My actions are justifiable

James Esses has a useful Critic piece on green activists breaking the law.


Justified sinners

Green activists want to do the crime but not the time

Traditionally, when someone is accused and charged with committing a criminal offence, responses are black or white. The accused either protests their innocence and fights for justice — or they admit to the crime, plead guilty and face the consequences of the law...

Take Greta Thunberg, one of the most infamous climate protesters of the modern era. She was arrested back in June after stopping traffic in a port terminal in Malmö, southern Sweden...

In a confused and inherently contradictory statement, Thunberg told the Court: “It’s correct that I was at that place on that day, and it’s correct that I received an order that I didn’t listen to, but I want to deny the crime.” She was both admitting to and denying the offence.

She went on to say: “My actions are justifiable. I believe that we are in an emergency that threatens life, health and property.” In other words, “I committed a crime but I was justified in doing so”.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of how often this kind of criminal activity is referred to by the media as a "protest". That's what it is of course, but the inflexible, moralising narcissism is far more important, even though it slips under the media radar. Yet this is the core of it, this is what poisons the debate to such an extreme degree that there is no debate.


The likes of Thunberg and Rumbelow appear to view life through a lens of moral supremacy, bordering on narcissism, in which their cause is far more important than anyone else’s cause, or indeed anyone else’s life.

There is neither moral nor legal justification for their actions. The sooner that our police and courts clamp down on them, the better.