What keeps getting lost in this argument is agency.

The people who confront ICE are not confused about what they are doing. They know these agents carry weapons. They know confrontations can turn lethal. They know they are stepping into a space where the state has a monopoly on force. And yet they show up anyway.

That matters.

You can believe their cause is destructive. You can think their worldview is warped. You can even think their actions are reckless, dangerous, or morally wrong. But it is intellectually dishonest to pretend they are merely misinformed or accidental participants in a system they don’t understand.

They are making a conscious wager with death.

That doesn’t make them wise. It doesn’t make them virtuous. It doesn’t mean they are right. It means they are not cowards.

There is a difference between bravery and goodness. There is a difference between courage and correctness. History is full of people who were willing to die for ideas that were terrible. The willingness to face lethal risk is still a form of courage, even when the cause itself is misguided or destructive.

You can reject what they stand for while still acknowledging what they are doing: deliberately stepping into danger, fully aware of the consequences.

That combination of clarity and risk is rare. And it’s why this moment feels volatile. People who believe they are already dead behave very differently than people who think they are safe.

That is what you are actually seeing.