anarchist

Today’s protesters calling for free higher education are just the latest in a long line of people engaging in destructive behavior in the name of egalitarianism, the concept of equal treatment for all. The 1960s brought a wave of destruction in opposition to the Vietnam War. In a rather silly echo of that impulse, Trenton Oldfield, a fanatical egalitarian from Australia, ruined the famous Oxford-Cambridge rowing race on the Thames River a few years ago by jumping in the river and blocking the competitors in the name of resisting the elitism. He was dubbed in the United Kingdom the “anarchist swimmer” and has mounted other guerrilla strikes to promote his agenda. He is urging, for example, cabbies to take well-to-do passengers on long detours and cleaners not to place toilet paper where they are expected to serve rich folks.