WHY ONE SILLY DRIVING LICENCE SPAT SPELLS OUT THE NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES

The story may be apochryphal, but word has been passed down the generations since 1789 that the real flashpoint causing the urban poor of Paris to storm the Bastille involved a small infant falling under the wheels of an aristocrat’s coach driving at high speed. An occupant got out of the vehicle, dragged the boy’s body out of the way and ordered the driver to “hurry on”, as he was late for an appointment.

Accurate or not, it is often one chance event quite apart from the general malaise of injustice that sets off the spark of widespread disobedience. The unfeeling arrogance of the ruling class reflected in a hit-and-run death suddenly becomes acid thrown into the face of the People. Shooting peasants arriving to beg the Tsar for alms causes the Russian navy to defect to…