The modern crop of American leftist revolutionaries are a curious bunch. These are the children of the high bourgeoisie, often women, “cosplaying” the revolution until they get arrested and suddenly playtime turns into hard time.
For a growing list of Chick Guevaras, real legal consequences are following from what they thought would be a frolicking freedom fight — and how they react reveals much about their privilege.
Take Kathryn Patterson, arrested during the troubles in Lancaster, Pa., last week. She is a sorority sister at a fancy private college. Wealthy parents. A very charmed life. That is, until the Clara Kraebber, another rich debutante type taking up class struggle.
But a funny thing happens on the way to neo-Marxist utopia. Once these unlikely guerrilla warriors are apprehended, they start demanding all of the protections provided by the very legal system they say is corrupt beyond repair.
Patterson’s father was outraged that his daughter was being held on $1 million bail, and he claims she has been denied access to the family attorney. Whoa, whoa, whoa — family attorney? Shouldn’t these allies of the downtrodden be relying on public defenders like the people they claim to be defending?
In Gotham this summer, we had two very successful attorneys allegedly set a cop car alight with flaming bottle of alcohol at a police car without carefully checking to see if anyone was inside?
Let he who is without sin cast the first firebomb.
It’s all fun and games until somebody goes to jail. Going to jail, of course, is what civil rights leaders in the past did.
But there is a big difference between the late John Lewis and the Chick Guevaras of today. Men like Lewis and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. went to jail peacefully protesting, or breaking unjust laws, not setting stuff on fire. They welcomed the consequences of their actions to expose the inequality of the system.