Bad Democrat

The DOJ decided to charge 15 people who blocked immigration arrests and deportations in Minnesota on Tuesday. The 15 people charged were members of “Direct Action Minnesota,” a left-wing coalition of protest groups. The charges included conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, interstate stalking, interstate threats, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, and assaults on federal officers.

From the DOJ Office of Public Affairs: “Our message is clear: you may disagree with the laws, and you have the right to protest them, but you must abide by them or face the consequences. The law is not optional,” they said.

When I thought of how these people got arrested, I thought of how they may have been so enmeshed in inflamed left social media that they may have forgotten that they were breaking the law by impeding, harassing, and maybe even assaulting law enforcement officers. According to the DOJ, DAMN members deployed “hard” and “soft” blockades against federal law and immigration enforcement as well as against Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office deputies during both of the direct actions. Members of DAMN’s “hard blockade” team used vehicles, trailers, Czech hedgehogs (a static obstacle made of metal angle beams), and other items to obstruct the roads used by law enforcement near a federal building to impede the movement of federal law enforcement and immigration officers. Those people who kept advocating “resist” on social media and in their speeches in the past were not regarding how you can’t legally impede somebody’s arrest or a police officer in general. I think Black Lives Matter was a reckless campaign, and we were all so focused on being “allies” or what have you that we were not regarding that we were swimming in danger every time we scrolled social media if we were the least bit influence-prone. If we were adaptable to some of the more vocal people we followed, we were in danger, because they were often advocating resisting or impeding police officers as a sign of worship.