October 30, 2025
The Moral Fraud of Modern Violent Protests
Definitions and Moral Standards for Resistance & Protest
By: Jeff Pierson
The Moral Foundation for Protest, Civil Disobedience, and Resistance
Civil disobedience stands at the intersection of law and conscience. It is not supposed to be an act of anarchy, but an act of fidelity to truth, justice, and the moral law that gives civil authority its legitimacy. When government power strays from that foundation, obedience ceases to be virtue and becomes complicity. The purpose of civil disobedience is not to overthrow law, but to restore it to its rightful moral order.
In the framework of Ordered Liberty (The Ordered Liberty Framework, Jeff A. Pierson, 2025), disobedience is never a license for chaos or vengeance. It is the disciplined act of a self-governing people who understand that liberty without conscience collapses into rebellion, and obedience without justice decays into tyranny. The test of true citizenship is not blind compliance with authority, but moral courage in the face of injustice.
Civil disobedience therefore serves as a constitutional and moral appeal, not a political weapon. It is the conscience of a free society made visible, a declaration that the rule of law is sacred only when the law itself is just.
Civil Disobedience
Civil disobedience is the intentional and public refusal to comply with a specific law, regulation, or directive as a form of moral protest. It is practiced to highlight injustice, provoke reform, or appeal to a higher law, not to defy law wholesale but to restore its moral foundation.
To be considered legitimate under Ordered Liberty, civil disobedience must meet the following conditions:
- Nonviolent: It must not inflict harm, threaten others, or incite destruction. Acts of property destruction, obstruction of travel, or prevention of access to public or private facilities are considered forms of violence and fall outside the bounds of civil disobedience.
- Transparent: It must be carried out openly, without deception or disguise, and with the clear intent to appeal to conscience and justice. It does not manipulate, intimidate, or conceal intent.
- Defensive: It must respond to a specific and unjust imposition, not aim to subvert general law or impose ideological will on others.
- Submissive to Lawful Consequence: Practitioners must obey lawful orders to disperse and must not resist arrest, whether passively or aggressively. Acceptance of legal consequences is essential to the moral clarity of civil disobedience.
Civil disobedience is not an act of rebellion, but of disciplined defiance, where fidelity to truth takes precedence over blind compliance. It is most justifiable when all lawful redress has been denied and peaceful alternatives are exhausted. It is a last-resort act of conscience, not a first step of political confrontation.
Unjust Orders
Unjust orders are commands, directives, or mandates issued by lawful authority that violate higher moral law, natural rights, or constitutional limits. Though they may appear procedurally legal, they lack moral legitimacy because they compel actions that suppress liberty, violate conscience, or serve ideological ends at the expense of justice. An order is unjust when it:
- Requires the suppression of constitutionally protected speech, religion, property, or due process.
- Forces a citizen to act against moral conscience or religious conviction without lawful cause.
- Compels participation in unlawful enforcement, surveillance, or discrimination.
- Demands obedience to ideological policies in place of neutral, equal protection under the law.
- Violates the Constitution’s structural safeguards, such as the separation of powers or enumerated rights.
Obedience to unjust orders may appear lawful, but it is morally disordered. Ordered Liberty affirms that conscience, not coercion, must govern obedience. When law is weaponized to compel silence, participation in wrongdoing, or surrender of God-given rights — disobedience becomes not only permitted, it becomes duty.
Who Decides When an Order Is Unjust?
- The Individual Conscience (First Line of Discernment)
Every citizen is morally responsible for discerning whether an order violates truth, justice, or God-given rights. Conscience is not infallible, but it is the first test of moral clarity. If obedience would require a person to betray their moral or religious convictions, that order demands scrutiny. - Natural Law (Moral Standard)
If an order violates objective moral truths, such as compelling participation in evil, suppressing truth, or punishing the innocent, it is unjust, even if it is temporarily legal. As the Declaration affirms, “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” precede and inform civil authority. - The Constitution (Legal Standard)
An order that violates the plain meaning of the Constitution—its protections of speech, property, religion, due process, or equal protection—is unjust by legal definition. Constitutional fidelity is not a matter of interpretation by power, but a matter of restraint upon power. - The Public Conscience (Civic Accountability)
When individuals protest unjust orders openly and peacefully, they appeal to the judgment of the public. Through protest, litigation, and lawful defiance, they test the legitimacy of power in the court of public reason and history. - The Courts (Guardrails, Not Final Authority)
Courts may review and overturn unjust orders, but they can also err. Judicial rulings are not always morally correct, as seen in Dred Scott or Korematsu. When courts fail, the people retain the right and duty to resist tyranny through nonviolent means or, if all lawful redress is denied, through measured and principled resistance.
Summary Answer:
No one grants the authority to judge an order unjust. That responsibility begins with the individual and is tested against moral law, constitutional order, and the public record. It is not an excuse for anarchy, but a safeguard against obedience to evil. Ordered Liberty holds that obedience to law is sacred only when the law is just, and when it is not, the duty to disobey begins.
Violence
Under the doctrine of Ordered Liberty , violence is any act, physical or psychological, that imposes coercion, harm, or intimidation outside the bounds of lawful self-defense or just enforcement.
Violence includes, but is not limited to:
- Aggression: Physical intimidation, menacing behavior, or threats intended to instill fear, compel submission, or silence lawful expression.
- Destruction of Property: Deliberate damage, vandalism, or sabotage of public or private property.
- Forceful Obstruction: Blocking access to buildings, roads, or services through physical means or mass coercion.
- Assault: Any harmful or provocative physical contact, including throwing objects, spitting, or physical provocation.
Violence is never justified under the banner of protest when it targets innocent persons, public order, or the equal rights of others. In an ordered republic, protest must be lawful, persuasive, and disciplined, not coercive, destructive, or retaliatory.
Violent Defensive Resistance
Violent defensive resistance is the use of limited, targeted physical force by citizens in response to clear, imminent, and unlawful harm that cannot otherwise be redressed through lawful means. It is not rebellion, revenge, or ideological warfare; it is the final act of a self-governing people seeking to restore justice, not dismantle order.
To be justified under Ordered Liberty, violent defensive resistance must meet Five Core Standards
- Innocence: The resisting party must not have provoked or participated in unlawful harm.
- Imminence: The threat must be immediate and unavoidable by lawful or peaceful means.
- Proportionality: Force must be strictly limited to what is necessary, not vengeful or excessive.
- Avoidance: All lawful, peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted or denied.
- Reasonableness: The act must be judged by objective moral standards, not personal grievance.
Under Ordered Liberty, violent resistance is always a tragedy, not a tactic. It is the last resort of moral conscience. Its legitimacy ends the moment it becomes vengeful, excessive, or directed at innocent parties.
Historical Examples and Application of Defensive Resistance
Concord, 1775
The opening battle of the American Revolution was a defensive response to a long train of abuses and usurpations by the British Crown. It was not an impulsive uprising but the result of years of disciplined protest, petitions for redress, and self-restraint by the American colonists.
When British forces moved to disarm the colonial militia at Concord, the response was limited, localized, and defensive in character. The moral justification for violent resistance was rooted in:
- Innocence: The colonists did not initiate force.
- Imminence: A real, immediate threat to liberty and property.
- Proportionality: The force used was measured and directed only at aggressors.
- Avoidance: All peaceful petitions to Parliament have failed.
- Reasonableness: The action aligned with the natural right of self-preservation.
Concord represents the outer boundary of justified defensive resistance. It remains a historical example of violence that upheld liberty rather than undermined it.
Japanese American Internment, 1942
The forced relocation and internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II represents a grave violation of constitutional rights, particularly due process, equal protection, and property rights. Though justified, by the United States government, at the time under national emergency powers, the Supreme Court’s 1944 ruling in Korematsu v. United States upholding the policy has since been formally repudiated as a failure of justice. In hindsight, the internment was not only unconstitutional but morally indefensible; driven more by racial prejudice and political hysteria than by military necessity.
Under the principles of Ordered Liberty and the Concord Principle of Resistance (Jeff A Pierson 2025), violent defensive force may have been morally justifiable in this context, particularly if individuals had resisted imminent detention or the forcible seizure of property. Innocence, Imminence, and Proportionality were arguably met; the threat was real, state-driven, and rooted in collective punishment rather than individual guilt. However, the standards of Avoidance and Reasonableness carry special weight here. Violent resistance, while defensible in theory, would have almost certainly resulted in mass tragedy, fueling anti-Japanese sentiment and legitimizing further state retaliation. That it was not used reflects the extraordinary restraint of the Japanese American community under extreme injustice.
In moral retrospect, their nonviolent endurance became one of the strongest long-term indictments of the government’s abuse of power. The lesson is not that violence was wrong in principle, but that its absence, in this case, preserved a moral high ground that ultimately led to national reckoning, apology, and legal reform.
Conclusion of Application
Both episodes demonstrate that violent defensive resistance is only justified in the narrowest and most extreme cases when all lawful means have failed, when the threat is direct and unlawful, and when the response is restrained, principled, and transparent.
Most modern acts of protest fail this test, particularly when:
- Conducted on behalf of those who are not innocent under the law.
- Directed against lawful institutions executing duly enacted authority.
- Motivated by ideology, not conscience.
- Aimed at subversion, not redress.
Final Statement: The Moral Continuum of Resistance
The moral foundation of protest, civil disobedience, and resistance lies in the inseparable bond between liberty and law. Ordered Liberty requires that every act of defiance, from the spoken protest to the final line of defense, remain governed by conscience, disciplined by justice, and measured by restraint. When citizens act within these bounds, they do not oppose authority; they restore its rightful order. When government honors these same bounds, it preserves its moral legitimacy.
A free people must therefore remember that the power to resist is not the power to destroy. It is the power to recall the nation to its first principles. The highest form of resistance is not violence, but virtue. The greatest act of protest is not rebellion, but remembrance of the laws of nature and of nature’s God. Ordered Liberty endures only where both rulers and the ruled are governed by truth, conscience, and the courage to do what is right, even when obedience is easier.
