Illinois’ Ninth Congressional District candidate Kat Abughazaleh, and social media influencer, is facing federal charges. Abughazaleh and her co-conspirators are charged with physically hindering and impeding a law enforcement officer. Their actions represent a textbook example of interfering with law enforcement operations. This is unlawful.
Yet progressives insist that Abughazaleh’s actions amount to “lawful protest.” I’d like to be able to say that I honestly don’t know what world these people inhabit, where the obvious becomes debatable or deniable, but, as readers of the platform now, I can’t say that, because I do know what world woke progressives inhabit—it’s right there in the name; it’s a neo-religious attitude that disorders reason. Do I believe Abughazaleh is deceiving her followers or is a true believer? I cannot know for sure. But that there are deceivers and true believers in this movement is undeniable.
It’s not as if we don’t have the receipts. Photos and videos plainly show the mob obstructing officers who were carrying out their lawful duties. That’s against the law. This is a country governed by the rule of law. If you break the law, there are consequences. It’s cause and effect.
Below is a video in which Abughazalah is claiming that the charges leveled against her constitute “an attack on all of our First Amendment rights.” This is followed by a response @LeftismForU, which documents the unlawful actions of Abughazalah and her co-conspirators.
Let’s recall the First Amendment to the US Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” I have highlighted the relevant portion.
In modern constitutional jurisprudence, two categories matter. First, there is genuinely peaceable protest—people who assemble without violence or coercive physical interference, whether or not a minor law is technically violated. Second, there is civil disobedience, which is by definition unlawful but still nonviolent and willing to accept legal consequences. Even under contemporary First Amendment doctrine, once you cross into intimidation, obstructing law enforcement, vandalism, or violence, you leave civil disobedience behind. That conduct is neither protected, nor peaceable, nor principled. However, when the First Amendment was written, eighteenth-century usage of peaceable implied conduct that was lawful, orderly, not riotous, not disruptive, and not obstructive. In other words, “peaceable” originally denoted conduct that does not disturb the peace, not merely “conduct that does not involve physical violence.”
Either way (and what you’re hearing here is a distinction made with no real difference—peaceable is not synonymous with nonviolence), assault, physically obstructing a police officer, property destruction, rioting, and vandalism do not count as elements of a peaceable assembly. A crowd that quietly blocks a police officer from performing official duties may be nonviolent, but it is not peaceable, because it interferes with lawful authority. So let’s not pretend that interference with law enforcement officers is some form of “lawful protest.” It isn’t. Calling it that is a deceptive misrepresentation—it convinces people to accept a false narrative to encourage them to engage in unlawful behavior.
Crucially, and this gets to the neoreligious piece, Abughazaleh and her defenders cannot declare unlawful behavior to be lawful simply because they think their cause is righteous (it isn’t—but that’s beside the point). Reality doesn’t rearrange itself to accommodate personal belief. A man may think himself invincible, but if he steps in front of an eighteen-wheeler barreling down the interstate at 65 mph, reality—not his illusion—wins. And he won’t live to admit his error. Progressives often behave like children in this way. They believe they can wish away realities they dislike. This is what animates their chanting and rituals: magical thinking. The real world eludes them because they want it to.
Karl Marx put it well in The German Ideology: “Once upon a time, a valiant fellow had the idea that men were drowned in water only because they were possessed with the idea of gravity. If they were to knock this notion out of their heads… they would be sublimely proof against any danger from water… This valiant fellow was the type of the new revolutionary philosophers in Germany.” That is today’s progressive—the new “revolutionary philosopher” who rebels not against power, but against reality itself. How they manage to call themselves leftists without shame is beyond me. They are reactionaries, at war with reason and truth.
Look, civil disobedience has its place. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement practiced it openly—and they accepted the consequences. King told his followers that they were breaking the law and that they would face penalties. That was the price of pursuing what they believed to be moral action. He understood the costs and accepted them—and he asked his followers to understand and accept those costs alongside him.
So my message to those engaging in this sort of behavior is this: have the courage of your convictions. If you choose to break the law, and if law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges uphold the rule of law, then you will face consequences. Wear them as badges of honor if you must. But don’t lie to the public about what constitutes lawful protest. I know you will, of course, since you want rebellion and insurrection. And, for that reason alone, you should not be allowed to stand for election in a free republic.
freedom and reason 