The Use of Force vs Opposition to Federal Law
Yes, the progressive left certainly seems to be freaking out. As progressives continue to bungle the politics behind deportation, Americans are met with ugly videos of arson, looting, and attacks on law enforcement. Accompanying this is the left’s inaction, anti-ICE rhetoric, and finger-pointing at Donald Trump. This is a story now about law and order, rather than any aspects of President Trump’s deportation policy, reports Kimberley Strassel in the WSJ.
The left would have Americans believe that the administration’s actions are nothing less than the rebirth of the Third Reich, warns Andrew McCarthy in NRO. By Tuesday, Governor Newsom was leaning into the protest movement, urging residents to “stand up” to Trump, to refuse to give him “fealty.”
Andrew McCarthy admits to being surprised recently to read in the NYT that author and journalist Michelle Goldberg’s use of the word “inhibit” as threatening dissent that is peaceful.
The left’s swooning over the seditious conspiracy statute, when the Biden administration invoked it against Capitol riot defendants, also surprises McCarthy. In an earlier article this week, McCarthy proves how Trump was acting well within his constitutional and statutory authority. McCarthy himself used the statute, he admits, to prosecute terrorists in the mid-nineties. “It is worth perusing it (§2384 of the federal penal code):”
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. [author’s emphasis added.]
McCarthy asks readers to note three details:
- There are gradations of the seditious conspiracy crime, ranging from the most serious (levying war against the U.S. and overthrowing or destroying the government) to the least serious (hindering or delaying the execution of a law). A person is guilty if he violates any prong of the statute, but the difference in seriousness would be reflected in the sentence, which can range between zero and 20 years.
- The common thread of all prongs of the statute, the gravamen of the sedition offense, is the use of force. Peaceful protest is not inhibited if it is actually peaceful.
- Notice how the left, (to) pull off its fraudulent mantra about “mostly peaceful protest,” constantly muddies the waters about what constitutes the use of force. The statute, by contrast, is clear.
Force encompasses much more physical activity than its most obvious form, violent attacks designed to kill or seriously injure (or damage, in the case of property). It includes any intentional physicality in furtherance of an unlawful purpose. If a federal agent is trying to make an arrest, and a crowd of protesters blocks the agent’s path to the suspect, that is a use of force even if the crowd does not throw rocks or otherwise attempt to seriously injure the agent. (It’s also obstruction, but that’s another crime.)
Peaceful protest is often associated with but is importantly different from civil disobedience, continues Mr. McCarthy.
In the latter, a person knowingly violates a legal duty for what he believes is some higher purpose. We can agree or disagree about whether it is noble under the circumstances, but there is no doubt that it is a criminal act. Peaceful protest, to the contrary, is not a crime because it is actually peaceful — i.e., the protester makes his dissent known without using force or engaging in criminal activity.
Forcibly preventing federal agents from executing federal laws enacted by Congress is a serious crime, even if the physicality involved is more obstructive than destructive. It is not peaceful protest.
President Trump’s proclamation and his deployment of armed forces are patently directed at those who are using force both to attack government personnel and facilities and to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of federal law, continues Andrew. McCarthy.
It is not an inhibition of peaceful protest. It is an inhibition of the lawlessness that the left distorts as “mostly peaceful protest.”
As Ms. Strassel notes, seven months after the election and nearly a year after Democrats bounced Joe Biden from their ticket, the party remains lost on one of the voting public’s top issues.
Even some of the press are acknowledging that the L.A. story is a mess for the party. The left’s strategy: Keep banking that Trump will exceed his mandate, and that Americans will sour on his immigration promises. That could happen, but for now, Democrats are only helping him keep the public on his side.
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