You Should Read This: We Should Talk About The Morality of Political Violence

Ken White at PopeHat has a timely and relevant request:

He thinks it’s time to discuss the moral dimension of political violence.

He’s not wrong.

Whenever the State ventures outside its assigned powers or uses violence against its residents, then it’s time for the citizens to contemplate the morality of political violence.

So, here in the U.S. this has been relevant for at least six months and really for at least a year.

So he is just a tad bit late to the party, yes, but not wrong.

Importantly, and predictably given that White is a lawyer with a sizable history in Constitutional free speech issues, he starts with this statement:

Advocating the moral propriety or even moral necessity of a resort to force and violence is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290, 298 (1961).

It’s important to remind ourselves, and the State, that this is a well-established fact.

You know, for whatever that’s worth these days.

Yeah, he’s not wrong there either.

This is an issue that each citizen will need to decide for themselves, because in general any form of political violence will be illegal.

Very much including the violence being used by the current regime in its twin quests to rid the country of both brown people and blue voters.

“They started it” is not in itself a good reason, but it is an important consideration.

Especially when it’s clearly “they started it and there’s no reason to think they’ll stop unless we force them to”.

Which is certainly the situation now, as it has been for several months.

The situation is made worse, of course, by the fact that the Constitution makes no allowance for any state no longer wishing to be a member of the “united” states.

There is, as I pointed out almost a year ago, no escape clause.