The False "Romance" of Protest

Rosa Brooks has nothing but contempt for Americans who won't take to the streets in protest, like many illegal immigrants have done in response to proposed immigration reform legislation.

How hilarious. How like a leftist. Because the fact is that, contrary to what Professor Brooks asserts, none of the protests have prompted Republicans to "reconsider" parts of the bill. Rather, the protests have, it seems, worked against the protestors' interests, hardening unfortunate (and no doubt inaccurate) impressions on the part of many in Middle America that the protesting illegals are more interested in asserting non-existent rights to citizenship than in following American laws.

Liberals like Rosa Brooks somehow cherish the notion that street protests are noble, romantic, empowering -- an expression of collective outrage by engaged citizens. Actually, street protests -- including the ones she points out overseas -- are the signs of profound political failure. They occur most often against political systems that aren't working, because they don't have more peaceful and effective ways of gauging, representing, responding to and incorporating the opinions of the unhappy protestors (setting aside, of course, the regimes like China, Iran, N. Korea and Saddam's Iraq, where protestors are simply jailed or killed).

Rose Brooks may be sorry that there aren't more street protests in the U.S. I'm glad. And proud.