vigilantism – Martin Simpson

In the last column I discussed the opening scene of The Godfather, and how leftist protesters wrongly see themselves as the good kind of vigilantes when they are quite the opposite. But I left two groups out of that category. Because it’s not just the protesters, but elected politicians and many judges who are also acting as vigilantes, IMO.

Which seems counter-intuitive, to say the least. How can elected leaders – Mayor Small Frey and Governor Jazz Hands – become vigilantes who rebel against the government when they run the government? And how can judges – Boasberg and the hundreds of Boasberg clones throughout the nationwide district and (sometimes) appellate courts – be circumventing the laws when they are in charge of upholding the laws?

The answer is simple: the politicians and judges are local officials who are opposed to the federal laws of the land – embodied in our Constitution, our immigration laws, and the sections of the U.S. Code that deal with interfering with federal officers in the performance of their duties, etc.

So yes, elected officials and local judges can be insurrectionist vigilantes in 2026, just as their Democrat forebearers were in the Southern slave states in 1861.

Having said that, I’d like to turn to the potential for right-wing vigilantism, if the current administration isn’t able to stop the lawless anti-ICE protests occurring in various blue states and sanctuary cites around the country. I hope it doesn’t come to that, because vigilantism is always fraught with dangers for a society.

But as I discussed in the last column, it can also sometimes be a proper course of action.

Let’s briefly revisit the Godfather. The mortician comes to Vito as a patriotic American citizen. “I believe in America,” he says, in the words that open the movie. “America’s made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion.”

He is, in other words, the kind of legal immigrant we would like to see. He appreciates the country and the blessings it’s given him, and he has assimilated. When his daughter is attacked, he goes through the proper, legal channels (the cops and the courts).

But it’s significant that his name is “Amerigo Bonasera,” meaning “America, good night.” Because the American government betrayed him in his hour of need. So now, the proper (though morally problematic) course of action is to go to the Godfather for the justice that the justice system did not provide.

Vito knows that, even though his initial words demonstrate why mob justice (in this case, literally “mob” as in Mafia) was his preferred first choice: “Why did you go to the police?” he asks. “Why didn’t you come to me first?”

The answer is clear for all of us conservative, law-and-order types: Because we SHOULD go to the police. They’re supposed to protect us from criminals and give us justice. And in a society in which the justice system is functioning properly, all vigilante action would be disordered and wrong.

But when the government has failed (or even intentionally abandoned) its core function of protecting citizens from criminals – I’m looking at you, Democrat party! – many people see vigilante justice as a viable option. During the dark days of the Biden maladministration, as we watched millions of foreigners lawlessly pouring over our border, day after day for years, many of us on the right and center felt a kind of growing desperation and despair.

A few states took small steps toward taking the law into their own hands, Texas being one example. When Governor Abbott pleaded with the feds to enforce the border in his state, he proposed that Texans secure their own border, if the feds wouldn’t. When Biden forbid Texans from protecting themselves – immorally forcing Texan citizens to suffer the ongoing harm from the flood of illegals – Abbott appealed that to higher courts, while in the meantime defiantly maintaining his own barriers at the border.

Fortunately, there is a sane but narrow majority on SCOTUS that allowed Texas to reinforce their border, even if only on a watered-down technicality, i.e. the barriers that Biden started destroying were on municipal or private land, not federal land.

But that was a terrifyingly close-run thing. If Hillary had been able to appoint a couple of SCOTUS judges, or if Trump hadn’t won in 2024, who knows how badly things would be going right now?

This is why I think conservatives are being ever more tempted to explore dramatic alternatives to resist the cascade of illegitimate power grabs by national Democrats, which are still going on. The left has relentlessly attacked the integrity of our democratic republic in multiple and critical ways.

• They’ve illegally declared sanctuary territories, in blatant contravention of the Supremacy Clause and other parts of our Constitution.

• They’ve admitted tens of millions of illegals and tried to give them the vote, and thus an insurmountable lock on all future national elections.

• They’ve resisted all attempts to ensure the integrity of our elections (through no ID requirements, unrestricted mail-in voting, vote harvesting, unvetted vote counting, etc.)

• They’ve pursued widespread judicial insurrection, via partisan local judges who transparently rule based on their political priors instead of our laws.

• They’ve allowed massive fraud networks in their states, which steal from all American citizens, since the lion’s share of the stolen funds come from the federal taxes we all pay.

For these reasons and more, we cannot allow the feds to back down, and allow insurrectionist mobs in Minnesota – or Portland, or LA, or anywhere else – to drive them out and get away with it. That’s what happened when the Democrats started the Civil War. Just like Small Frey saying, “ICE, get the f**k out of Minneapolis,” they said, “Federals, get the f**k out of the South.”

That time, a Republican president marshalled some forces and went down and militarily disabused them of their insurrectionist notions. After some false steps with some 19th century versions of RINOS – I’m looking at you, McClellan! – he got himself a future GOP president in the form of bad-ass Grant, and achieved some good old fashioned “peace through strength” by 1865.

But the Dems didn’t completely get the message. They formed the KKK, and they passed Jim Crow laws, and after some more decades of their insurrectionist schemes, more Dem governors (the Tampon Tims of their day, except without the effeminate Jazz Hands demeanor) once again defied the feds. They stood in the doorway of schools and harassed worshippers at churches, until another GOP president sent the National Guard to kick their arses and restore the law and the constitution.

Now we’re in the same position, and we’ve got to make the dishonest hypocritical Dems eat their own words. For years they’ve demanded that “nobody is above the law” and “insurrection must be punished.” We agree. And now they need to find themselves on the pointy end of those particular sticks.

Otherwise, the eternal call of vigilante justice, as embodied in the Godfather, might one day be listened to by American citizens who are not going to tolerate mobs of violent criminals – foreign AND domestic – taking over their cities with impunity.

Because we don’t want to see Amerigo go silently into that Bonasera.

Hamas (and Trantifa) delenda est!

0-0-0

If you enjoyed this column, please share it, and click Subscribe (on the bottom of your phone screen, or the right side of your computer screen) to receive a notice when new columns post.

Last week I was pleasantly surprised by how many readers were interested enough to follow my 3-column series on the illegalities of the anti-ICE protesters’ tactics. Those pieces were the most widely shared of any of my past columns, so thanks for that.

This week I’ve got another 3-part series, this one discussing the role played by vigilantism in these protests – today on the left, but in the future, potentially, on the right. This idea came to me when I was thinking about the Godfather – which as a straight man over the age of 40, I naturally do at least once a week.

I’m going to assume that all of you have seen the Godfather.

If you haven’t, hang your head in shame, and then immediately remedy that by watching at least the first 10 minutes before you read this column.

Sidebar: “Diversity is our strength” is one of the most wrong-headed ideas in modern life. Cultural unity is our strength, and there is a core list of cultural high points with which all Americans should be familiar, among them the Declaration and Constitution; the King James Bible; the heroism of our military and its history; the music of Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, John Prine and Tom Waits; American football, etc. The Godfather I and II are on that list. On this point I will tolerate no disagreement!

Okay, so the movie opens on Vito Corleone’s daughter’s wedding day, and there is a tradition that people can ask for favors from the Godfather on that day. A nervous Italian undertaker tells Vito how his daughter was assaulted by some American boys, and the courts gave them a slap on the wrist – three years in jail, but with a suspended sentence. “They went free that very day!” the mournful father says. So he says that he has come to the Godfather for justice, and he asks him to have the criminals killed.

Vito says, “Why did you go to the police? Why didn’t you come to me first? Let’s be honest. You never wanted my friendship, and you were afraid to be in my debt.”

The undertaker says, “I didn’t want to get into trouble.”

Vito says, “I understand. You found paradise in America, had a good trade, made a good living. The police protected you, and there were courts of law.” But now, after the justice system failed him, the Godfather offers him a solution grounded in ethnic solidarity and an authentic – though extra-legal – justice. “If you had come to me in friendship, the scum who ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies, they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you.”

I taught this scene in a course I designed called “Analyzing Propaganda.” I used it to introduce the idea of competing political narratives out of which grows most propaganda, and I prefaced the class discussion with the definition of a typically contentious political term, “vigilante.”

We use the term “vigilante” to mean someone who takes the law into his own hands, usually when he thinks a government’s legal system has failed to deliver justice. The Godfather broadens that idea from a person or small group of people to a network of close relationships grounded in a shared ethnicity or tribal identity.

We usually think of “vigilante” in negative terms, as a stand-in for mob “justice.” But the word comes from the same root as “vigilant,” and vigilantism can take two forms, only one of which is negative. The evil form of vigilantism is when the people are wrongly defying or resisting a legitimate government. The first example that comes to mind is Democrat lynch mobs in the south, killing blacks out of racial animus, regardless of whether they had committed a crime or not.

But when a government or legal system has become corrupt, abusive or lawless, people who want real justice are morally justified in taking action against it, including (in some cases) vigilantism and violence. Examples would be any of the uprisings against communist and other dictatorships, or partisan raids and sabotage against a conquering force.

Even our own revolution could be seen as partaking in vigilantism – e.g. the Boston Tea Party, or various occasions when Scots-Irish proto-Simpsons retreated into the woods with their Kentucky long rifles and started picking off Redcoats – though our brilliant Founders soon transformed and codified a chaotic uprising into a new legal framework, and the best damn country in the whole freaking world. (USA! USA!)

So what does this have to do with the anti-ICE protests/riots in Minnesota and elsewhere?

The leftists clearly believe that they are the good kind of vigilantes, heroically standing up for real justice against a corrupt and evil government. Hence all the references to “Nazis” and “Gestapo” and “fascists.” The protesters see themselves as similar to the partisans who conducted resistance and sabotage missions against the Nazis in occupied Europe.

They also consider themselves the moral equivalent of the civil rights protesters of the 1960s, which gives them that extra intoxicating frisson of irresistible self-righteousness. They’re not just heroes fighting for justice. They’re super-heroes fighting for racial justice! Hence all the talk of the black and brown people being persecuted for their skin color, rather than being legally detained and deported for their criminal acts.

Unfortunately for them, and as with all leftist racial melodramas, the truth stubbornly contradicts their preferred narrative. (Not to mention their entire political worldview.) Their two currently prominent martyrs are Robin Good and Alex Pretti, both of whom were – so inconveniently! – white. I mean, not as white as Grandma Squanto Warren. Because who is? (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

But still: very white.

Even worse, the fascist agents of the ominously Nordic Gestapo (i.e. the Border Patrol and ICE) are disproportionately…I’m not making this up… wait for it… Hispanic! (Cue the sad trombone.)

When I heard that reported, I looked it up. (As opposed to just making things up, like a MSM “journalist.”) I found that at least 24% of ICE agents (the highest numbers I saw were 30% and “approximately 1/3”) are Hispanic, and more than 50% of Border Patrol agents are also Hispanic! Since 20% of Americans are Hispanics, these numbers are both disproportionately high.

It was fun to discover that, because when I confirmed those numbers on several left-leaning, anti-immigration-enforcement websites, their authors scrambled to find any explanations that would confirm their political priors. One typical flop-sweating leftist admitted that Latinos make up more than half of Border Patrol, but quickly insisted that “it’s not self-hatred that drives them to work for agencies that often target their communities.”

Um, what community is that, buddy? The “American citizens of Hispanic descent” community, which the Border Patrol agents belong to? Because spoiler alert, that’s NOT who Border Patrol targets. In fact, they don’t “target” anyone, you bad-faith-arguing dope.

They focus on finding, detaining and deporting people who have broken our immigration laws, be they white, black, Asian, Middle-Eastern, Patagonian, Middle-Earthian, Wakandan, or (yes), Hispanic.

But leave it to Notre Dame political science professor (shame on you, Notre Dame!) David Cortez to put it best. If by “best” you mean, “most dishonestly,” or “most propagandistically.” Or just “worst.”

Because: political science professor.

Saith the miserable, credentialed hack: “How do Latinos do this to their own people? Is it self-hatred? A denial of their ethnic identity? Or… [to strengthen] their own claim to belonging in America – even to whiteness?”

Ugh.

Hey Davy, I’ve got one more possible reason why Hispanics might join law enforcement that’s beyond your ability to imagine: Because they are law-abiding Americans who don’t like watching people of any ethnicity breaking our laws and then falsely crying ‘racism’ when they are caught and are held accountable for their own criminal behavior?

But nope. Davy knows the truth: “For Latino agents, it’s primarily about the money.”

Like all damnable lies, this has one tiny bit of truth in it. Because of course, everybody who works does so partly for money. For example, even political science professors who know better will still shamelessly prostitute themselves (via dishonest “research”) to their political co-religionists in return for cash and a generous benefits package.

Right, Professor Dave?

But Cortez’s creepy conclusion is even creepier if he actually believes the racist politics he espouses. He claims that Hispanic LEOs have chosen their profession for a reason that he thinks exonerates them for their otherwise unacceptable (to him) choices, i.e. they do it for the money that will allow them to support themselves and their families.

But his claim actually damns them even more. If true, it would make them cowardly, treacherous collaborators, betraying their brethren in the service of a corrupt and evil Vichy puppet state for cash. That would make them even more despicable political wh*res than David Cortez himself!

So while the leftist protesters have been envisioning themselves as the moral kind of vigilantes, fighting for a good cause against a bad government, they are actually the bad guys in this scenario.

You’d think that they’d have realized that when they found themselves aligned with Somali fraudsters, tattooed antifa thugs calling for murder in the streets, and arrogant creeps who burst into church services to scream at the meek (as in, “blessed are the…”) and terrify children. Or when they discovered that they’ve been defending people who turn out to be gang bangers, human smugglers, and woman-beaters. (Or in the case of “Maryland dad” Kilmar Garcia, all three!)

But contemplative self-reflection has never been their strong suit, has it?

Tomorrow: the potential for future vigilantism on the right, if the left stays on their current, radical path.

Hamas (and Trantifa) delenda est!

0-0-0

If you enjoyed this column, please share it, and click Subscribe (on the bottom of your phone screen, or the right side of your computer screen) to receive a notice when new columns post.