There Is Absolutely Nothing Historically Unprecedented or Dangerous About Using the Insurrection Act – RedState

In response to President Trump’s statement that he was considering using the Insurrection Act – a move I support – Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) chatted:

The president’s statements today essentially amount to threats to declare war on Minnesota. And at a time when we should be trying to keep people safe and find a way forward, he continues to add fuel to the fire in really dangerous ways.

What the senator said was one of the most incredibly idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in her disjointed and incoherent response did she come close to anything that could be considered rational thinking based on the historical facts about the consistent use of the Insurrection Act throughout American history. Unfortunately, everyone who listens to it is now dumber.

May God have mercy on his soul.

You don’t believe me? Well, consider this piece of historical evidence compiled by the Brennan Center, a far-left think tank in Washington. In more than 230 years, the Insurrection Act has been invoked in response to 30 separate crises. I have already detailed President George Washington’s use of it. According to Senator Smith, President Washington was “declaring war” on Pennsylvania. The last time this law was used was by President George HW Bush, “against” California; Another obvious “declaration of war” from a president known for his authoritarian and dangerous mindset (sarc).

Let’s look a few of the 30 incidents listed in the Brennan Center article:

• John Adams: “President John Adams deployed federal troops and militias to quell a rebellion in eastern Pennsylvania sparked by a new federal tax on real estate. »
• Thomas Jefferson: “President Thomas Jefferson invoked the Insurrection Act in an ultimately futile effort to end widespread violations of the Embargo Act of 1807 in the region around Lake Champlain in Vermont, where many residents’ livelihoods depended on trade with Canada. »
• Rutherford Hayes: “Lincoln County War. At the request of the governor of the New Mexico Territory, President Hayes invoked the Insurrection Act and authorized troops already stationed in New Mexico to intervene in the Lincoln County War, a violent conflict between two rival factions in New Mexico, both of which included outlaws, business owners, and local authorities.”
• Chester Arthur: “In response to an increase in cattle rustling by outlaw gangs and raids by the Chiricahua Apache in the Arizona Territory, President Chester A. Arthur issued a proclamation under the Insurrection Act, under which federal troops already in the territory helped suppress both groups. »
• Grover Cleveland: “In response to the Seattle Riots of 1886, President Cleveland again deployed troops to Seattle to protect Chinese immigrants from violent white mobs attempting to expel them from the city. »
• Franklin Roosevelt: “President Franklin Roosevelt invoked the Insurrection Act and deployed troops to Detroit, Michigan, where long-simmering racial tensions, exacerbated by wartime shortages, had boiled over into widespread riots. »
• John Kennedy: “The governor of Alabama had deployed the Alabama National Guard to prevent African American students from attending all-white public schools in many Alabama towns. President Kennedy invoked the Insurrection Act, federalized the Alabama Guard, and ordered it to stand down.”
• Ronald Reagan: “On November 23, 1987, following the federal government’s announcement that it would deport 2,500 Cuban inmates, approximately 1,400 of those inmates who were being held at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, took over the prison and held a number of hostages. President Ronald Reagan invoked the Insurrection Act, but did not deploy troops. Instead, the riot response was handled by federal law enforcement, with guidance from a handful of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers.
• George HW Bush: “Large-scale civil unrest broke out in Los Angeles after four white Los Angeles police officers were acquitted at their trial of beating black motorist Rodney King. At the request of the governor of California, President Bush invoked the Insurrection Act and deployed federal troops, although the unrest had already been largely suppressed by state-controlled National Guard troops before their arrival.”

RELATED: It’s Time for the President to Invoke the Insurrection Act

When Presidents Trigger the Insurrection Act – and Why It Matters

Note a few other important things we can learn from these selected incidents. The Founding Fathers – George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson – all used the Insurrection Act. Modern Democratic “gods” – Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy – both used the Insurrection Act. Recent Republican presidents – Ronald Reagan and George Bush I – both implemented the Insurrection Act. None of these presidents are normally portrayed by the mainstream media as some sort of rebel who wanted to declare war to stir up trouble and incite violence (at least, they are not portrayed that way today).

Rutherford Hayes also invoked the Insurrection Act to quell cattle rustling and other miscellaneous mayhem in the West involving a certain well-known American outlaw nicknamed Billy the Kid. You may want to watch this fanciful but entertaining historical film about it to get a glimpse of this “war”.

Also note that in each incident listed above, the insurrection that occurred and was put down was far less organized and dangerous than what is currently happening in Minnesota:

What is happening now in Minneapolis is not a “protest.” This is low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who have clearly studied the strategy playbook. Signaling groups limited to 1,000 members per area. Dedicated roles: mobile hunters, plate checkers recording vehicle data in shared databases, 24/7 dispatch nodes, vectoring assets, SALUTE style reporting (size, activity, location, unit, time, equipment) on suspected federal vehicles. Daily chat rotations and scheduled deletions to thwart forensic recovery. Newcomer vetting process. Mutual help from friendly locals (teachers providing cover, possible information on number plate searches). Home-base coordination points. Quick move from observation to physical obstruction – or worse… I’ve spent years training my partners’ forces to dismantle exactly this kind of device. Today, fragments of this project stand up in American cities, thanks to elements of local government and civil society. This should keep any thoughtful American up at night.

And also see RedState’s reporting on the Minnesota insurrection.

To summarize, there is really nothing abnormal, belligerent, or dangerous about President Trump using the Insurrection Act to put down a well-organized insurrection in Minnesota against federal law enforcement regarding illegal aliens. And Senator Smith (and others) claiming otherwise does not make this lie true.

All we have here is a Mrs. Smith who went to Washington and became a partisan rather than a statesman.

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