinic bombers", you won't find the behavior of those violent scum excused.

The left does it. The left doesn't care. The die hard among the left refuses to believe when you show them.

They wanted to break heads, scream nazi, and put people out of jobs? They wanted to put themselves outside the law and that behavior on the table?

They should have been careful what they wished for.