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<\/a>Earlier this week we saw yet again what happens when thousands of the unemployed, living off subsidies from taxpayers, decide to take their grievances to the streets. This latest assault on decency and order happened in Columbus, Ohio, but the list of cities victimized in this way is long and growing. It\u2019s often peaceful towns that are targeted\u2014communities filled with law-abiding people who work for a living, who follow the rules, and who deserve better protection from law enforcement.<\/p>\nThe thugs who prey on these neighborhoods wreak havoc, often with impunity. Responsible for neither jobs nor children, living off the earnings of others, these welfare kings and queens strut the streets at night, swilling alcohol, fornicating with abandon, and all too often, inciting violence against property and persons.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s an outrage, but more often than not it\u2019s downplayed by the mainstream media, because their sympathies lie with the criminals. They want to excuse the riots, chalking them up to social pressures, or an understandable backlash against powerlessness. Many of them once participated in these kinds of riots themselves, though you won\u2019t find that<\/em> on anybody\u2019s MSNBC profile.<\/p>\n Some journalists have the chutzpah to blame this lawlessness on the authorities, even as they chastise them for the slightest efforts to protect property and restore order. Treat these crowds of ne\u2019er-do-wells with kid gloves, the media mavens opine, and they won\u2019t turn violent. Big deal that they flipped a car or two. So what if they smashed a couple of storefront windows, stole a couple of televisions. They need to express themselves.<\/p>\n Poppycock. I, for one, say it\u2019s high time we stop coddling these criminals, and instead enforce some real penalties for their parasitical behavior. Otherwise we\u2019ll just encourage more of them to follow suit. They already number in the tens of thousands nationwide. They\u2019ve grown accustomed to living off others, to having all society\u2019s hard-earned prosperity laid at their feet for the taking. They\u2019re so ignorant and undisciplined that they\u2019ve even come to believe that they have a right<\/em> to the fruit of others\u2019 labor.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time, in other words, to do something about the college students.<\/p>\n Now, I know the song-and-dance about the many challenges in their lives, and how these cause frustration, and a propensity to lash out. The immense pressures of the annual Pumpkin Festival in Keene, New Hampshire, for example, which led students to set fires and turn over cars last year. Or Michigan State\u2019s big football and basketball losses, which have driven thousands of students into the East Lansing streets over the past decade.<\/p>\n The thing is, this hard-life excuse doesn\u2019t hold water. College students are just as likely to riot when they win, as was the case this week in Columbus, after the Ohio State Buckeyes captured the national college football championship.<\/p>\n They riot when they lose. They riot when they win. They riot when their pumpkin-spice lattes aren\u2019t the right temperature. When are we going to stop making excuses for this permanent criminal underclass, and start calling a spade a spade? Enough with all this psychobabble mumbo-jumbo about frustration and pent-up rage. It\u2019s just a cover for bald-faced thuggery.<\/p>\n And what else should we expect, when we insulate these people from responsibility? The average college student\u2014even at a private college\u2014receives thousands of dollars in taxpayer subsidies every year. The subsidies he gets from the unfortunate taxpayers singled out to pay an even higher tax to support his lifestyle, i.e., his parents, run many times higher than that.<\/p>\n Consider the sweet deal the average student gets. At others\u2019 expense, he\u2019s set up in fancy, state-maintained housing. He gets to arrange his own schedule, which often doesn\u2019t even start until the afternoon, and leaves Fridays open.<\/p>\n He gets a plastic card with which to buy food. Even if it can\u2019t be used for alcohol and tobacco, this frees up his money so he can buy all the booze and smokes he wants\u2014something his weepy liberal defenders don\u2019t want you to hear about. And don\u2019t get me started on how he gets all those taxpayer-financed benefits without even having to submit to a drug test!<\/p>\n Worse still, this dependency is passed down from generation to generation. Studies prove that children of people who partook of the college subsidy racket are themselves much more likely to go on the dole when their time comes. Perhaps worst of all, the moochers who ride this gravy train the longest, leaping from their four-to-five year undergraduate vacation straight into who knows how many years of graduate school, often end up staying in for life, as professors, where they proceed to convince future generations that they\u2019re entitled to the same gold-plated treatment.<\/p>\n The bottom line is that these people have a propensity to riot. Who can forget the deadly St. Scholastica Day riot at Oxford, back in 1355, for example? We need to stop pretending that students will be law-abiding citizens without serious penalties when they get out of line.<\/p>\n Mind you, I\u2019m not saying all<\/em> students are low-down, shiftless, thieving, violent thugs. Many work very hard. In fact, some of my best friends are students. I mean, I kind of know some students. But what else do we need to know, when the facts are right there for us to see on our televisions?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Tony Woodlief<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0lives in North Carolina<\/span>.<\/em>\u00a0His essays have appeared in\u00a0<\/span>The Wall Street Journal\u00a0<\/em>and<\/span>\u00a0The London Times,<\/em>\u00a0and his short stories appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Image<\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Ruminate<\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Saint Katherine Review<\/em>, and\u00a0<\/span>Dappled Things.<\/em>\u00a0His website is\u00a0<\/span>www.tonywoodlief.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n