Contributor: Don’t let the mobs rule
In Springfield, Illinois, in 1838, young Abraham Lincoln delivered a powerful speech denouncing the “ravages of mob rule” throughout the country. Lincoln warned, in an eerily prescient manner, that the spread of a then ascendant “mobocratic spirit” threatened to sever “the attachment of the people” to their countrymen and their nation. Lincoln’s opposition to any form of anarchy was absolute and clear: “There is no grievance which can be redressed by mob rule.” »
Unfortunately, it seems that every few yearsAmericans must be reminded once again of the wisdom of Lincoln. This week’s deadly clash between Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Twin Cities is just the latest example of a years-long dire trend.
On Wednesday, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mother, Renee Nicole Good, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Her ex-husband said she and her partner met with ICE agents after dropping Good’s 6-year-old off at school. The federal government called Good’s meeting “an act of domestic terrorism” and said the officer fired in self-defense.
Suffice it to say, Minnesota’s Democratic establishment doesn’t see it that way.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey responded to the deployment of 2,000 immigration agents in the area and the deadly encounter by telling ICE to “get out of here” of Minnesota, while Governor Tim Walz called for the shooting “totally predictable” and “totally avoidable”. Frey, who was also mayor during the chaos following the killing of George Floyd by city police in 2020, lent a hand to anti-ICE provocateurs, apparently encouraging them to make Good a Martyr like Floyd. As for Walz, he is right that this tragedy was eminently “preventable” – but not just for the reasons he thinks. If the Biden-Harris administration had not allowed unscreened immigrants to remain in the country without legal status and if the Walz administration had not moved too slowly in its investigations into hundreds of Minnesotans – with mixed immigration status – defrauding taxpayers out of billions of dollars, ICE would never have embarked on this particular operation.
The National Democrats took the anger even further. After the fateful shooting, the official Democratic Party X-feed immediately tweeted, without the slightest nuance, that “ICE shot and killed woman on camera.” This kind of irresponsible scaremongering may have already prompted a crazed activist to shooting three detainees at ICE facility in Dallas last September by targeting officers; Similar dehumanizing rhetoric about the National Guard may also have played a role in the November election. fatal shot from a soldier in Washington, DC
Liberals and open borders activists are playing with fire when they so casually compare ICE, as Walz once did, to a “the modern-day Gestapo.” The fact is that ICE is not the Gestapo, Donald Trump is not Hitler, and Charlie Kirk was not a goose-stepping brownshirt. To pretend otherwise is to deprive words of their meaning and live in the theater of the absurd.
But as dangerous as this rhetoric is for officers and agents, it is the moral blackmail and “mobocratic spirit” that is even more damaging to the rule of law.
The implicit threat of all “sanctuary” jurisdictions, whose resistance to assisting federal law enforcement resembles John C. Calhoun-style pre-war “nullification,” is to tell the federal government not to operate and enforce federal law in a certain area – or else. The result is gross anarchy, mafia shakedown art, and fetid neo-Confederate stench combined into one dystopian whole.
The truth is that entire sections of the militant left now naturally engage in these kinds of threats. In 2020, left-wing riots that lasted months after Floyd’s death led to more than 2 billion dollars in insurance claims. In 2021, they threat THE same riots unless Derek Chauvin, the officer who infamously knelt on Floyd’s neck, was convicted of murder (what he was, twice). In 2022, following the unprecedented (and still unresolved) leak of the draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson in the Supreme Court case from the Organization for Women’s Health, abortion rights activists demonstrated outside many right-wing justices’ homes, perhaps hoping to influence them to change their minds and reverse their votes. And now ICE agents across the country are facing threats of violence — egged on by local Democratic leaders — simply for enforcing federal law.
In “The Godfather,” Luca Brasi referred to this kind of brutality as making someone an offer they can’t refuse. We could also see here the dreaded “ravages of mob law” of Lincoln.
Either way, a free republic cannot last long like this. The rule of law cannot be hostage to the histrionic tantrums of a radical ideological flank. The law must be enforced solemnly, without fear or favor. There can be no widespread blackmail in the background – no sword of Damocles hovering over the heads of a free people, ready to fall on us all if a privileged few do not get their way.
The proper recourse for changing immigration law – or any federal law – is to pressure Congress to do so or to file a brief in federal court. The martyr complex that drives some to take matters into their own hands is a recipe for personal and national ruin. There is nothing good on this path – only death, despair and mobocracy.
Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Destiny of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.”.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer
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Ideas expressed in the play
- Democrats and left-wing activists are perpetuating a dangerous “mobocratic spirit” similar to the mob law that Lincoln warned against in 1838, and which threatens the rule of law and national unity.[1]
- The federal government’s characterization of the incident as self-defense by an ICE agent is appropriate, while local Democratic leaders irresponsibly encourage anti-ICE protesters to view Good as a martyr figure like George Floyd.[1]
- Dehumanizing rhetoric comparing ICE to the Gestapo is reckless fear-mongering that has inspired real violence, including a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas and the fatal shooting of a National Guard soldier.[1]
- The shooting was “preventable” not because of the presence of ICE, but because the Biden-Harris administration allowed undocumented immigrants to remain in the country without legal status and state authorities moved too slowly in their investigations of immigration fraud.[1]
- Sanctuary jurisdictions that resist enforcement of federal law represent neo-Confederate “nullification” and constitute gross lawlessness and mafia-style extortion, in effect telling federal agents that they cannot enforce the law or suffer the consequences.[1]
- The activist left uses threats of violence as systematic blackmail, as evidenced by the 2020 riots following Floyd’s death, threats surrounding the Chauvin trial, protests at judges’ homes during the abortion debate, and now threats against ICE agents.[1]
- Change in immigration policy must happen through Congress or the federal courts, not through mob rule and “ginned up martyrdom complexes” that lead to personal and national ruin.[1]
Different points of view on the subject
- Community members who knew Good rejected characterizations of her as a domestic terrorist, with her mother describing her as “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” “extremely compassionate” and someone “who took care of people her whole life.”[1]
- Speakers and vigil attendees described Good as being there peacefully to observe the situation and protect her neighbors, with one organizer saying, “She was peaceful; she did the right thing” and “She died because she loved her neighbors.”[1]
- A commenter identified only as Noah explicitly rejected the federal government’s characterization of domestic terrorism, saying Good was there “to monitor terrorists,” not to participate in terrorism.[1]
- Neighbors described Good as a loving mother and warm family member, an award-winning poet and a positive presence in the community, suggesting that her presence during the incident reflected civic concern rather than radicalism.[1]
