The invaluable Victor Davis Hanson, on Portland Antifa/Transtifa, asks if honest Portlanders living near Antifa daily sieges of federal facilities are less important than Antifa insurrectionists:

In contrast, the use of federal troops to stop the siege of ICE facilities will remind the violent protesters of the left that their neo-Confederate tactics will not work, but instead subject them to arrest and federal indictments.

Bringing in federal forces to uphold the law will also protect the rights of ICE personnel and neighborhood residents to live in peace and security and have their constitutional protections secured. Not all American citizens are Portlanders, but all Portland citizens are Americans.

Are they? All of them, including Antifa revolutionaries, people, with the help of their local and state politicians nullifying and breaking federal law, declaring themselves separate and apart from, superior to, the United States? Hanson draws the inevitable comparison between those cities and states and the Confederacy that provoked the Civil War:

For a party that has been quick to shout “insurrection,” it is ironic that Democrats and their useful, though violent, Antifa insurrectionists are in rebellion against the federal government and its agents.

It is hard to know which is worse—the Antifa thug who nightly tries to injure a federal officer, or the sanctimonious neo-Confederate official who empowers him to keep trying?

Consider Federal immigration law:

Immigration and Nationality Act 349 (USC 1481) 

349(a)(7) – if convicted of performing an act of treason against the Government of the United States or for attempting by force to overthrow, or bear arms against, the Government of the United States. 

And Seditious Conspiracy:

USC 2384 

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.

Graphic: X Post

Every POTUS is responsible for enforcing the law, uniformly and fairly, everywhere in America. Biden’s Handlers dishonored that obligation. Donald Trump is upholding it, which is in part why Democrats have gone confederate crazy. How dare Trump the fascist enforce federal law on us! Who does he think he is?!

The argument that neoconfederate cities and state should be denied federal funds and assistance until and unless they obey federal law, which they are bound to do, is gaining strength. Why should law abiding Americans support sedition, perhaps even insurrection? Why should they pay America’s internal enemies to destroy our representative, constitutional republic?

The counterargument is why should honest residents of those Democrat hellholes suffer for the depredations of the politicians they elect? OK, so that’s not the greatest argument. There are certainly Americans stuck behind domestic enemy lines, who because of their careers, families, or just strong bonds of place can’t leave. Besides, elections in those places are likely rigged anyway. Illinois, California, Oregon, New York and several other blue states haven’t yet erected walls to keep their people in. They can still flee to free states.

What’s the alternative? Using federal troops to protect federal property and employees? Certainly. Using federal troops to restore order? Arrest and prosecute mayors, police chiefs, governors and others who refuse to enforce local and state law and actively hinder federal agents from enforcing federal law?

Are those Democrat officials renouncing their citizenship? Committing seditious conspiracy? Are Democrat judges doing the same?

What are the consequences of doing nothing, of letting Democrats blatantly violate federal law, attack federal agents, rhetorically stir up anti-American hatred and resistance to legitimate federal authority? We are already arguably in a cold second civil war. What’s next? Secession? A hot second civil war? Some Democrats have broached the idea of a Democrat constitutional convention by invitation only where they would write their own, blue Constitution.

Wouldn’t doing nothing, failing to enforce immigration law, allowing “sanctuary” cities and states to declare any federal law and obligation null and void, only lead to more and worse nullification? Wouldn’t that inevitably lead to secession and a hot civil war?

Or should loyal Americans revoke the citizenship of those who have all but formally renounced it? Would giving them their wish and deporting them preserve the Republic?

And how far have we fallen that we must ask and try to answer such questions?

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.