Right now I'm listening, not by choice, to a right-wing radio pundit holding forth on why it is that Ferguson, Missouri's preparation for a riotous response to whatever verdict is returned by a grand jury in the Darren Wilson indictment is somehow unnecessary.

Once upon a time, perhaps mistakenly, in my youth, my sympathies might have rested with the "Noble Peacekeeper" whose life was unjustly derailed by opportunistic ne'er-do-wells out to disrupt the "American Dream".

Lest I be misunderstood, please let me clarify that the sarcasm here is applied to the "Nobel Peacekeeper", and not to the "American Dream". I love the American Dream. I love the idea that we are all entitled to equal opportunity to pursue that dream. I understand, as well, that we are not entitled to an artificial intervention that contradicts or overrides our competence to pursue and secure that outcome. What I'm dancing around here is a bald statement that "trying" is not the same as "succeeding". Some of us, myself included, must "try" multiple times before we find the formula that leads us to our successes.

My immediate point here is that those once-"noble peacekeepers" of my youth are (and have been) engaged in behaviors that seriously tarnish their armor and call into question their very understanding of the difference between peacekeeping and enforcement. The first is egalitarian. The second is nothing short of authoritarian decree—a distinctly un-American-dream function.