History Lesson

Late last week Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) were vocal among Republican leaders suggesting the use of the Army National Guard to suppress campus unrest across the country as students protest Israel's war in Gaza.

Sure, I understand the attraction of muscle-flexing for the GOP base voters back home but personally I think this is a bad idea.  Consider this.

Peaceful protest enjoys a long and storied history in this country.  Violent protest is decidedly rare.  And always wrong.  In most instances campus police and local law enforcement is adequately-equipped to respond appropriately.  Rioting rising to the level of necessitating the deployment of national guard troops is rarer still.  The most recent example, of course, was the Capitol riot on January 6, 2020.  Border governors have also deployed national guard troops to deter border crossings.  That is their prerogative.

Campus protests today generally have not risen to the level of widespread riot, criminality such as arson, looting, property damage and physical assault or loss of lives over vast numbers of campuses and American cities.  I'm not seeing it where I live or the destruction of large Wisconsin campuses and urban areas.

What I am seeing has been largely peaceful protest.  If someone want to live in a pup tent on a campus green to demonstrate solidarity with Hamas that's their business.  It may be misguided - but it is nonviolent protest.  And campuses have the authority to tolerate it, or to remove the encampment. 

Same for those who close a highway or a bridge to demonstrate against the plight of the Palestinian people.  It is non-violent - but is illegal.  Logically, if I am delayed in my commute to my day job this disruption in my life will unlikely render me sympathetic to the protestor's cause.  Just the opposite; I will be pissed-off.  But college age children (yes children) and young adults don't think logically.  They're too young to have developed mature adult thinking and the consequences of rash decisions.  Easily persuaded their glands and emotions complicate matters further. 

Consequently, much of the response to most of this is driven by social media apoplexy.  Click bait.  An added complexity is first amendment speech rights on public v. private institutions of higher learning.  Private colleges and universities have the advantage of restricting speech; because they're private.  Public institutions play by a less restrictive set of first amendment rules.  To be clear, violence, threats of violence, assault, destruction of property, barricading buildings and depriving others of access to an education is not protected speech.  Hate speech is protected because there are very fine people on both sides.  But I digress. 

One of the advantages of being an older, mature adult is that I've lived a lifetime of experience and had personal contact with the deployment of troops both here and abroad to keep the peace.  I don't take it lightly.

Moreover, I have a vivid memory of a tragedy that took place fifty-four years ago yesterday on the campus of Ohio's Kent State University.

After Friday bar time, May 1, 1970, several hundred students broke shop windows, sprayed anti war graffiti on buildings, harassed motorists and generally behaved like drunken vandals.  The following day the mayor contacted the governor convinced that outside agitators were fomenting violence and that the Ohio National Guard be deployed to Kent State University.    

Because they already had a sense of the emotional state of the student body, officials at the university already had a plan.  Namely, relying on university police along with county sheriff deputies, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol.  But nobody consulted them.

Saturday evening student Vietnam war protestors set fire to the campus ROTC building.  Equipped with riot gear, university police successfully made arrests, dispersed the rest and put out the fire.  Nevertheless, in short order several hundred Ohio National Guardsmen arrived in jeeps, trucks and armored personnel carriers.

Locked in a close primary race, Republican Governor Jim Rhodes dismissed local and university officials out of hand.  Since performative politics is nothing new, he declared, We are going to eradicate the problem.  They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America.  I'm sure he was referencing the long-haired, commie pinko undergrads exercising their draft deferments.

Monday morning, May 4, 1970, three thousand students gathered for a previously-planned anti-war rally.  It escalated to a flammable mix of both a protest of the war and now the military presence on the campus. 

Just over a hundred weary guardsmen, armed with loaded rifles, advanced to break-up the crowd.  Sweating under gas masks, and helmets they couldn't hear commands, they were poorly led, untrained in law enforcement, and without a plan. 

Clueless protesters continued to march in the direction of the nervous troops.  As the closing distance narrowed shots broke out.  

In thirteen seconds four students were killed outright and nine wounded.  One of them permanently paralyzed.

I recall at the time a popular sentiment that the student protestors got what they deserved.  I disagree.  Nobody deserves to be shot and wounded or die a violent death  I didn't feel that way then and nothing has changed since.  It was a shit show.

My sentiment; deescalate a confrontation by means of civil authorities.  Deploy guard troops as a last resort.  Here's some advice; free advice too.  If someone wants to whip a crowd at a rally into a frenzy and riot; run the other way.