Sally, a third grader, loses emotional control — again. Enraged, she assaults the room: furniture, laptops, marker cans — nothing escapes her wrath. The teacher ushers the other students into the hall and shuts the door. No adult responds to Sally’s rampage by physically restraining her; that would only escalate Sally’s anger.

In Ferguson, angry rioters loot their way through strip malls and restaurants. Civil rights leaders brand police attempts to confront the disorder as inflammatory. Duly chastened, the police pull back in confusion and fail to protect local businesses.

On the southern border, unaccompanied minors swarm into the country. No attempt is made to resist the flow; that would be oppressive. Instead, immigration agents put these “immigrants” on buses and planes, quietly spreading them out around the country.

ISIS/L explodes across the Mideast, beheading American journalists and massacring hundreds of infidels in cold blood. No reason here for America to start another oppressive war. We’ll seek to manage them from a distance until they succumb to world opinion.

Liberalism counsels Americans to a numb passivity in the face of violent disorder at home and abroad. Liberals tell us that disorder is the price privileged America must pay to enable some repressed group to achieve long-delayed justice and fairness. So, rendered blind and unresponsive to her peril, America spins faster and faster around history’s plug hole.

As the nation spirals round the plug hole, the president improves his golf score and attends fundraisers to benefit the architects of the nation’s disability.

Leonard Hoy, Greenwood