GREG GUTFELD: Regressive progressives are looking to tear down the fences of capitalism and law and order

So every now and then you see something that captures why things everywhere seem to be falling apart these days. No, not just that. I'm talking about a theory called Chesterton's Fence. The rule of Chesterton's Fence? Never destroy a fence, change a rule or do away with a tradition until you understand why it was there in the first place. I would also add removing your breast implants. Wow. Dead crowd tonight, huh? Ooh. But that's good advice, on par with don't poop where you eat which is why Joe Biden no longer has lunch in the Oval Office. You don't deserve that joke. But G.K. Chesterton's rule goes to the heart of all this chaos. 

Many social constructs that have held things together really come down to fences, metaphorical and literal. Fences and rules backed by Western values that help preserve order and make for a good life. It wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than the alternatives offered by dictators in Europe, Asia, or the Third World. But as the US continues to fumble on the world stage and our campuses ring with the chants of "Hey, hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go," the fences are coming down faster than Hunter Biden's pants at a cheerleading camp. And what's filling that space is a mindless tribal progressivism that's anything but progress. The barbarians are at the gates because we got rid of the gates. 

In Israel, for instance, the construction of a literal fence ended years of terror attacks launched from the West Bank. In Gaza, the first thing breached by Hamas was a 25-mile-long fence separating the Israelis and Palestinians. But was also breached was a fence that was also an idea. 

Smoke plumes along the Gaza-Israel border after Hamas attacked Israel Oct. 7, 2023. (Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2023)

The idea that Western-style democracy is preferable to a society ruled by a corrupt military cabal who makes Saddam Hussein look like Sandy Duncan. It was two tribes separated by fences, but also by centuries. It'd be like if George Jetson built a mansion next to the Flintstones. And so, of course, the America-hating Western woke elite side against whatever has been working best. Which makes Israel the oppressors and Hamas the resistance. But have they thought this through? Do they actually want to export Hamas's system elsewhere? To Hamas savages, LGBT stands for "Let's go bomb and terrorize." It's the same here at home. As most of us try to conserve rules and traditions that have made the American system the most successful ever, regressive progressives are looking to tear down the fences of capitalism and law and order in favor of fundamental change. And it's changing all right.

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What you're seeing in the streets is what the fence kept at bay: simplistic, amoral protests based on lineage and tribal warfare. Following the death of George Floyd, our entire criminal justice system was pegged as institutionally racist. So cash bail went away, shoplifting became reparations, 40 acres and a mule became ten men in speed sticks and 15 tubes of Pepsodent. Defund and decarceration became delightful. Is it working? Well put it this way. Anybody out there want to buy a bachelor pad in Manhattan? I promise I'll have it fumigated. So what happens when you tear down the fence known as criminal justice? Well, you get New York, Philly, Baltimore, Washington, San Fran, L.A., Portland, Seattle, Memphis, Houston, Austin. I could keep going, but if I do, I'm going to sound like Stephen Hawking by the time I'm done. Is this really what the Dems want? Coast to coast, one big giant pile of ****. 

And there's our southern border, the bit of fence with holes you could drive the cast of "The View" through. President Biden is more terrified of his party's left-wing than he is of stairs. So any notion of defining the idea of the United States is, you guessed it, institutionally racist. If that's true, then every nation on earth is institutionally racist. Now, it's right about here where a liberal would say, Greg, you're just an entitled, privileged cracker. What about all the impoverished Black and Brown people in the world? Do you think they feel that way? To which I would brilliantly reply, Why don't you ask them yourself as they pour over our southern border by the millions to live in the country that you hate so much? We're even dismantling the border between genders. Personally, I'm okay with a fence between the sexes, although there's always some genders no fence can contain. 

But if there's no border that defines the sexes, you get a generation of disillusioned, unproductive people living in isolation and denial. So if you think about it, much of civilization up to the modern age has been a war against regressive tribalism. We created republics of laws and freedoms that were imperfect, but they were there for a reason. And now we have a generation deciding that the fences must come down, never mind their initial necessity. Now, to have a good life, you do need a structure. But sadly, you get no reward when that structure works. Because how do you show the bad things that you stopped if they never really occurred? So the young and naive have a choice between an imperfect, unprovable good and the evil it holds at bay. And they choose evil without fail. 

Perhaps it's the result of a country so successful and decadent it leaves bored minds to embrace suicidal ideas. And so they tear down structures without contemplating their existence in the first place. That's Chesterton's Fence. Which reminds me of Gutfeld's Law, which is "Some people are just remarkably, irredeemably and hopelessly stupid." And to those I say, stay on your side of the fence.

Greg Gutfeld currently serves as host of Gutfeld! (weeknights, 11PM-12AM/ET) and co-host of cable news’ highest-rated program The Five (weekdays, 5-6PM/ET).