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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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That quote was referring to Federal Obstruction of Justice charges, which are separate from the interfering charges. These cover things like jury tampering and destroying evidence. Physically obstructing ICE agents would presumably be covered under both state and Federal laws. I was listening to a left-wing radio program last night and the host and his guest were in agreement that protestors shouldn't do anything that physically prevents ICE agents from apprehending their targets, so this doesn't seem controversial to me.

The gang example is complicated. Typically, in order to be liable as an accomplice you have to have knowledge of the crime being committed, not just general knowledge that the people you are dealing with are probably up to no good. The complicating factor is that all 50 states plus the Feds and DC have enacted a cornucopia of anti-gang laws over the past 40 years that, in some cases, expand accomplice liability to "gang members", and may of these laws have been challenged for overbreadth and vagueness, and some were recently modified as part of recent calls for criminal justice reform, so any answer would be highly dependent on jurisdiction, and the constitutionality of some of the more recent reforms may still be an open question (attempts to solve some problems may create others). But based on general principles, I don't think that his knowledge of specifics would be relevant, provided that he knows that a crime is being committed. For example, if he's a lookout for drug dealers and he knows drugs are being sold illegally, I think that would be enough to invoke accomplice liability, even if he didn't know what kind of drugs or what the roles of the other members of the gang were. But again, it really depends on the specific fact pattern.

I was listening to a left-wing radio program last night and the host and his guest were in agreement that protestors shouldn't do anything that physically prevents ICE agents from apprehending their targets, so this doesn't seem controversial to me.

But did you get the impression that this meant they should stay away from protestors who do use more physical means of resistance?

My understanding of the fact pattern, from watching various videos of these people, the videos they share amongst themselves and the videos of outsiders recording them, is this:

A bunch of concerned citizens join a Signal Chat together. Some are actual committed anarchists dedicated to (mostly, but there's a literal holocaust going on so it's only a matter of time!) non-violent physical resistance against ICE. Others, hopefully the majority, join to be loud and obnoxious when ICE is nearby to help non-citizens escape lawful arrest. This second group serves to create confusion and doubt about the nature of the first group, though they may not see it as their role. The first group encourages the second group because they hope to create headlines like, "Completely innocent Kindergarten teacher exercising 1st Amendment Rights pepper sprayed by ICE" when they inevitably incite ICE to take their disorderly conduct seriously.

Because the devoted anarchists do not always get in trouble, the Kindergarten teacher group sometimes forgets the line themselves. If you see behavior repeatedly go unpunished, it starts to seem unpunishable. That's how you get the "I'm just a mom" woman who ran red lights trying to box in ICE with her car.

And the Mainstream Media writes articles as if everyone is in the second group, and any evidence of the anarchist group is just someone in the second group getting pushed over the edge by vicious ICE agents.

But it's not quite clear to me that the second group is entirely innocent here. Once they realize they are among people trying to physically interpose their persons and vehicles between ICE and the people they have a lawful duty to arrest, they share some blame if the tactics work.