Bastille Day: The Beginning of Liberal Madness

Commentary by Ann Coulter on Town Hall.com (July 15):

This Tuesday, the French celebrated Bastille Day, the mob attack on a Parisian prison that has come to symbolize the French Revolution, a period of massive violence that produced nothing other than a lot of dead Frenchmen. Their revolution was the screech of a mob, much as we are seeing in several of our own cities and towns today. So let's review this absurdly celebrated event.

As is common with mob violence, the storming of the Bastille was set off by a rumor. People began to whisper that the impotent, indecisive king, Louis XVI, was going to attack the new legislative body, the National Assembly.

-- Hands Up! Don't Shoot! (Even Eric Holder's Justice Department found that claim was a lie -- after multiple millions in property damage and human suffering.)

-- Mass protests over police killing an innocent black man in Detroit! (Turns out, Hakim Littleton was firing a gun at them.)

-- Althea Bernstein's face was burned with lighter fluid and a match thrown at her by four "classic Wisconsin frat boys"! (After initial flood-the-zone coverage, that story sure disappeared fast.)

In need of weapons to defend themselves from the imaginary attack, on the morning of July 14, 1789, about 60,000 French citizens armed with pikes and axes assembled at Les Invalides, a barracks for aging soldiers, to demand weapons and ammunition.

……………

Eventually, the mob broke through the gate of Les Invalides and ransacked the building, seizing 10 cannon and 28,000 muskets. But no ammunition. So they headed for the Bastille, which had once been a fortress.

The rabble feared the Bastille because of false rumors of political prisoners being tortured behind its walls. In fact, the Bastille held only a half-dozen prisoners that day, most of them common forgers. They were not being tortured, and the prison was in the process of being shut down, anyway.

With legions of Parisians banging on the gates of the Bastille, the prison's commander, Marquis de Launay, invited representatives of the people inside to negotiate over breakfast.

……

In reaction to the storming of the Bastille, Alexander Hamilton politely warned the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution: "I dread the vehement character of your people, whom I fear you may find it more easy to bring on, than to keep within Proper bounds, after you have put them in motion."

Lafayette didn't listen. Three years later, he was fleeing France for his life. I hope the Democrats have a better plan. [read more]

A mob is a mob. I don’t care what century it is or what country the mob is in. Those who intently create a mob may well regret it because sooner or later the monster you create (call it the Frankenstein effect) will turn on them. A mob has its own inertia and mentality namely irrational violence.

All these mobs are part of the top-down-bottom-up-inside-out plan that Obama’s czar Van Jones talked about. The mob is the bottom-up part. The top-down part are the mayors defunding the police, enacting no-bail polices, spraying BLM graffiti on streets, etc. A person doesn’t have to directly give orders to people to commit acts. Sometimes all he/she has to do is create an environment to encourage the acts. The mob will get the hint. Meanwhile the city dwellers experiencing the inside-out part are nervous and/or scared. The rich can move or hire protection or have walls built around them, the middle/working class may or may not have those options. And as for the poor they are stuck where they are at. Then again the rioters don’t care about the poor. They only care about their evil, mad, destructive ideology.

More articles on the subject:

• BLM photojournalist beaten and doxxed by Antifa for 'snitching' to Portland police
• Oakland mayor who supports Black Lives Matter movement has house vandalized with BLM graffiti
• Federal officers in Portland may have been permanently blinded by lasers, officials say
• Mal-Educated Rioters and Spineless Politicians Wage a War Against Democracy
• EXPOSED: BLM unites with Islamists and communists to DISMANTLE the West
• Rioters Are Using Racial Discontent to Promote Marxist Agenda
• Q;A: Here’s What Is Happening on the Ground in Portland
• Why This Revolution Isn’t Like the ’60s
• 47 arrested, 59 officers injured in Seattle protests that turned violent
• Radio host mocked Trump by saying Seattle protests were peaceful, then rioters torched his apartment building
• White BLM Rioter Berates African-American Immigrant Doctor: ‘I’m More Black Than You on the Inside’
• Man knifed in back at Portland protest: ‘I was stabbed for being a conservative journalist’