Truly peaceful protest involves no intentional use of force, no matter how minimal.

Just adding a coda to Rich’s excellent piece today on the progressive left’s freakout over President Trump’s deployment of armed forces to protect federal personnel, property, and functions, which we are to believe is nothing less than a rebirth of the Third Reich. I was especially struck by Michelle Goldberg’s fretting that Trump’s invocation of the word “inhibit” — as in inhibit the execution of federal laws — somehow threatens dissent that is actually peaceful.

Would she be put at ease if he’d said, “hinder or delay”?

I ask because of the seditious conspiracy statute, over which the same progressive left swooned when the Biden administration invoked it against Capitol riot defendants. I discussed it earlier this week, in the course of contending that Trump was acting well within his constitutional and statutory authority. I’d used the statute to prosecute terrorists in the mid-nineties. It’s 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. [Emphasis added.]

A few things to notice.

First, 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.

Second, 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.

Finally, notice how the left, in order 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. 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.

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. It is not an inhibition of peaceful protest. It is an inhibition of the lawlessness that the left distorts as “mostly peaceful protest.”