Nothing like left wing crazies in the streets or in mayors' offices to make the right, even the Trumpist right, seem responsible and reasonable

Ordered Liberty and Federal Might.

Outrage, at least from the usual suspects, has greeted the use of federal personnel in Portland to enforce laws that the mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon have refused to enforce. 

Despite the pearl-clutching, the precedent and the constitutional principles are clear: 

If the states and cities will not protect their citizens’ lives, property and civil rights, the Constitution does not permit federal military intervention.

It requires it.

. . . .

What claimed the mantle of popular rage could not thwart the steel helmets and heavy armor sent by the Republican Commander in Chief.  

And, over their objections, President Dwight David Eisenhower made sure that nine black students were escorted safely into Little Rock Central High School. 

The visceral certainty of the angry white mob that it was wrong for Washington to use force to protect the rights of people threatened by violence did not matter—nor should it have.

Americans are guaranteed a great number of civil rights, besides the right to equal opportunity in education. 

Citizens are also entitled to speak freely, to assemble freely, to worship freely and, under the Fifth Amendment, to travel. 

In fact, under 18 U.S. Code § 241, it is a federal offense to conspire “to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same.” 

This statute also makes it illegal for “two or more persons [to] go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured…”

For 49 days now, violent anarchists have acted in defiance of protocols outlined by the Portland Police Bureau—which has hardly shown itself to be a bastion of strict “law and order” policing—for safe and peaceable assembly. 

Instead, they have systematically undertaken to destroy private, state, and federal property and have not hesitated to assault either law enforcement personnel or civilians. 

Unruly crowds used commercial grade lasers to blind police, and made weapons from paving stones and fireworks—even attempted to assault an officer with a hammer. 

A little over a week ago, Portland Police made multiple arrests and found a loaded weapon on one subject, as a hostile crowd of about 250 violent anarchists failed to comply with dispersal order and surrounded Hatfield Courthouse. 

A few days later, someone fired shots into the air from the rear seat of a passing SUV. 

Whether we blame Antifa, Black Lives Matter, or spontaneously enraged “peaceful protesters,” the mayhem being imposed on America’s cities now constitute a host of civil rights violations.

. . . .

In the name of civil rights, justice and peace, seven weeks of anarchy is enough.