Essay: THE DANGER OF PLAYING AT REVOLUTION

UP against the wall!" The slogan, usually in combination with a few supplementary obscenities, has become the battle cry of the U.S. protest movement—or at least a sizable part of it. The words express a temper of growing violence, brutality and authoritarianism among protesters. Sometimes in the exultation of a demonstration, sometimes in recoil from police clubs, sometimes out of sheer gall, protesters cry out for "revolution" as the only solution to the nation's ills. Those who urge revolution and sanction violence remain a minority, but they are influential beyond their numbers on...