Activists who have tried to use politicized financial regulation to undermine the Second Amendment, to take one example, never seem to think about how the same tactics could be used against the First Amendment: The New York Times may enjoy the protection of the Bill of Rights, but without access to banking and commerce, that constitutional right cannot be effectively acted upon, and, hence, may as well not exist as a practical matter. Try running a newspaper or a political party with no bank account.

I myself do not particularly sympathize with the aims or the tactics of the protesters in Canada. I don’t care much for unruly mobs of any persuasion. But even so, it is impossible not to see the plain fact that these protesters are being targeted not for their practical effect or their tactics but for their beliefs and for the sort of people they are, that an obvious double standard is at play, and that this is deeply illiberal. A politically neutral police effort to open the roads and protect the rights of property and travel would be one thing, but this is the opposite: far from politically neutral, and intended to narrow social life and political discourse rather than to keep them open. When the laws are enforced exclusively (or with extra vigor) against political enemies, that is not law enforcement — that is political repression.