After half a year, hundreds of arrests, and thousands of headlines, the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline has drawn to an end at the Standing Rock site. On February 22, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum forced an evacuation of the protestors’ camps. The government needed time to clean the environmental mess the environmentalists left behind.
That paradoxical reality underscores many of the problems with efforts that claim to solve potential problems. In the end, this lengthy “protest” accomplished none of its stated goals, cost millions to those on both sides, and left the area in crisis thanks to the very sorts who claimed to be there as a form of protection....