I understand why people are so upset by the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. But that message has been well communicated. The protests now ongoing — and I am not discussing the rioting or looting — seem to me to be about causing disruption for disruption’s sake.

That is the subject of my First Things column this week. From the piece:

What is now being accomplished by preventing tired commuters from getting home for dinner? Or by impeding Christmas shoppers at Macy’s? Where is the progressivism in blocking a San Francisco Bay Area freeway for hours last Monday night, requiring the emergency evacuation of a woman in labor from the miles-long traffic jam? No justice, no birth!
It seems to me that these protests are about disruption for disruption’s sake. Blocking roads does not enlighten. Disrespect doesn’t challenge consciences. Using raw mob intimidation to coerce a legal result does not further justice.

I describe how the current howling is reminiscent of the angry — but successful only in the sense of being disruptive — “On strike, shut it down!” protests after the Kent State killings.

Then, as now at Harvard and Columbia law schools, college students demanded freedom not to do their work because of the trauma, and were allowed by spineless administrators to skip exams.

Believe me, we took full advantage of that laxity, whether involved in the protests or not.

I conclude my piece by pointing out that support for these kinds of actions depends on whose ox is being gored:

It is a telling indictment of our times that Ferguson protesters enjoy media sympathy and the winking encouragement of liberal elected officials up to and including the President of the United States. These same progressive political and media types supported harsh jail sentences for Operation Rescue demonstrators who nonviolently impeded the business of abortion clinics. Disruption mattered then.
And remember the intense media hostility toward the peaceful—and clean—Tea Party protests, whose participants were slandered as somehow racist? It seems social protest is only worthy when it marches on the left side of the road.

That’s life these days in the United States of Double Standards. It’s not a pretty picture.