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With the recent arrest of Don Lemon, I think it's worth asking how society should respond to the sorts of activities he (allegedly) engaged in?
Disrupting a church service is not exactly terrorism, since there was no actual violence used. But it's not civil disobedience either -- nobody is seriously arguing that the laws against disrupting meetings are themselves unjust.
It's sort of Terrorism Lite. It's kind of like, as another poster analogized, to holding your fist a millimeter away from someone's face while chanting "I'm not touching you." The point is to (arguably) inflict as much harm as you can get away with, to grab attention, to intimidate, to provoke a response, etc. while plausibly claiming that you are non-violent.
Maybe it's my imagination, but I feel like I've seen more and more of this Terrorism Lite in recent years. Things like traffic-blocking; meeting disruption; etc.
While it's true that there are already laws on the books against these sorts of things, I think an argument can be made that there needs to be a more focused and vigorous response. By analogy, in theory blowing up a bomb in a train station is already against the law, whether or not it's in support of some political objective, but there is value in having special laws on the books against terrorism and especially against those who finance or otherwise support it.
In the same way, there could be laws which sanction people, organizations, and governments for providing material support to what I have called Terrorism Lite. (Perhaps someone can suggest a better term.)
Why isn't trespassing law enough at the minimum? The minister says "you are trespassing and must leave" and if they don't they become arrestable? That should shut protests down plenty well.
Because the Governor and the Attorney General of Minnesota have been protecting the protestors from facing state-level charges.
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You could just as easily ask why traditional laws against murder, kidnapping, mayhem, etc. enough when it comes to full on terrorism.
Among other things, laws specifically directed at terrorism make it easier for the authorities to go after the people and organizations that support terrorism, to sanction them and cut them off financially.
Suppose George Soros gives $100,000 to some 501(c)(3) which nominally provides food and shelter for immigrants but also is involved in organizing these sorts of disruptive protests. As far as I know, there is no law at the moment forbidding him from doing so. Which, as a practical matter, means that he has a lot of freedom to hire rent-a-mobs to block highways, disrupt conservative speaking events, and so on.
Under my proposal (which admittedly is kind of a fantasy) it would be illegal to provide money or any kind of support to organizations which engage in this sort of behavior. Which means that a lot of their funding gets cut off; they are unable to buy a lot of the services they need to function, and so on.
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Trespassing law is state, and the state approves of these disruptions.
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I don't think it was or would be "terrorism lite", but it might be considered intimidation or harassment. (I support the protest's cause, but they should've done it outside of the church when the pastor was entering/leaving rather than interrupting the church service and entering the church.)
Well that's just a matter of semantics. My point is that this type of harassment is one facet of a larger issue: Blocking streets; disrupting university lectures; etc. Doing things which are intentionally designed to harm, inconvenience, and traumatize other people; doing so for political reasons; but stopping short of full on violent activities like shooting, bombing etc.
In my view, this is enough of a phenomenon that it deserves a name. If you can think of something better than "terrorism lite," please feel free to suggest it.
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His arrest seems fine to me in isolation, but I'm pessimistic about any prospect for an even-handed underlying principle there. A general legal framework against nonconsensual communication would be nice, but are any major political actors willing to forfeit their ability to impose their spam on others in return for being left unmolested themselves? I, for one, would be happy if this guy, abortion clinic protesters, university lecture disruptors, Samsung executives who greenlight patching your smart fridge to display ads and Motte ban evaders all had to share a prison cell going forward.
Yeah, having had the chance to consider all of this,it occurred to me that my proposal is kind of a fantasy in that there is a sizable faction in the United States which is aggressively making use of Terrorism Lite. They don't want to give up one of their favorite weapons and it's likely that they have enough political power that they could stop any attempt to enact the kind of policy I am proposing.
To an extent I agree, but I do believe there needs to be some room for free speech. If Don Lemon and his people had protested on the sidewalk across the street from the church without obstructing, blocking, getting in peoples' faces, etc., I would probably agree that there should no criminal consequences.
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IMO the best response to this sort of thing is a re-invigoration of the right of self defense. If someone breaks into your church, they are forfeit. This is not a government courthouse or a Wal Mart. Its a church. Its a lot of people's second home. Just give that pastor and all his flock full immunity to any retribution, including shooting in the back people who flee during the, arguably, proper response of force.
The days of the Old West are gone, and they are not coming back.
Nor is shooting someone fleeing (without your property) in the back considered self-defense anywhere.
I think even in the US, only a small fraction of churches would be willing to worship with their AR-15s by their side, waiting for some interloper to make their day. On the other hand, every criminal gang would declare their headquarters a place of worship.
If you legalize individual violence, you are selecting for people willing to commit violence for their own benefit. Generally speaking, these are not the people a civilization wants to select for.
It was in most states, legal, in 1980. The American culture of 1776-1980 was not some abomination of people selected for individual violence. It was selected for people who were trustworthy in their judgment as to the amount of violence a situation required.
That such trust did not survive the CRA and the associated movements is noted.
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Having been the victim of one of these planned disruptions, this idea seems appealing to me, but I'm not sure it's workable in practice. Keep in mind that the same types of people who invaded this church are constantly looking for ways to abuse the law (often with the help of Soros prosecutors).
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This seems like an absurd over-reaction to a single case of protestors disrupting a church service, for which they are facing charges?
Nah, its a good general rule that this would be a good excuse to re-impose. Just like imputing deadly intent to any mob the surrounds a vehicle and giving drivers ramming privileges.
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What I’m not seeing mentioned here is Lemon’s defense; he says he was watching the protest as a journalist, which to be fair was his career and he claims to be doing independent journalism after his retirement from CNN. We do have video of him doing things like interviewing protestors and the pastor (who asked him to leave), and commenting on the contrast between people yelling and protesting and people trying to pray as demonstrative of a divided America. I don’t know that it’s great journalism, but it’s a more complex situation than “Don Lemon was rioting in a church.”
I think Don Lemon should be charged with trespassing, maybe criminal mischief, etc, particularly since he remained in the church after the pastor asked him politely to leave and told him that he was contributing to the disruption of their worship service. But I don’t know if it’s appropriate for him, personally, to be charged with civil rights offenses. The organizers of the protest and the people chanting and screaming during the worship services should be slapped with those, though. I think it’s important to draw a firm line on protesting and disrupting religious services, lest we become a nation where Christians start screaming about devil-worship in mosques or Palestinians start screaming about Gaza in synagogues.
There is a trope of journalists standing in front of some perfectly innocent-looking building reporting on some Breaking News while the news is happening somewhere within that building. They generally do that because they are not allowed to enter the building and get footage of the event itself.
If Lemon had been reporting from the street outside the church, reasonable people would not blame him for anything, even if he had been tipped off by anti-ICE rioters.
Entering together with the rioters makes him look like what is called an "embedded journalist". While I am sure that embedded journalists will claim that they are actually totally neutral and independent an in no way beholden to the party in whose unit they are embedded and who sponsored their kevlar west (and whose PR people possibly get to sign of any publications they might write), I am equally sure that their opponent will not be very inclined to buy that if they are captured and instead treat them as PoWs.
Lemon being a TV person, I presume that he was recording video from within the church. Here in old Europe, we believe that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Now that is not an absolute thing, if your worship involves sacrificing kids to the Outer Gods, then there would be a public interest a journalist fulfills in violating your privacy of worship.
Frankly, I fail to see any public interest for life video coverage here. If schoolchild A is bullying schoolchild B, and then schoolchild C pulls out their mobile and openly lifestreams that to the internet, I am much more inclined to call C a bully than a journalist. I do not need to see the footage to know that some of the anti-ICE protesters are total assholes, a textual summary of what happened suffices for that. There is no Pulitzer to be won here.
So I am fine with letting the jury figure out if he was intentionally violating civil rights or not.
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I don't know that a trespassing charge would stick here. I can't speak for the particularities of Minnesota law, but PA has three basic categories of trespass:
The only category that would apply here would be defiant trespass, since the church was ostensibly open to the public. In the video, the pastor politely asks Lemon to leave and then walks away. Lemon leaves 7 minutes later. Again, I can't speak for Minnesota, but most of the cases where someone is prosecuted for defiant trespass in PA involve someone ignoring repeated demands to leave, and then remaining there until the police show up. Realistically, the police aren't going to prosecute based on video evidence or testimony unless they're in a very small town with nothing else to do. When I had my own practice I would occasionally get calls about people who caught poachers on their property and wanted to sue them. In these cases they always called the police, who weren't about to run plates and arrest people who had already left (they were usually caught coming out of the woods). Lemon might be guilty of defiant trespass withing the strict letter of the law, but he might not, and the case is blurry enough that most police and prosecutors don't think it's worth the hassle. In PA refusing an order to leave is a misdemeanor which will probably get you six months probation. I'd expect that if a prosecutor were willing to push a case like this he'd probably bargain it down to a summary offense, which would be in line with ignoring a posted sign.
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Having had a chance to think about this, it looks to me like he was a part of the conspiracy or is otherwise criminally responsible. Arguably, part of the plan was to disrupt the church service simply by having a large number of people in the room. So I think that anyone joining the group; knowing about the plan; entering the church with the group; and refusing to leave when asked, should be prosecuted. I'm not familiar with the particulars of the law in question, this is just what seems reasonable to me. (I'm also assuming that Don Lemon was asked to leave and refused.)
Besides, I don't think being a "journalist" should give a person any more rights than they otherwise would have. I think anyone who was a part of the group; who entered the church; and who refused to leave when asked should be charged.
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Lemon is alleged to have helped plan it.
Imagine Lemon and others talked about robbing a bank. He goes along and interviews the bank employees whilst the bank robbery is committed.
Seems clearly his “journalist” defense is invalid.
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The specific indictment language includes accusasions of things that could be plausibly construed as conspiracy and pre-planning with the event organizers who, ultimately planned a church invasion.
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I already posted this at the end of a long comment chain but given how many comments I'm seeing about the FACE Act, SAFE Act, and the possible need for some new law I figured that I would repost it here for visibility.
Per the Federal Grand Jury indictment that lead to his arrest, Don Lemon has been charged with violating US Code Title 18-241 "Conspiracy against rights", colloquially known as "The Klan Act of 1948", the text of which reads...
The specific right that he has been charged with conspiring against is the free-exercise of religion afforded to the congregants of Cities Church of St. Paul MN by the first amendment to the Constitution of these United States.
Thanks for pointing this out. Arguably this would apply to university lecture disruptors; traffic blockers; etc. I do think there needs to be some kind of private right of action and a way to sanction organizations who support this sort of stuff.
Arguably yes, and this is actually something that a lot of social conservatives have been advocating for a while. That is using the Klan Act to crack down on the "masked disruptor" and other "Terrorism Lite" type games.
The incident at Cities Church of St Paul just so happened to be a conveniently central example of act's original purpose. The 1948 Klan Act having been enacted as a response to the KKK's attempts to break up black and mixed-race church congregations both directly via storming and burning churches, and indirectly via waylaying people on the road to and from those churches.
The 1948 Act's original purpose had nothing to do with churches; those attacks didn't start until the 1960s. It was originally passed in 1870 in the wake of the Fifteenth Amendment and was revised in 1948 after renewed intimidation campaigns to prevent blacks from voting. I'm not aware of any cases that don't involve the right to vote, though there may be some. That particular count fails for two reasons. The first is that the statute requires a specific intent to violate a particular right. There's no evidence that the protestors specifically entered the church because they wanted to prevent the congregation from being able to practice their religion. To the contrary, pretty much everyone agrees, and the indictment even admits, that the intent of the disruption was to protest ICE; interfering with a church service was an incidental consequence. If I beat a guy up and he can't vote the next day because he's in the hospital, it certainly interferes with a civil right, but it's a lot different than if I beat him up specifically to prevent him from voting.
The more crucial reason, though, that the statute doesn't apply here, is because it generally doesn't apply to rights where the only constitutional protection is from state action. If a group of people is protesting on the street and counterprotestors show up and disrupt the protest, they're certainly interfering with the first group's First Amendment rights in much the same way that the anti-ICE protestors were interfering with the practice of religion when they disrupted the church service, but there's no civil rights violation there. The same holds true if it were a sanctioned protest on private property (say, in a shopping center parking lot) that was being disrupted.
In Don Lemon's own video, in a parking lot gathering prior to going to the church he interviews one of the organizers, Nekima Levy Armstrong, who explicitly says:
Another protester allegedly posted a video of himself saying (censorship from the youtube clip, I don't know what the actual censored words are but from context probably some variant of "fucking"):
I think these quotes from the protesters themselves are significantly more than "no evidence". Maybe not decisive evidence, but surely more than enough to make the
charges(EDIT:) alleged intent to prevent religious practice plausible.This situation is materially different than that hypothetical, as in this case they were intentionally and explicitly disrupting the religious service to coerce members. They wanted to make it clear to the congregation that their religious observances would not be permitted unobstructed while they associated with a member of ICE. That is not an incidental violation, as they were attempting to hold the congregation members' rights hostage.
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Is there a long play here about “disguise on the highway” to make the road blocking masked people takeovers illegal?
It's not a "long play", just the opposite.
What do you mean?
What I'm saying is that there isn't really any long play to be played here, if we take Lemon's own statements at face value he knew that he was breaking the law. Or rather he knew that he was going in with the intention of violating other people's right to freely exercise their religion.
The fact that he happened to be a black man wearing a black mask instead of a white man wearing a white hood is immaterial to whether his actions constituted a violation of the Klan act.
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Doesn't have to be, if "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" is the rule applied, and if this were the UK. You can be arrested for praying in your own mind outside an abortion clinic on the grounds of "causing distress and alarm":
(1)
(2)
The US is not yet at this level. These kinds of cases (e.g. Lemon) will be tests of how firm protection of free speech rights will hold and how or if limits on protesting will be applied. Outside the church? Fine. Bust inside and disrupt the service? Not fine.
That's the UK though. They don't have a strong sense of liberal values encoded into their legal system.
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Are you sure? https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/fbi-justice-department-twist-federal-law-arrest-charge-pro-life
Peacefully protesting outside an abortion clinic and then defending your 12 year old son from an adult getting in his face meant SWAT teams in 2022.
Going by your comment and just looking at that URL, I am going to guess that that is misrepresented. So I will look it up...
And, indeed, he is alleged to have shoved someone. And he was acquitted. Kind of seems uninteresting. Nothing like the UK. I don't know the facts surrounding the physical altercation, but if he had never shoved someone I highly doubt he ever would've been arrested. Seems the legal system basically worked appropriately, here.
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For those old enough to remember the abortion clinic protests of the 90s, it's not at all a new thing.
And Clinton definitely (and IMO rightly, no matter what you think about abortion, you don't get to shut down a clinic by personally obstructing it) did throw people in jail for similar acts in clinics.
Abortion's a tricky one to me since whilst I personally believe it's something that shouldn't be done frivolously but there are legitimate applications. I can see how somebody's belief systems can directly draw a line from abortion to cold-blooded murder of the most vulnerable, in a far more coherent and sensible way than a lot of other protest movements.
Yeah, but what if it wasn't (either "not cold-blooded murder" or "not the most vulnerable")? All abortions that occur are self-justifying if you hate people who would get abortions enough (which is why I believe the pro-choice argument that pro-life views are held out of hatred is invalid- if it was, they'd hold this view instead).
You see, if a mother is stupid or frivolous enough to need an abortion (we have birth control devices that are basically magic these days, this isn't that hard), that mother (and by logical extension, that father) is doing everyone else a service by not reproducing.
The eugenics argument is not frivolous. Morality and impulse control are heritable, babies at higher risk of abortion are inherently at a disadvantage there, and really, what's the difference between that kid getting aborted by doctor 2 months pre-partum, or aborted by cop 200 months post-partum? The latter tends to be a lot more destructive, violent, and costly.
It's commendable behavior to relent on one's decision to create such a human. (And for those who understand this commendation is not a compliment and keep the baby as a result... well, that attitude is what makes someone fit to reproduce.)
On the other hand, mothers who abort rape babies, for genetic defects incompatible with life, or because having the baby would kill them are also acting pro-socially, but these people aren't acting foolishly (well, for the most part) so the compliment actually is one here, and it is necessary they don't feel too bad about it.
My point is more 'I can see why somebody would judge Abortion to be cold-blooded murder of the vulnerable' than 'I think that the debate on abortion should solely stop there'
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From what I understand, this wasn't just "disrupting a church service", it was a bunch of persons who had convinced themselves on the basis of "this guy has the same surname so he must be the same person" that a pastor at the church was also (presumably in his day job?) a Wicked Evil ICE agent of some sort. Then it turns out that he wasn't even in the church on the day they bust in. Very luckily for all concerned, since with just the wrong stimulus violence could have eventuated.
The same kind of mistake that in years past was recorded of an English mob, also high on whipped-up hysteria about Bad Evil Persons, confronting a paediatrician because some fool mistook that for "paedophile":
I don't know what exactly Don Lemon was doing there, whether he was there as an ordinary journalist or what, but I would wonder how he knew this was going to happen. And if he was tipped off by someone in the mob that they were going to do this, whether he thought he would have a nice juicy story about Evil Christian Bigots to go with the Evil ICE Agent angle. Just like this guy so eager to shoot off his cartooning mouth about how on the right side of history he was.
EDIT: To correct what I said above, it may indeed be that the guy also works for ICE. That still doesn't excuse bursting into the church. Protest outside if you want, but at least make sure you (1) do have the right guy at the right time and (2) are not breaking any laws.
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I really can't say how upset I would get if it happened to me.
This would terrify my kids. They wouldn't want to go back to church for a long time. It would be a traumatic thing that they would have to get over, and it would take a lot. This is functionally equivalent to somebody breaking into your living room and screaming at you until you left your house.
These people essentially trapped people there, terrorized them for a while, called them terrible things, etc. If you have a clever 5 year old, they're going to talk about this interaction 100x a day for the next month at least, and they're not going to want to step back into church.
These people deserve prison, imo.
FWIW I agree. Partly because what they did was terrible, but also because the public needs to see that it's not necessary to take the law into one's own hands. I was once in a university talk that was targeted for disruption and the urge to smack the disruptors is pretty strong. Arguably, knowing that they will face serious negative consequences for their actions would make it much easier to refrain.
It is even easier to refrain if you know you would face serious negative consequences for your actions. Which you would, of course -- were you to smack them, their behavior would not even be in question. It is all a matter of who and whom.
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In the state I live in, if this happened in a less politically charged case, I would expect the people who invaded the church to be charged with several felonies. The obviously ones would be burglary, unlawful restraint (aggravated if any of them had a weapon), mob action, and criminal trespass and criminal damage charges which would be misdemeanors as well. For first time offenders, they would be lucky to get 2 years probation on a lesser charge with fairly strict probation conditions. For anyone with a criminal history, you are looking at 4-15, extendable to 30.
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Potentially related: Will Stancil has been kicked out of ICE Rapid Response for allowing journalists to ride along and cover his activities. It will not be good for the defense of the activists in the church case that Don Lemon livestreamed the whole thing. I'm not sure how Stancil got this far without realizing how much his compatriots yell, "we love crime," while doing crime, but his youthful innocence goes a long way towards explaining why it is so much fun to make fun of him.
I was actually kind of sorry for Stancil there. I think he's a bit of an idiot, but he was at least putting his money where his mouth is (though the video of him at a protest is very funny). And here we go with the good old purity death spiral eating their own once again.
ICE don't have to be competent and there is no fear of The Revolution happening so long as this is the level of unity amongst the comrades.
True but money where his mouth is for Stancil doesn't mean a ton aside from exposure to maybe getting gassed. It doesn't seem to have impacted his academic position at all to spend days meandering around driving after ICE.
It's something more than the general run of the people writing thinkpieces about fascism in Minnesota with ICE, though it is very akin to what drove Good and Pretti to get involved. Maybe it will turn out to be for the best that Stancil has agreed not to actively be present at protests in future, for his own safety.
The impact on his academic position isn't going to come from "driving around following ICE" because this would be seen as praiseworthy activism. The impact will come from his 'side' deciding to cancel him for the crime of endangering brave Resistance fighters by ferrying around press types who will publish photos that the evil fascist administration will use to identify them. He's in danger of being declared a Quisling.
I mean I agree he's annoyed his fellow protestors at this point but if somebody were to do this for an equivalent Right Wing movement that job would be gone essentially instantaneously amidst other actual life consequences upon aggravating the rest of the socialist protestor commune.
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It was never about The Revolution. It was about electing Democrats.
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Just in case you were serious, or someone else missed the tongue in your cheek, but Will Stancil is 40. He just looks like he's 14.
Past a certain age, a man without a Norwood can be a bad thing.
This is what grey hair and beards are for.
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There are laws against this stuff, they were written to go after pro-life civil disobedience and in a few cases against desegregationists. I believe Don lemon is being charged under the KKK act, and the freedom of access to clinics act was considered for him as well.
Somebody somewhere pointed out that it would be extremely amusing (in a black humour way) if a law signed by Bill Clinton to protect abortion clinics was used against Lemon.
Well, the first effort was hitting a black, gay leftist with the KKK Act on Martin Luther King Day.
If the shoe fits...
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Not really since it isn't some general law that's being applied in a novel way; there are specific provisions for houses of worship, presumably added to attract support from Republicans and conservative Democrats.
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I'd much prefer we returned to a time where people got their asses kicked for acting like an asshole and the cops wouldn't do anything if it was plain that a person had it coming.
I think this is a great fantasy, I'm just not sure how realistic it is. Part of the problem is that recent history has shown that police intervention decisions are often highly political.
It isn't realistic at all. It would require that we all share the same morality and mores. Essentially, a (mostly) homogeneous society. That ship's sailed. But a boy can dream of how it could have been if things had gone differently.
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Disparate impact problem.
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By state law, it's 100% disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and I think riot in the third degree ("When three or more persons assembled disturb the public peace by an intentional act or threat of unlawful force or violence to person or property, each participant therein is guilty of riot third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 364 days or to payment of a fine of not more than $1,000, or both."). Any threat of violence would be "gross misdemeanor" assault in Minnesota. The proper response is that the state government of Minnesota should arrest, try, and convict the mob members and send them to prison for a few months each. That would be a proportionate and just response. If the state government of Minnesota refuses to do that because they are on the side of the "protestors" ... well then you are in a state of exception ...One option then, is to hack federal law in order to go after the protestors, which is what the left usually does. It might make sense to make disorderly conduct in sufficient scale and coordination to be a federal felony. That would stop all these "terrorism lite" tactics. Another possibility would be to arrest the actual members of the state government in that case, for conspiracy to deprive rights under color of law. And if you can't get a federal judge to approve it, well, again, you would be in the state of exception. All of these tracks require a plan for the ensuing escalation.
Another possibility is to have a procedure by which the NGOs who help organize and support these activities could be "designated" in a way similar to the way terrorist organizations are designated. Once that happens, the NGO loses its tax exemption, it becomes a serious offense to donate money to them, and so on. Admittedly, this is probably an unrealistic fantasy, but still, I think it should be considered. Because (arguably) it would go a long way to preventing these kinds of activities if there were a way to discourage not only the rioters themselves but the people and organizations who support them.
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No, it is obviously burglary 2nd degree under black letter Minnesota law. Some states have less prosecutor-friendly burglary statutes, but look at this statute for prosecutors in this case (if they wished to take it) that fairly closely mimics the model penal code:
Of note, its also burglary 1st degree (up to 20 years) if any of the people breaking in had a deadly weapon on them or burglary tools on them or anyone assaulted anyone in the church according the statute. These people would be seriously cooked if they did the same thing in Minnesota to a public or private school that rioters thought had a teacher teaching gay pride. Even Don Lemon appears to fall under this 2nd degree charge based on the charging documents (obviously everything must be proven in court).
Churches are generally open to the public, which wipes out "with consent". Also what would the crime they intended to commit be? What they did was not burglary.
There are multiple crimes. Assault, battery, unlawful restraint, criminal damage to property. Importantly, by acting in concert of any single conspirator did one, it is imputed to all.
It says "as an accomplice", not "as a conspirator". The super-broad federal conspiracy rules aren't generally adopted by states. Anyway, your subdivision 2(a) (in the part you elided after the "if") only covers dwellings, banks and pharmacies, or if the burglar "the burglar possesses a tool to gain access to money or property". Your subdivision 2(b) only covers 609.52 (theft) and 609.595 (damage to property, which I didn't see happen). And there's still the issue of "without consent". So no, still not burglary.
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In this case it's not really even a hack -- "disrupting a place of worship" is black-letter FACE act AFAICT.
(or maybe you could say that the hack took place when that law was implemented, in that including places of worship was not the initial goal of the legislators -- but that seems neither here nor there)
Yeah, I think FACE, hate crimes laws, and some other civil rights era laws are basically hacks on the original U.S.Constitution, which gave police powers by default to the state. But when the federal government assumed basically all sovereignty, it needed ways to takeover police powers when the states weren't doing what the feds wanted.
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My thought upon reading these comments was, "How the hell does Congress have the authority to pass such a law in the first place?"
The Wikipedia article on the law references a locked article, but the internet exists and has ways to fix the glitch, so I found that the case that Wiki refers to for noting that a federal district court upheld the law is American Life League, Inc. v. Reno. The opinion helpfully provides a concise little Section III. Congress's Authority to Enact FACE. Concise enough that I'll quote in full, only removing references:
Now, if you noticed, the Wiki article says this was in 1995. ...but the opinion says it was June 16, 1994. Lopez was handed down on April 26, 1995. Contrary to what one might have heard, Lopez has aged... well, not perfectly, but at least acceptably well. There is no way that such an argument for Congressional authority flies that easily today. If I had to take a position right now without briefing or oral arguments, I'd say that the hack took place when the law was passed and that it was an unconstitutional overreach of Congressional authority from day one. Would be the peak of irony if a leftist protester raised this challenge now and won, demonstrating that all the harassment of pro-life folks for decades was never legal.
What would happen is they would raise the challenge and win. Then Congress would pass a substantially similar law with some tweak to make it technically different. That law would continue to be used against right-wingers and survive all challenges, right up until someone managed to use it against a leftist again.
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This is what I've always said. Do not call up that which you cannot put down, or, be very careful what weapons you craft, because there is no immutable law of the universe that your side will eternally be the one in power, and when your enemies replace you, you will have left them all these weapons to use against you.
Seems like the "right side of history" legislators and courts of the day wanted to go after the horrible pro-lifers interfering with the right to abortion, so they passed and upheld this law. Now it's being used against today's right side of history people. Who could possibly have foreseen bad things happening if I pushed the big red button that said DO NOT PUSH?
To be clear, we are discussing a case where what they called up was used to excellent effect for three decades, and only now begins to turn on them when the entire country is coming apart at the seams.
It's not obvious from a pure power analysis perspective that they made the wrong play here. At least wait until there's some actual convictions, eh?
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It was a bone thrown to the right, but it was done in bad faith -- no one ever intended it to be used and I think so far, only Trump has even attempted to use it, and the courts are resisting because they know it wasn't supposed to be used.
I find your endless defeatism boring and ignorant.
Per the Grand Jury Indictment that lead to his arrest Don Lemon has been charged with violating USC 18-241. A law that was originally part of the Enforcement act of 1870 and then updated in 1948 specifically to target the KKK, to which it was used to great effect.
That the masked individuals disrupting church services in this particular case happened to be black democrats in black hoodies instead of white democrats in white hoods has no legal bearing on the matter.
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I'm certain that at least some of the Internet packets used to coordinate the event (or live stream it) crossed state lines. IIRC that's been a federal jurisdiction hook before.
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I think the FBI affidavit is important to review before going into the discussion.
First, the "protestors" were blocking people in, keeping them from leaving or from getting to their children who had been taking to another area for childcare.
Just, you know, some light "preventing parents from caring for their small children." Really, could happen to any honest protestor.
One of the church goers fled out a side door, tripped, and broke her arm. Is that the fault of the protestors? Kinda, if they hadn't scared her she wouldn't have ran so quickly.
Again with the not letting people leave thing. What elements need to be present for this to be kidnapping? Or endangering children?
Or unlawful arrest. But those are all state charges.
Under Australian common law its called 'Deprivation of Liberty' and is a big naughty. Effectively kidnapping.
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I guess everyone in Minnesota who is in a category the State will refuse to protect should just leave Minnesota.
I don't know what other remedies our system has.
A good fraction of the '60s civil rights infrastructure was oriented at states refusing to protect certain classes of citizens.
So much of our legalese is based on assumptions of how to deal with black-white issues in an 85% white country but completely become unworkable when we now have 100 oppressed minority groups. We can look the other way on some American constitutional rights to throw some bones to the 15%. Laws to deal with the Klan now get extended to basically everyone since everyone finds a way to be the oppressed.
We don’t actually have a Chesterton fence for dealing with a multicultural society in the US plus the sudden invention that everyone has their own sex.
Affirmative Action or hate crime laws can functional work when its goal is make sure ADOS gets 5% of Harvards Freshman class or for making sure a lower class person doesn’t do explicitly racists stuff.
No, what you need is simply to enforce the law fairly.
If you're a flaming racist, you only want that law to apply when victims are black; if you're a flaming sexist, you only want that law to apply when victims are women. This is modern Blue tribe thought in a nutshell- DR3 is trivially correct[1].
Now, you can't write an explicitly discriminatory law like that in 1960s America[2], but if you control the institutions, you can have that- you simply fail to enforce the law against women or blacks. But right now, they don't have the institutions, and the law is being
restoredapplied fairly for once in a very, very long time[3].And this, right here, is what the reformers voted for.
Most of what the Daughters of the Confederacy are protesting against right now is ultimately what the law of the land (by which they justify themselves) says. You can't have an underclass/slaves/permanent non-citizens because it damages the national social fabric, and the Daughters are pro-slave because it means they don't have to pay to fix some other fundamental problems in society they're on the high side of at the moment. You also can't be a flaming racist for similar reasons, and the Daughters are all hardcore racists (it doesn't matter that they're technically racist against themselves- they don't see it that way, and why not judge them by their own standard?).
[1] The fundamental contradiction in Blue thought: the tribe whose founding myth comes from fighting for universal human rights is actively working to destroy them for wholly selfish reasons. A symmetric contradiction in Red thought is also present, of course, as their tribe has a founding myth that comes from fighting against universal human rights to be just, but finds itself actively working to impose them now in the framework that defeated "fighting against universal human rights".
[2] Most other countries that have enshrined "finger on the scale" in law in this way are neither America nor was it the 1960s when they passed them. They tend to be dominated by more conservative moral impulses than the US is. Probably an HBD thing, since the people that aren't like that have been self-sorting into the US anyway for the last 200ish years.
[3] Which leads to stuff that looks... really weird from traditional perspectives, like in this case where you have a black man acting indistinguishably from the groups that, 50 years ago, would have been doing the same thing to him for what, in his heart, is the same crime (re: MLKKK of South Park).
Ok good posts. I don’t think this isn’t great example of what I wanted it to be of a system working fine where we put a finger on the scale to make sure 5% of Harvard are ADOS.
The issue with their behavior here is most people just believe it’s cringe. The Wire event had their hustlers having truces during Church hours and it was considered really bad to take a shot at Omar at Church. Church time has been off limits for all worldly things in society. It’s similar to not killing your enemies at peace summits or The Red Wedding but the Church time pause has been stronger.
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I disagree, as I was telling @The_Nybbler neither the race nor the color of the hood being worn by those looking to disrupt a church service has any legal bearing on the matter. At least not per the letter of the law.
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So do you address this with another civil rights act?
No need for another Civil Rights Act when the original is fit for purpose.
Per the official docket, Don Lemon along with three others; Trahern Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lundy, have been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on charges of violating US Code Title 18 - 241, "Conspiracy against rights". Specifically the free-exercise clause of the first amendment in regards to the congregation of Cities Church of St. Paul MN.
USC 18-241 reads...
Based on clips from Lemon's own livestream I'd say they have him dead-to-rights.
I'm remembering my post last year about how Trump can (lawfully) strike back in the sort of protest-fueling excesses of the Democratic civil war.
I don't think anyone needed to goad Don Lemon into doing something stupid- he hardly needs the help- but for all that the recent Mineapolis shootings gave Trump/ICE a political black eye, I think they've also demonstrated the sort of political solvent effect of the democratic civil war as factions nominally unify against Trump, actively compete for the kudos of opposing Trump, but also stand to benefit for when Trump turns on one or another faction for its excesses.
In just the last few weeks, after all, the most recent Dem VP has functionally ended his political career and said he'll never run for election again, a government shutdown effort couldn't even form various party members said nope so fast, various Democratic governors and AGs have had widely divergent stances on opposing ICE, with the relatively hardcore anti-IC AGs getting minimal political support from 2026 establishment frontrunners like Newsom. Rather than nation-wide anti-ICE riots following two shootings, the best the party is managing is another No Kings nationwide protests, which are almost certainly going to try and enforce a peaceful protest persona as a contrast to the anti-ICE tactics of MN.
This isn't a verdict of victory or defeat one way or another, but I think it is demonstrative that the party conflict is dynamic, and more importantly dynamic in a way that does give the Trump administration a number of legal ways to go after not-so-edge actors, even with many hostile/oppositional judges in the judiciary. And these cases, in turn, are probably going to catch not-so-minor players in the Democratic Party civil war, shaping the trajectory in ways some people will not only try to capitalize on, but set conditions for.
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A church is a fairly arbitrary point to draw the line at in the grand scheme of things. However it is where the line is drawn and the civil disobedient crossed it.
I also feel it's relevant that if the same thing happened at a mosque with a right wing group it would likely be a long running national media emergency
How is it fairly arbitrary? Almost every state I know of has increased penalties for committing crimes at certain types of places, and almost all of those states include schools and churches in that list of special places. In fact, Minnesota law includes places of worship as one such place in their burglary statute making these actions very serious felonies.
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The law is intentionally set up to allow for Terrorism Lite to work, especially when it is being committed for certain ends. The law is not meant (by those who write it) to equally protect the abortion protestor and the pro-choice activist.
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I mean... look up historical activist tactics, especially in the '60s and '70's.
Both terrorist-lite and terrorist-heavy tactics get employed, and there are whole books written on the proper training and implementation of each.
Generally agreed, but the other approach is to empower those on the receiving end to immediately respond relatively harshly and given them legal support for doing so.
Florida's notorious anti-riot law did in fact increase penalties for organizing riots/violent protests. But it also added legal protections for individuals who are targeted by rioters and respond with violent action (limited to self defense, mind).
I think its obvious that if interrupting a religious service with a mob of people could get someone beaten or even shot, and the defender would be legally immune from consequences... they'd be much, much less inclined to take on the risks inherent in that action.
This is a separate question from whether the churchgoers have the ability and will to actually get violent.
In practice, even in very liberal jurisdictions, church invasions over the Dobbs decision were routinely met with violence and police had little interest in whether that violence was legal- theres a few videos from LA around then.
I don't remember this happening, but it's quite possible I just missed it at the time. Do you have any worthwhile links to share?
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Having had the experience of attending a lecture that was disrupted by protestors, it definitely would have been satisfying to have the green light to kick some ass. But I'm not sure how workable that is in practice.
I definitely agree that a motorist whose car has been blocked/surrounded should have a good deal of latitude to use force.
Another idea is to give the victims of Lite Terrorists a private right of action to sue for statutory damages against everyone involved, including organizations that supported the wrongdoing.
I just note that Florida has had VERY few issues with rioters and harassment of civilians in the past 5 years.
There are of course other reasons for that.
I think it almost facially true that if the law disfavors those who act against the harassers, then most will choose to just sit by and take no action, which likely emboldens the protestors further.
It also sidesteps the issue of local officials who might tacitly support the protestors and order Law Enforcement to stand down.
I would never blame someone for not wanting to escalate a situation on their own, though.
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It's intimidation, harassment, or something similar. And it has (or should have) a high probability of triggering a Civil Rights investigation as the 1st Amendment begins with the religious freedom clause.
It's not civil disobedience because no church represents the local/state/federal government. This is also why it isn't terrorism per se.
To the specific Don Lemon case, this just shows how profoundly dumb that man is. America is a very secular nation. Especially in regards to Christians, "The Culture" is openly antagonistic unless you're one of those "christian" groups with LGBTQ flags and female pastors.
But actually running in to disrupt a service is still faux pas. People are still woo-woo enough that they aren't okay with this. It would've been fine if Lemon and his weirdo friends picketed outside the church. It would've been more than okay for him to make up just-so false equivalents to random Bible excerpts. Since at least the early 1990s, it's been totally okay to parody solemn Christian institutions to the point of profanity.
But don't go into the Church, dude.
I wouldn’t chalk it up entirely to Don Lemon being dumb. Like many other leftward organizations and people, he got used to the government, the media, big tech, the legal system and federal law enforcement all simultaneously running interference for him. There are tactics which are very effective in a permissive threat environment like that, but will quickly bite you in the ass in a less permissive one. If he had done something similar to this in 2014, he may genuinely have come out on the other end being made to look like a hero. Or at worst, looking like a jackass with no other actual consequences.
He hasn't lost yet; he can go to Federal court to have the indictment quashed, if the judge is willing.
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A terrorist act does not have to be committed against a government entity in order to be a terrorist attack. The World Trade Center was not a government building yet 9/11 is considered a terrorist act.
Sure, fine. Whatever.
here's the definition of the term in US Code
The reading appears to agree with StableOutshoot?
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The main answer to this is having vague enough laws and leaving it to the police to enforce it at their discretion, but it requires a lot of social capital and trust to do, which is precisely what you're running out of these days.
The result of this is a police state.
One of the failure state of it is, but it doesn't have to be. Not every city/state/province/country that has loitering laws, for instance, is a police state. Loitering as a concept is vague enough that the police has to exercise judgement in removing people who are being a nuisance and those who aren't.
But when you run out of social capital, you end up on both sides with abuse (on the police side with abuse of authority and on the other side doing the maximum they can get away with despite going against the spirit of the law).
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The law he's accused of violating is an abortion access law. Pro life advocates are convicted of violations when they engage in silent prayer in abortion clinics.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5460e86be4b058ea427aec94/t/688a8c566fec2b1a6049beed/1753910358668/25-+Petition.pdf
I personally believe in the Chicago way when it comes to political prosecutions. If you convict one of ours for a silent prayer, I'm going to try to convict 2 of yours for anything more than a silent prayer. I'm still upset that no one has been given the J6 treatment for the Floyd protests.
I also wish that at least interstate highways were ruled open range cars. Meaning if someone blocks a car on an interstate they are 100% liable for all damage caused in the collision.
Connolly's case has nothing to do with the FACE Act? He was convicted under a state level ordinance...
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Sure, what I am suggesting is that instead of using a patchwork approach of using one law for disrupting a church service; another law for blocking a street; another law for pulling a false fire alarm to disrupt a conference; and so on, there (perhaps) should be a more unified approach to dealing with this phenomenon. And more importantly, there should (arguably) be laws imposing sanctions on the persons and NGOs who support these sorts of activities.
The FACE Act was nominally supposed to be that universal law despite the name, but as far as I'm aware no one has ever been convicted under that law for disrupting religious worship, it has only ever successfully been used against the pro-life movement.
Well the FACE Act is rather narrow, right? It doesn't cover general traffic-blocking or university lecture disrupting, does it?
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It works when you have allied media organizations and friendly local authorities. It's literally in the Antifa playbook. The goal is to exploit the right to protest to pursue low level paramilitary activity. They're very good at it, and they've established the norm so much that regular left-wingers often now seem confused when their protesters get arrested for intimidation, vandalism, or even violence. They've gotten away with so much that it has moved from an expectation to an entitlement.
Occasionally right-wing protesters try the same tactics only to discover that it doesn't work for them.
X to doubt.
The pro-life movement’s protest tactics got lots of people arrested, but generally not imprisoned, for behavior that successfully reduced the number of abortion clinics. Antifa members get arrested but not imprisoned all the time too.
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Exactly. Like a recent Twitter narrative going around partly inspired by Generalissimo-in-exile Will Stancil where people were lauding his personal courage in taking to the field.
I agree that what he's doing takes a degree of courage, but it's also insane to equivocate it to similar actions of right wing protestors. Stancil hasn't even jeopardized his academic job, whilst the risk of complete financial and social censure for being equally visible as a right wing agitator is considerably higher.
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I'm perfectly happy with Civil Right's legislation being thrown at these "protesters". It's as legitimate a use of it as others I've seen. And it almost makes me believe I still have rights.
But it isn't (and you don't). The judicial system understands that these laws are only supposed to be used against the right, so they refused to even approve charges against Lemon.
My understanding is what was rejected was an Emergency Warrant. I have no idea how often Emergency Warrants are used. Maybe an Emergency Warrant would have been approved if but for Lemon's politics/status? How would we know?
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Well from what I understand, the feds requested arrest warrants as to 3 or 4 individuals (including Lemon) and the arrests were approved as to everyone except Lemon. This suggests that there really is some kind of weakness in the case against Lemon.
Do you happen to know what exactly the evidence against him? I've searched for it online but haven't found anything.
I expect him to claim that he was there doing journalism, and as such not a part of the group disrupting things; a 1A vs 1A battle!
The truth of that claim will probably be more important than balancing the right to worship with the right to journalist, but I expect that is the issue.
AFAIK there are relatively few "journalism"-specific 1A protections, in part because journalism is a bit nebulous around the edges. There is a bit of a tradition of police leaving journalists alone, but a "press" vest doesn't actually impart specific legal protections against, say, lawful disperse orders. If there were, we'd have to decide who qualified: "yes officer, I'm just here because I might blog about it in the next month."
Religion is also a bit nebulously defined, but a church is a pretty central example and there is a long tradition of special protections there.
I think it comes more down to whether he was engaging in activity that is objectively illegal, since an observer would presumably be less likely to actively obstruct or threaten someone. If he were simply standing there quietly it could even be argued that any requests to vacate the premises were not directed to him, insofar as he was not acting any more disruptive than any member of the congregation. It all depends on the specifics of what they can prove that he actually did, not that he was just present while other people were breaking the law.
He's on video specifically questioning church staff, being asked to leave if he's not there to worship, and then going on to 'interview' churchgoers for another nine minutes, starting minute 52 of the stream. Combined with intentionally entering the church 'when the moment is right', it's extremely implausible that did not intentionally interrupt service, and continue to do so after staff asked him to leave.
I haven't seen the video so I'll take you're word on what's in it. That being said, the SAFE Act would only seem to apply if he is doing something to threaten people or restrict egress from the building. He's certainly guilty of whatever the Minnesota equivalent of what would be Defiant Trespass in Pennsylvania, but that's a state level charge, and as far as I can tell there aren't any Federal trespass laws that don't involve Federal property or otherwise apply in very specific situations.
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If you wait for a few days, the indictment listing the actual charges and evidence should be posted somewhere on RECAP.
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His livestream?!
What are we even doing man...
What exactly did he do?
Edit: By the way, I think it's pretty likely that he helped plan and organize the disruption and/or actively participated. I'm just wondering what the evidence is.
The entire livestream is still up on his personal YouTube channel (the action is all in the first hour or so). He travels with the group from the staging area to the church. It is clear from how he covers the lead-up that he is in on the plot.
I'm not sure how they'll get him specifically on the FACE Act charges, but he does seem to be part of the conspiracy, and that's what they need for the KKK Act charges.
I donno. Maybe how prostitution isn't illegal if you film it, because it's now pornography, maybe Don Lemon is going with some "It's not a civil rights violation if you film it, then it's news!" defense. Although, first, that seems questionable given how much he participates and second, the people who filmed the Arbery murder are still serving life sentences just for being there, so what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
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