Have you ever been involved in the planning or execution of some large scale event? Even something like a concert or a sporting event? It very much depends on leadership, but even with good management, unexpected things will occur.

Some of the unanticipated happenings will be fortuitous, some will not.

The point here, is that any endeavor of any size, will have a large number of expected things happen, and even with the best of scheming, typically a good number of things that were not intended.

Many are familiar with the current protests underway throughout the United States at the present.

A lot of what’s happening does indeed appear to be “peaceful.” Even though that’s true, there’s a comparatively small number of folks who seem to be intent on acts of violence and destruction.

The sad reality is, those folks appear to be using guerrilla and urban warfare tactics in order to “cover” themselves.

Simply put, bad people are using good ones as “human shields.”

The fact that much of what’s going on is doing so after nightfall does nothing to make these tactics easier to deal with; and to make matters worse, those with evil intent seem to have no issue with intentionally causing often potentially lasting harm to law enforcement personnel and peaceful protesters.

All so far mentioned seems bad enough. What’s even worse though (and there are those that will argue to the contrary—that’ll just have to be a point of disagreement between us), is that in certain cities and urban centers, local and municipal cops are largely being ordered to stand down.

The result? Federal enforcement officials have been and are being brought in to deal with what’s happening. The feds have little to no interest in peaceful protest or the folks performing it. In fact, some of them may even agree with the protesters, at least in part. What they are interested in, is people who would act in destructive and harmful ways; and most particularly toward people and property they’re supposed to be protecting.

Considering what I’ve said to this point, you might (or might not, depending on your bent) be surprised to hear the folks coming in to protect national resources referred to as “Storm Troopers.”

This comparison is more than a little interesting. Why? To begin with, the “original” Storm Troopers (Sturm Abteilung or SA—credit to https://www.historyonthenet.com/nazi-germany-stormtroopers-sturm-abteilung-sa for their research, and its existence on the Internet) were not controlled by the government. Rather, they were an apparatus of the Nazi party of Germany, and when they came into existence, the Nazis were not in a position of power. In fact, one of the best known affiliates of the Nazi part, one Adolph Hitler, was jailed, and the SA disbanded for a time, as a direct result of the Bierhall Putsch.

Here’s the interesting thing. Between the government officials—who I should say are showing massive restraint at the present moment—and the violent protesters (read here, “looters and rioters”), the ones who happen to be more like Storm Troopers, are the violent protesters.

From all that can be seen, the government “police,” are (as has been previously stated), being very careful to not step on the rights of much of anybody. Their primary interest, is to protect the people and facilities that are their charges.

They’re not trying to quell or quash the peaceful protests, only to keep harm from occurring to people and property under their jurisdiction.

In general, it appears they’re not even excited about the idea of stepping out of the buildings that they’re tasked with sheltering, well understanding that doing so will likely exacerbate tensions.

When they do wander out of their domain, they do so tentatively, looking to target very specific individuals in order to potentially strike at the root of the problem instead of trying to cut things above it off and hope in vain they don’t grow right back up.

The violent individuals, by contrast, seem largely unconcerned:

1. That they’re using innocents as human cannon fodder, as a shield, as it were, to protect them from harm and
2. That people on both “sides of the fence” are coming to harm. Not just the people they’re against, but the people they claim to be for.

There’re a number of folks out there arguing that the federal authorities working in parts of the U.S., are acting in ways that various “secret police” type organizations were and are know to act, and that can potentially be seen as a problem.

That’s really only true if the folks in question are doing that, and at present, I would argue they are not. They’re picking up very specific individuals. They are taking them to properly appointed facilities. The folks are being “processed,” and as a rule, released.

This is not the type of activity one expects from the KGB—who by the way, are a far more apt choice than the SA (who mostly just flat out killed opposing individuals) for comparison to various U.S. law enforcement entities.

A final thought. Not only are U.S. Federal law enforcement people not like either the SA or the KGB at present, but overall, they’ve been generally pretty reasonable in their dealings with people.

Have they made mistakes? You can bet they have. There will be things coming out of what’s happened for probably months, and possibly years to come.

The same can be said of both the peaceful protestors, and the rioters and looters.

Of all the aforementioned though, the ones that have made the greatest number of mistakes and done the more unconscionable wrongs are unquestionably the looters and rioters. From the very beginning, their actions have been illegal, improper and dare I say it, immoral.

Wrapping up. Yes, law enforcement at various levels has been guilty of bad judgement and very probably, a small amount of illegal action. Yes, protestors have done likewise. The same can certainly be said of rioters and looters. All should be called to account. Out of all of them though, the rioters and looters are far and away, the worst of the lot.

Two of the three have chosen to more or less follow the law (with some failure in doing so); the third though, has had as its intent the basic strategy of breaking the existing statutes, rules and regulations more or less by default.

Thanks for reading, and may your time be good.