Has California declared war on the United States of America?
Not only the nature of the recent (ongoing?) riots in Los Angeles over Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents apprehending and detaining illegal aliens for deportation but also the responses of California’s elected officials force us to ponder that very uncomfortable question.
The uprisings began Friday when ICE detained employees at a local clothing wholesaler, only to be met with protests escalating into violence.
At Ambiance Apparel, immigration authorities detained employees inside a clothing wholesaler, and used flash-bang grenades and pepper spray on a crowd protesting the raid around 1:30 p.m. Friday.
Agents surrounded the gates protesters had tried to block. Some threw objects at the agents, as they yelled and filmed them. To disperse the crowd, pepper spray was used.
The agents who had been inside the store walked out at least a dozen individuals and boarded them in the vans as other agents in riot gear taped off the area.
People have an unlimited right to peaceably assemble and protest any government action. That much is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
When people start throwing things, it is no longer a protest but is now a riot. Riots are not protected speech but actionable criminal acts.
There are those on social media who are replaying the script from the George Floyd riots of 2020 and the subsequent “Summer Of (No) Love”, claiming that there were only peaceful protests.
However, the video evidence rejects all such statements as foul and untenable lies.
This is not peaceful protest.
When fires get started, that is no longer a peaceful protest.
Nor is this peaceful protest.
Peaceful protests do not give rise to images such as these:
In response to the violence, President Trump exercised his authority under 10 USC §124061 to summon up members of the California National Guard to support and protect the ICE agents carrying out lawful immigration enforcement actions. Section 2 of that statute reads:
[Whenever] there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or
Individuals engaged in violence against law enforcement officers carrying out their assigned duties is quite easily presumed to be either a rebellion or at the very least a danger of one.
That interpretation is magnified when you have statements like this from Los Angeles City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez calling for increased violence against ICE.
Bear in mind that ICE agents are charged with apprehending and ultimately deporting individuals who are in this country illegally. That is their job. What Councilwoman Hernandez is demanding is that people prevent law enforcement agents from enforcing the laws—from carrying out their sworn duties.
Yes, violence targeting law enforcement while in the performance of their lawful duties can qualify as insurrection2, especially when it is repeated and targeted, as this violence is.
If the violence is insurrection, then Councilwoman Hernandez is guilty of engaging in a seditious conspiracy against the government of the United States—which is also a federal crime34.
Such statements also call into question California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s tweet that there was no need for the National Guard.
Given Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ stated determination to frustrate legitimate enforcement actions, one has to wonder if Rob Bonta is clear on which side of the law he is duty-bound to be.
We also should question the sanity of Governor Gavin Newsom, whose recent response to President Trump’s intimations of cancelling various federal funding programs for California was to suggest Californians stop paying their federal taxes.
What Gavin Newsom fails to mention is that, regardless of how one feels about the propriety of federal taxes, they are legal exactions by the federal government, not the state government. Contrary to Gavin Newsom’s description of California as a “donor state”, federal taxes paid by Californians are not a generous bequest by California to the United States. They are not his to withhold, and such a suggestion by him on social media is arguably yet another instance of seditious conspiracy.
People are well within their rights to disagree with the Trump Administration’s policies on immigration enforcement.
People are well within their rights to peaceably assemble to protest those policies.
People are well within their rights to call for changes in immigration law to negate those policies (although we should take note that no protestor has actually called for a change in immigration law, merely for the disregard of immigration law).
No one has a right to engage in acts of violence to block law enforcement officials from carrying out their sworn duties. Repeated and escalating violence is easily apprehended as insurrection or rebellion—at which point President Trump is Constitutionally obligated to act in the precise manner he did.
No elected official has the right to publicly encourage insurrection, which is what Councilwoman Hernandez did. Such encouragements are themselves acts of seditious conspiracy.
No elected official has the right to interpose their office between law enforcement agents and their sworn duties, as Mayor Bass explicitly did. Such public actions are also arguably a seditious conspiracy.
No elected official has the right to expropriate federal tax revenue on their own whimsy, or call for tax protests, which is what Gavin Newsom explicitly did. That arguably also is seditious conspiracy.
We have people in Los Angeles rising up in arms against federal law enforcement officials carrying out legitimate immigration enforcement.
We have elected officials celebrating and encouraging that violence.
We have elected officials threatening to steal federal tax dollars.
All of this is indisputable, because all of this is in the public record.
Thus we must ask the question: is California at war with the United States?
We should note also the obvious distinction between what is taking place in Los Angeles now and the J6 riot at the US Capitol in 2021.
The J6 riot, although undeniably a riot, was a clear demand by citizens of the United States that what they considered a fraudulent election not be wrongly legitimized. Far from an effort to frustrate lawful government action, it was a clear and explicit effort to demand lawful government action.
These Los Angeles riots are a clear and explicit effort to obstruct lawful government action. There is no comparison to be made between the two, and no equivalence should ever be drawn.
Well said, Peter! Newsom, Hernandez, and Bass have deliberately committed crimes, and must be prosecuted. This is the LAW.
The defining aspects of the past five years has been the loss of common sense, civility, truth, and rule of law. Trump has our support to restore them!
Appears to me that Mexico has taken over California. The street people are flying Mexican flags, not the state of California flags.