[allegory]

It doesn't work like that in the real world. Look at Northern Ireland's history over the last 40 years.

The most powerful people are the people who end up in the newspapers, not introducing kerfews and patrolling the streets tooled up.

Also the post-Katrina mob rule in some areas in the US.

[arethuza]

Northern Ireland eventually worked out reasonably well when we started talking to the "terrorists" and realizing that they represented a minority community who had some pretty legitimate grievances - both sides eventually recognized that fighting was never going to get anywhere.

I'm not sure how relevant the experience of NI is to this situation - but one thing I would note is that the pictures do look alarmingly similar!