On and off this week, I have been thinking about the differences between the 59-day temper tantrums of the Occupy Wall Street “protests” back in 2011 and what we are witnessing on the Minneapolis streets today, and it struck me how much more aggressively “Alinsky” they have become. Left-wing activist Saul Alinsky published 13 Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals in 1971. It was an instruction manual for “community organizers” conceived amid the political turbulence of the late 1960s and early 1970s, addressing a new generation of activists.

But no matter what you think about Alinsky, his rules were logical.

What we are seeing today is not. Ronald Reagan’s famous joke comes to mind: “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” I firmly believe this is true. They invent things. They take a factual event, add irrational emotion, and come up with the most horrific explanation possible to keep the fear, adrenaline, and anger flowing.

Criminals and thugs become “activists” and “legal observers” — angelic freedom fighters — who are agents of “neighbors” and “Maryland Dads,” while law-abiding, churchgoing Christians are cast as modern versions of William Quantrill (leader of Quantrill’s Raiders) or “Bloody Bill” Anderson who are planning another Lawrence Massacre (killing ~150-200 civilians and burning the town).

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