The infantile behavior and entitlement mentality of rioting college students at the University of Missouri, Ithaca College, and Smith College, while something of a yawner in our age of lie-laced victimization protests, is part of a much broader problem.

The broader problem I’m referring to is the complete disintegration of Western civilization — i.e., the disappearance of the longstanding certitudes, values, and self-responsibility that made America the strongest and most civilized nation in world history. While anarchy, in theory, is the only path to pure freedom, the reality is that it does not work for people who have no interest in interfering in the lives of others and want only to be left alone.

The reason it doesn’t work for people of goodwill is because there will always be those who believe they have a right to force others to live by their moral standards. These people are, in effect, psychopathic in that they believe that aggression against others is justified by their noble aims.

Thus, knowledge-challenged college students are simply caught up in a game of “monkey see, monkey do;” i.e., they are merely mimicking adults — especially those on the radical left whose millions of adherents believe that those who disagree with their anything-goes way of life must, at the very least, be silenced. Better yet, they would like to see them punished.

Fascist “progressives” recognize no laws, especially when it comes to free speech. They believe that both lying and the use of violence are morally justified to achieve their noble ends. This presumptuous, arrogant, immoral view of life goes all the way back to Vladimir Lenin and, before him, the man who organized it into a “philosophy” and put it all down on paper, Karl Marx.

Today, I constantly hear people lament the fact that there are no rules anymore and no generally accepted code of conduct. They do not understand how everything that was once considered good, moral, and admirable is now looked upon as bad, immoral, and contemptible. They do not understand why the rights of American citizens are now inferior to the rights of people living in their country illegally.

The problem is that Americans have become so weak and fearful of backlash from the radical left that they dare not hurt anyone’s feelings. As a result, nothing is off limits, not only in America, but in all Western countries. Virtually everything is acceptable, no matter how vulgar, immoral, or anti-freedom it may be, because we no longer judge. Judging anyone’s beliefs, actions, or morality is verboten.

The results?

• Spreading knowingly false narratives like “Hands up, don’t shoot” is okay, because we don’t judge.
• Out-of-wedlock childbirth is okay, because we don’t judge.
• Infanticide is okay, because we don’t judge.
• Allowing criminals to live in the United States without documentation is okay, because we don’t judge.
• Releasing five top terrorist leaders from custody in exchange for a military deserter is okay, because we don’t judge.
• Allowing people to attain high office without thoroughly checking their backgrounds is okay, because we don’t judge.
• Apologizing to those who threaten to kill us is okay, because we don’t judge.
• Bringing thousands of undocumented people from the Middle East into the United States is okay, because we don’t judge.
• And on … and on … and on it goes.

Worst of all, the minority now rules the majority, and they do so through loud, hateful, threatening rhetoric that is intended to intimidate those who stubbornly cling to Western values. For example, less than 4 percent of the population that identified itself as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in a recent Gallup Daily tracking poll now has the power to close down a business if the owner refuses to violate his religious beliefs and cater to its wishes. But, of course, we dare not judge them.

Ayn Rand had a diametrically opposed view of all this when she said, “The precept: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’ . . . is an abdication of moral responsibility: It is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.”

Rand went on to say, “There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.”

Translation: Judge, and prepare to be judged.

There’s no question that history is filled with injustices. Torture, murder, and slavery are an integral part of human history. But today something different is happening. One senses a growing frustration and hopelessness among a majority of the population. People feel powerless, and with good reason: They are — or are rapidly becoming so.

Whether it’s Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson, college campuses, Baltimore, or Paris, chaos and lawlessness are rapidly replacing peace, prosperity, and Western values. As I recently wrote on Facebook, when a society abandons its certitudes, when radical ideologues are allowed to impose their beliefs on others, it loses its will, its moral fiber, and the consensus needed to defend itself against those who would destroy it.

When a nation’s generally accepted code of conduct is replaced by an anything-goes mentality, when its people become nonjudgmental toward those who are a threat to their civilized culture, when they allow students to riot and quash free speech, when they apologize to criminals and glorify them as victims, it’s an open invitation for barbarians to walk in the front gate and plunder, torture, and murder at will.

What’s the endgame of all this for those with evil intentions? It’s on display now in Paris, where authorities have begun issuing decrees that are the first steps toward a police state. As terrorist attacks continue in Western countries, you can be certain that frightened people will become increasingly willing to give up their liberty in exchange for safety.

If you’re one of my longtime readers, you know that I’ve been warning about this possibility for four decades. And it’s all made possible by a population that becomes so apathetic, so submissive, and so guilt ridden that it abandons its certitudes.

The hippies of the sixties made it all sound so wonderful. There were no absolutes; everything was relative. Drugs, free love, and destruction of “the man’s” institutions were the wave of the future.

Well, the future has arrived, and it doesn’t look all that great anymore. What it looks from my vantage point is nonstop misery and hatred.

It’s time for civilized people to wake up and start judging — and prepare to be judged.