Thomas Sowell makes a worthwhile (albeit futile) attempt to reason with the unreasonable. At issue is the University of Seattle, "where a student mob prevented a military recruiter from meeting with those students who wanted to meet with him." Writes Sowell:

At first, the university president said that the student rioters should apologize. But the storm this created forced the typical academic administrator's back-down under pressure.

One of the student rioters explained that she didn't want anyone to be sent overseas to be killed. Apparently it never occurred to her that what she wanted was not automatically to be imposed on other people, with or without mob violence.

Back in the days of the divine rights of kings, it might be understandable why a given monarch might think that what he wanted was all that mattered. But, in an age of democracy, how can millions of people live together if each one asserts a divine right to impose his or her will on others?