Here’s a little ancient history that’s suddenly become relevant again. 39 years ago this month, just ahead of the summer solstice, the Battle of the Beanfield took place in Wiltshire, England. This wasn’t a “battle” in the traditional military sense. It was a violent confrontation between a convoy of around 600 New Age hippies, and roughly a thousand police officers.
The police officers were there to enforce an injunction preventing the hippies from holding a festival at Stonehenge. That injunction was necessary because, just one year earlier, around 100,000 hippies had — as hippies tend to do — caused tens of thousands of dollars in property damage to trees, fences and several archeological artifacts in the area, including Stonehenge itself.
So, in 1985, the authorities understandably wanted to prevent any more hippie carnage from being inflicted on Stonehenge. They set…
