Sneak Preview in Denmark

Earlier this week, I blogged about the Marxist indoctrination some school children in Seattle received because their "teachers" observed that the children were making too many "assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys" for their tastes.

After their short reeducation, their pupils were parroting such bromides as, "A house is good because it is a community house," and "It's important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building." They had, it seemed, already begun absorbing their teachers' lessons about "collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

Suppose some of these parents fail to come to their senses and either demand the firing of these teachers or send their children to a better school? How would their children turn out, barring other, better influences or tremendous independence on their parts? We need only look to the rubble-filled streets of Copenhagen, which are burning after a very disgraceful display of -- how did that go? -- "collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

Copenhagen police braced for more violence Saturday after two nights of street clashes with leftist youths from several countries that have turned parts of the Danish capital into a battlefield strewn with burning cars and shattered glass.

As the smoke and tear gas cleared Saturday morning, police said 188 people were arrested overnight Saturday, while more than 200 were arrested the day before.

In the early Saturday clashes, a school was vandalized and several buildings were damaged by fire. There were no reports of serious injuries overnight Saturday; the night before, 25 people were injured. Police said the street violence was the worst in a decade.

"In the last 10 years we haven't had riots like we've seen in the past two days," police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said.

The violence started Thursday after a police anti-terror squad evicted squatters from a downtown building that for years has served as a popular cultural center for anarchists, punk rockers and left-wing groups. [bold added]

The clincher is this paragraph near the end.

The building at the center of the recent riots, known as "the youth house," has been viewed as free public housing by young squatters since the 1980s. The eviction had been planned since last year, when courts ordered the squatters to hand the building over to a Christian congregation that bought it six years ago.

The squatters refused, saying the city had no right to sell the building, which has become a hub for cultural events and concerts, featuring performers like Australian Nick Cave and Icelandic singer Bjork. They have demanded another building for free as a replacement. [bold added]

Well, that sounds shockingly familiar! Do Lego bricks feature prominently in the architecture of Copenhagen as well?

By what right do the squatters demand a replacement building? The protesters clearly reject the civilized notion of property rights, which the building's purchasers have attempted to exercise.

When there is no recognition of individual rights by a society, brute force replaces rule of law. This is what the squatters did when they seized the building (although with little resistance) in the 1980's and that is what will necessarily have to happen again if the government "gives" them another building, as I fear it will in a futile attempt to appease the anarchists.

In the second case, although the riots may stop for the moment, the squatters will not merely have obtained a building. They will have won a little more acceptance by the larger society of the notion that the the collective (i.e., the government) will award material goods -- Oops! I was about to slip and say "property". -- on the basis of the poison of loud claims and threats, sugar-coated by the word "need".

Look long upon Europe, my fellow Americans. This will be us in another quarter century if we keep teaching children that individual human beings do not have rights by nature and that mob rule (often praised as "democracy") is a social ideal.

-- CAV