“Zucottis” are not the Sans-Culottes

 

By William R. Mann
CanadaFreePress.com

“There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

Can you imagine being the paid SEIU head-bashing clown-agitator on Wall Street that has to deal with this:

We are!
... We Are! ...

Occupy Wall Street!
... Occupy Wall Street!

“To the Barricades!
... To the Barricades! ... umm ... What’s a Barricade?”

The punks, juvenile delinquents, runaways, wannabe revolutionaries, druggies, recycled SDS leftovers from the 60s and the pampered trust babies are a not only a disgrace to this country, they are even a disgrace to the revolutionary memory of the real Sans-Culottes. The now extinct Sans-Culottes are likely turning in their graves at the thought that these spoiled, slimy punks and criminal elements are their legacy. The Zucottis’ goals are non-existent and their demands betray an astounding ignorance of even the most basic realities of life. Their teacher-leaders chant ridiculous, puerile slogans and these obsequious simian-humanoid followers repeat them robotically. They admire butchers like Mao Tse Dung, Josef Stalin and Che Guevara, but do not understand that these villains were cut from the same cloth as Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, or Francisco Franco. They are too shallowly developed as students to have read for themselves and to have figured out that Democracies do not make war on each other; autocracies and totalitarian states do. The Zucottis are not waiting for Godot. They are certainly not waiting for Galt. They are waiting for Goodie.

Allow me to take you on a brief stroll down memory lane.

The real Sans-Culottes were the feared human tools of Jacobins Revolutionary Leaders in Paris in 1789. The Jacobins were the political arm of the French Revolutionaries formed in 1789. Of course, like most revolutionary groups in the beginning, they were called the Society of the Friends of the Constitution and included many moderate proponents of societal change in the beginning. The Jacobins were eventually taken over by Maximilien Robespierre [a peasant youth who studied law on scholarship] and his friend Louis Saint-Just, a dedicated revolutionary became a leading member of the Committee for Public Safety. This committee relied heavily on the members of the Paris Commune [as in Communism] and the Parisian San-Culottes to do their bidding and to make their social calls. Sans-Culottism included a strict collectivist ideology, and demanded fraternity, and equality and a libertine form of freedom that was ironically destructive, and not real freedom. The demand for fraternity even meant killing a fellow Frenchman who happened to disagree with you. This committee eventually gained the better known moniker of “The Terror.” The Terror [1793-94] was that period where anyone thought to be a “counterrevolutionary,” was sent to the guillotine. Monarchists, democrats, and even former allies of Robespierre were sent to the blade. Moderates Georges Danton, a French Statesman, and journalist Camille Desmoulin, whose writings influenced the storming of the Bastille, ¬†lost their heads. Even the virulent journalist newspaperman, Jacques Rene Hebert, [Le P√®re Duchesne] fell into disfavor during the Terror and met a date with the guillotine. Thirty thousand or more Frenchmen met their demise at the hands of The Terror and The Committee for Public Safety. As Hebert once wrote before he fell out of favor with the very people he idolized:

“The sans-culotte is useful because he knows how to plough a field, to forge iron, use a saw, to file, to roof a house, to make shoes-and to spill his blood to the last drop for the safety of the Republic”

So, how do the “Zucottis” measure up? Many of them live off of Mommy’s and Daddy’s good will and income. Many of them have Cell Phones, I-Pods, I-Pads, Laptops, and brought their X-Box with them. Most have them have been told lies by elderly pot-heads, perhaps some of whom are parents and grandparents who have yet to grow up, about how great that psychedelic era of free-love rebellious heydays of the 60s. So these children gather for a happy “Fizzies” party in parks around the country. They want to be part of something big, they care what, and apparently they don’t care who their pied piper is.

The “Zucottis” have been schooled by Marxist Professors and High School Teachers to believe in the Collectivism and the values of egalitarianism and utilitarianism. What are these terms? How do they apply today?

Ayn Rand, the author of “Atlas Shrugged” knew Collectivism. Ayn Rand lived Collectivism¬†as a young woman in Revolutionary Russia before escaping to the United States. Many will tout her agnostic Objectivism as a strike against her common-sense brilliance, to this I say, “Pshaw! Socrates was not a Christian or a Jew but we consider his views on life and society. Saint Thomas Aquinas showed us the value of that. Again, no less a Christian luminary of humanity than Mother Theresa oft expressed her despair and doubts regarding how humans treat each other, and despairing moments about God and His Existence. I choose Ayn Rand because she is contemporary, became an American,¬†loved this country, and hated Communism. Her insights are invaluable when evaluating the Occupy Wall Street rabble.

So Dear Reader, here are a couple of Ayn Rand’s thoughts about collectivism:

“Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group‚Äîwhether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.” - from Readers Digest, January 1944

“Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group . . . and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force—and Statism has always been the political corollary of collectivism.” - from “The virtue of Selfishness”

So what may we conclude about Collectivism in the OWS Movement? The key words from these short definitions are: subjugation of the individual; chained to collective action; collective thought: the common good; no rights; life and work belong to the group; sacrifice; whim; brute force; and Statism.

Egalitarianism touts equality of outcomes for everyone regardless of talents or predisposition, yet invariably results in some people being more equal than others.

“Egalitarianism means the belief in the equality of all men. If the word “equality” is to be taken in any serious or rational sense, the crusade for this belief is dated by about a century or more: the United States of America has made it an anachronism—by establishing a system based on the principle of individual rights. - Ayn Rand, The Return of the Primitive”

Utilitarianism is essentially the belief that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its usefulness. And although Ms. Rand did not write about Utilitarianism specifically, she recognized its outcomes. Utilitarianism eventually and invariably devolves into the madness of that classically immoral exercise your Marxist teacher gave you in High School or College: “Who shall we dump out of the lifeboat so others might live and be saved.” Beware the charmer one who speaks of the value of individual out of one side of their mouth while spewing garbage about the greatest good for the greatest number of people out of the other.

So what do we have to fear from the Children of Zucotti? Not much; they a far more deserving of our prayers for their souls. They are in great danger and one stage away from becoming Zombies.

What we should fear is the gradual acceptance that this kind of baseless and thoroughly uncivilized behavior has become an acceptable form of protest to so many people on the Left. Guard that we do not come to legitimize it on the Right. Nancy Pelosi thinks they are wonderful, Barack Obama is proud of them, Bill Ayers is instructing the OWS in Chicago. Red-faced Democrats around the country are afraid to stand up to their pitiful leadership and say, “Enough!” And to our weaker brothers and sister on the Right who claim to still have a brain we should say, “Get it together, man!”

Our Country is not some half-baked French Republic that is operating under its Fifth incarnation since 1789. This is the United States of America. We are Constitutional Republic founded in 1787. We have the same Constitution today that we had then, plus a few Amendments. It’s our own fault that we disobey or misinterpret it. We have established, civil structures, procedures and processes to achieve every goal and necessity without constant revolution. We have no need for the establishment of a Nanny State. We simply need to get rid of our debt and tell our politicians to obey the Constitution or go to jail.

But as for the Zucottis: they are no Sans-Culottes! They are not even a cheap imitation.

William R. Mann
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William R. Mann, is a retired Lt. Colonel, US Army. He is a now a political observer, analyst, activist and writer for Conservative causes. He was educated at West Point [Bachelor of Science, 1971 ]and the Naval Postgraduate School [Masters, National Security Affairs, 1982]. He currently resides with his wife in Pensacola, Florida. William can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com