Don Lemon was taken into federal custody on Friday after he and eight co-defendants “were all indicted on one count each of conspiracy against religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating and interfering with the exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship.”

Ironically, the Republican administration is prosecuting Lemon for violating a law intended to protect abortion clinics, but which also protects places of religious worship. Lemon claims he had a First Amendment right as a member of the press to “cover” the protest inside the church. The right counters that it was Lemon who was violating the First Amendment by infringing the right of the pastor and congregation to practice their religion. 

As is usually the case, the left, the right, the government, and the media are all wrong about this case. It has nothing to do with religion or journalism, or any supposed “First Amendment right” to either. This was a property crime, pure and simple, as are all legitimate crimes.

All legitimate rights are property rights, as John Locke said explicitly and Thomas Jefferson unnecessarily complicated in his famous preamble to the Declaration. Jefferson was clear that the purpose of government was to “secure these rights.” But he referred to myriad unenumerated rights which merely included “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This opened the door to all sorts of misinterpretation, including the farcical notions that healthcare or education could be among those rights.

We would all be better off if he simply quoted the man he was paraphrasing when talking about the purpose of government, which Locke said was “the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property.” Locke rooted his concept of property in self-ownership, which he deemed self-evident.

In other words, you have a right to what you own and nothing more. 

Don Lemon violated the property rights of the owners of the Church. They asked him to leave and he didn’t. That is a crime for which he should be punished. But virtually no American thinks in those terms anymore and thus their governments don’t remotely operate on this principle.

This is why Minnesota has not charged Don Lemon or the rioters he “covered” with trespassing or other crimes, just as they largely did not prosecute the rioters who destroyed billions in private property during the Marxist George Floyd riots. They don’t believe the “great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.” Quite the opposite, apparently. Thus, there is no compelling reason for the government of Minnesota to exist at all. 

Both sides are completely wrong constitutionally as well.
 

Read the rest on Tom's Substack...

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? 

 Tom