The plans of the Occupy Iowa sect of the Occupy Wall Street thugs to silence political speech and inhibit the ability of candidates, campaign staff, volunteers, and ordinary citizens to fully and freely participate in the Iowa Caucuses may necessitate exactly that. After all, the Occupy Iowa group has indicated they want to block and/or occupy campaign offices of candidates (and, implicitly, caucus sites) -- indicating the first move by the Occupy Wall Street anarchists to disrupt free elections in this country.

The Occupy movement has a new goal — shut down the Iowa caucuses.

The state’s protesters are inviting fellow Occupiers from across the country to “occupy” the campaign offices of the Republican presidential candidates and President Barack Obama in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus state, The Des Moines Register reports.

“You go inside, or if they won’t let you in, you shut ’em down. You sit in front of their doors,” Frank Cordaro of Des Moines, the man credited for the idea of the “First in the Nation Caucus Occupation,” told the Register. “Who knows? It could be a very big deal.”

The plan, Cordaro told CNN, is “people coming to Iowa, occupying every presidential [candidate’s] office, shutting them down until they start talking real turkey about what’s going on in this country, where the 99 percent of the people who are not benefiting, at the expense of the 1 percent who are getting away with murder.”

The plan was voted on and approved by the Occupy Iowa’s general assembly Monday night, according to the Register.

What we have here is the announcement of a criminal conspiracy to violate the civil rights of all involved in the Iowa Caucuses. Can we allow a group of malcontents to interfere with the nomination and election process that is central to our system of government? No, we cannot. We must act as patriots, defending the right of those participants -- Democrat and Republican -- to engage in this essential act of democracy that is so important to the health of our republic.

Fortunately, the Founders provided Americans with a guarantee that they would always have the means to resist such efforts. Perhaps Iowa will be the place where the occupiers will be reminded their right to speak and protest does not extend to suppressing the rights of their opponents or interfering with their liberties. And as a warning, I suggest we remind them of the following.