printIMMIGRATION IS. When states stand up to the always-oppressive federal government, it’s a good thing. When issues loom large enough to bring about this necessary rift—necessary if freedom is to prevail—they deserve a closer look, if not, I would argue, our unreserved support. If gay marriage, yea or nay, prompted a state to secede; I’d be the first to cheer that state on.
Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has ruled that “state law enforcement officers are allowed to check the immigration status of anyone ‘stopped or arrested.” According to FoxNews, Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion on Friday “extending that authority to Virginia police in response to an inquiry over whether his state could mirror the policies passed into law in Arizona.”
“It is my opinion that Virginia law enforcement officers, including conservation officers may, like Arizona police officers, inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested,” he wrote.
Bring it on is what Cuccinelli is telling the federal government.
According to Lou Dobbs, interviewed by Megyn Kelly, “11 states are preparing to emulate Arizona. It is not what the Obama administration wanted; but it is exactly what the American people want,” he told the host of America’s News. Kelly says there are at least 18 states poised to follow Arizona on immigration and into a conflagration with the feds.
Now, you could challenge me as follows: “Mercer, you are not a proponent of majoritarianism. You’ve argued vigorously against democracy—even have a book due out that is a manifesto against raw democracy. Why are the people’s wishes okay in this instance?”
Because, as I’ve often said (most recently in this blog post), people have negative, leave-me-alone rights. Preventing a foreign invasion is perfectly within the purview of the “night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory,” in the words of the late philosopher, Robert Nozick.
Having delegated defense and policing to government, a people has a right to live free of the dangers that flow from being trespassed upon.
To the American Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson especially, secession was essential to the American scheme. Jefferson viewed extreme decentralization as the bulwark of the liberty and rights of man. Consequently, the United States was created as a pact between sovereign states with which the ultimate power lay. Sadly, it has progressed from a decentralized republic into a highly consolidated one.
The Constitution assigns the narrow function of naturalization to the feds. That small thing notwithstanding; I find it hard to fathom a founder arguing that the men and militia of a state should sit on their hands because a tier of tyrants (the feds) told them to (while their farms and nature reserves are trashed and their families endangered).
Neither should libertarians sit this thing out.
As the Late Congressman Sonny Bono said ( & as dingy as he could be, he corked off a good one in the 9o’s ), when he was asked why illegal aliens should be sent back to the Country where they belong:
What is it about being illegal in this country don’t you understand?
If you’re in this Country illegally you are committing a crime & you should be sent back to where you belong … nuff said.
The all powerful federal government has always been a problem. Over the years of my life time some people fume, fuss and complain and some don’t care. But we have reached the point of having an elite few in control rule our lives by dictating what we eat, what we drive, our relatinship with our doctors, who we are required to have as neighbors etc, etc, ad infinitum. The basis of it all is we are controlled, regulated and directed so the elite few can have their power and position. And, we have to pay for it with our funds. This brouhaha over illegal immigration has reached the point of adversely affecting our lives to the point that the mild and long-suffering public is starting to stand up. I don’t know about secession in this era but the vision of states defying the federal government is long overdue.
The powers that be in our government have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they care nothing about the opinions of the public. They have an agenda geared toward their wants and wishes and the rest of us can go take a leap. We have reached a point where the people need to stand tall against the liars and crooks that run the government.