The Riot

     One night, after a big event, a group of deplorable thugs took to the streets. The event in question had nothing to do with the riot directly, rather an organized group took advantage of thousands of people who, ordinarily, probably would never have participated, but in the fervor surrounding the events, and fueled by emotion, they did.

     A lot of bad things happened that night. Burning, looting, tons of shops had their glass smashed out, some to the brink of total destruction, and there was violence, senseless violence against innocent people, some of whom were just trying to protect the targets of the mob mentality.

     Some extraordinary things happened after that night. As if the riot itself wasn't bad enough, with its ugly "mob mentality" and terrible destruction of property, what followed was a "public shaming". I'm sure many of those involved in the public shaming took actions they may have lived to regret. I'm sure many took advantage of the situation to eliminate rivals or rid themselves of enemies by falsely turning them in to authorities in the name of revenge for some slight or another, and I am absolutely confident there were many who participated in the "shaming" of  many innocent people who only thought they were doing their "civic duty". The mob mentality of the rioters was eclipsed by the mob mentality of the "shamers". There is a lesson to be learned from the riot.

     The lesson we ought to have learned from it, is "two wrongs don't make a right". Caught up in the frenzy of the mob mentality a lot of innocent people and their families suffered greatly.

     Around 6,000,000 of them.

     We know the name of that riot. Kristallnacht. We ought to have learned.