The mental picture of a revolutionary that first comes to mind, at least to me, is that of a toughened, hardened zealot who carries his torch or pitchfork to the walls of the baron's castle and who braves the arrows launched at him, as he defiantly challenges the tyrant to a duel — or better yet, to open battle.

Today, by contrast, the revolutionaries of the left seem to be whiners.  Moreover, they seem caught in self-contradictions that doom them from the start.

Here are two recent examples.  Both of them are drawn entirely from Fox News.

According to a Fox News report, "Leslie Neal-Boylan, the dean of the nursing school at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, was allegedly fired after she received backlash from a student about an email to the campus community saying 'EVERYONE'S LIFE MATTERS.'"

One might think Neal-Boylan was courageously challenging the Black Lives Matter movement, correctly pointing out the obvious.  But no.  She supports the movement.  In an exercise in self-humiliation and self-flagellation, she groveled at the feet of her ideologic masters after (quoting from FoxNews) "[a] nursing student took issue with the dean's choice of words and posted the email on Twitter saying, "including the statement 'all lives matter' was uncalled for and shows the narrow minded people [sic] in lead positions."

Okay, let's try to understand this.  It is broad-minded to say black lives matter but narrow-minded to say all lives matter.  No, let's not understand that.

The fired dean went on to say "she would not be pursuing legal action against the school because 'I know this would fuel the conservative opposition to the BLM movement and that would be anathema to me.'"

In another case, "[i]n a new video Wednesday, teary-eyed Claira Janover claims she lost a job with the Deloitte accounting firm after saying in a previous video — that went viral — that she would 'stab' anyone who told her 'all lives matter.'"

From Twitter, Michael James Coudrey (@MichaelCoudrey) wrote, "The Harvard graduate who threatened to 'slit the throats and watch them bleed out' to anyone who says 'all lives matter' to her is blaming Trump supporters for ruining her life.  Pretty sure she ruined her own life by being a psychopath!"

Again, the courageous and brave social justice warrior discovered, to her dismay, that while she feels comfortable telling other people what they may and may not say, the tables can be turned.  The canceler has been canceled.

"Standing up for Black Lives Matter," she said, "put me in a place online to be seen by millions of people."  As a result, "the job that I'd worked really hard to get and meant a lot to me has called me and fired me because of everything."

None of this is her fault, mind you.  It's yours.  Fox News quotes her: "Trump supporters took my job away from me," she claims.  "I have gotten death threats, rape threats, violent threats.  It was OK, but now my future's entirely compromised because Trump supporters have decided to come for my life."

In her original viral video, Janover had issued a warning to anyone with "the nerve, the sheer entitled Caucasity to say, 'All lives matter.'"

"I'ma stab you," she said.  "I'ma stab you, and while you're struggling and bleeding out, I'ma show you my paper cut and say, 'My cut matters, too.'"

She later claimed the clip was "clearly" an "analogous joke."

Long live the revolution.  Joke.  That's clearly a joke.