SAD TO SEE THE NAVAL ACADEMY ALUMNI AS A BUNCH OF COLLEGE CRYBULLIES: Former Senator Jim Webb Declines to Accept Naval Academy Alumni Association’s Distinguished Graduate Award. “From conversations with the Alumni Association, including information passed down from top Navy leadership in the Pentagon, it is clear that those protesting my receipt of this award now threaten to disrupt the ceremonies surrounding its issuance. I am being told that my presence at the ceremony would likely mar the otherwise celebratory nature of that special day, and as a consequence I find it necessary to decline to accept the award.”
This is not helping the standing of Annapolis, or of its graduates. It’s childish and stupid. But I’ll say one thing for our current era: The people who have long posed as the responsible adults are rapidly revealing themselves as neither.
Meanwhile, Brendan O’Neill writes on Facebook:
What’s amazing is the patience and dignity of Brexit voters. For nine months the political elite raged against them, ridiculed them, demonised them; branded them racist, destructive, “low information”; dragged their democratic choice to the courts in the hope that some clever judge would declare it illegitimate; took to the streets to call them idiots and buffoons and unwitting slaves of demagoguery; held them responsible for economic downturn and a return of fascism; declared them unfit for serious public life, which is apparently best left to experts. And yet Brexit voters didn’t go mad or riot or crumble. They stuck to their principles (an amazing 96% say they’d vote for Brexit again) and patiently waited for their political choice to be acted upon. They kept their faith in democracy. They behaved liked the free-willed, autonomous adults that democracy needs in order to work and thrive.
It seems kinda related somehow.