Judging by the way the muck-media treat Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, you’d think he was breaking the law, or something. Arpaio uses “minor misdemeanors to catch dope dealers, seize drugs, DUIs,” then inquires about the perp’s immigration status and enforces immigration laws on the streets.
HORRORS!
In response to these so-called controversial “crime sweeps,” the 77-year-old sheriff hero must contend with outsiders—“activists” who rush to the scene (you didn’t think they had jobs!) to snap him in action, as he goes about protecting the people of his country, who, incidentally, continue to re-elect him.
Yes, the Moron Media remain mum about that pesky thing called democracy. When practiced on a local level, democracy is at its purest and fairest. Correction: that is the only form democracy should take. “Democracy must be confined to a ‘small spot’ (like Athens).”
In any event, Kris W. Kobach, one of the most brilliant constitutional immigration legal minds allowed occasionally on the fool’s lantern, confirms that “state police, exercising state law authority only, [can] make arrests for violations of federal law.”
In follows from “states’ status as sovereign entities,” that “[t]hey are sovereign governments possessing all residual powers not abridged or superseded by the U.S. Constitution. The source of the state governments’ power is entirely independent of the U.S. Constitution.”
the enumerated powers doctrine that constrains the powers of the federal government does not so constrain the powers of the states. Rather, the states possess what are known as “police powers,” which need not be specifically enumerated. Police powers are “an exercise of the sovereign right of the government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort, and general welfare of the people
Wait a sec, didn’t I say something similar in “Aliens In Their Hometown”?
Take this to the bank: Arpaio is a patriot. And read Prof. Kobach’s entire analysis.
Update I: To the libertines who cannot abide the idea of a drug dealer on the corner of the street of a poor neighborhood (like Nancy Pelsoi, libertines live away from the madding crowds) being stopped for any reason: try picturing a Venn Diagram, if you’re vaguely inclined to reason. The overlap between dealers, drunk drivers (scroll down for sacrificial lambs), and other evil-doers and illegality is quite fantastic.
By selecting for these life-style choices I’ll call them—I don’t wish to offend libertines—Arpaio seems to stop the right people each and every time. Want proof that the old, common-sensical bugger has nailed it? Arpaio stands accused of rational profiling, a badge of honor; when in fact, all he has done is select (apparently representatively) for assorted petty, and non-petty, crime.
Update II: Another reminder to the pansy libertines who galvanize the argument from Hitler when their panties get in a knot: In a free society, rooted in private property rights, land owners along the border would have likely formed militias to repel trespassers from their land or neighborhoods. The local patrol, whether under private property, or in the founder’s republic of blessed memory, would work very much as Arpaio works it—and certainly not as the typical effete of the libertarian left posits.
In a free society based on absolute private-property rights, the natural tendency of men—a tendency that is most conducive to peace—is to live among their own, but to trade with any and all. In such a society, commercial property owners will tend to be far more inclusive than residential property owners. As libertarian theorist Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe notes, owners of retail establishments, like hotels and restaurants, “have every economic incentive not to discriminate unfairly against strangers because this would lead to reduced profits or losses.” Still, they will have to consider the impact of culturally exotic behavior on “local domestic sales,” and will impose codes of conduct on guests.
Seeking low-wage employees, employers would also be partial to foreigners but, absent the protectionist state, the employer would be accountable to the community, and would be wary of the strife and lowered productivity caused by a multiethnic and multi-linguistic workforce. All the more so when a foreign workforce moves into residential areas.
In short, reasons Hoppe, in a natural order—absent government—there will be plenty of “interregional trade and travel,” but little mingling in residential areas. Just as people tend to marry along cultural and racial lines, so they maintain rather homogeneous residential neighborhoods. This is how the chips fall in a highly regulated society, so much more so in a free society, based on absolute property rights. Is this contemptible? To the left-libertarian open-border purist it is—else why would he be lending ideological support to the state’s efforts to upset any semblance of a natural order and to shape society in politically pleasing ways?
[From “LOVE-IN AT THE BORDERS”]
Update III (Jan. 5): The Constitution delegated to localities a lot of discretion in determining the way they want to live. The 14th tampered with that discretion. Still, like it or not, law enforcement is a local function and the only legitimate duty of government.
I note that our esteemed reader Myron has opted for the liberal, high-pitched strategy: accuse a man who resides in the community he protects of things he has not done or aspired to do, in the hope that something sticks; and so that the lodestar of leftism is obeyed: complete license all the time. “Oh, my G-d! Someone has stopped someone else from doing exactly what he likes on street corners, even though no one was hurt!”
It’s early for me to be fully compos mentis, but an analogy for MP’s rant about Arpaio’s alleged trespasses is to lump every mild mannered man who ever spoke unkindly to his wife with OJ Simpson, on a continuum of wife abuse. The bailiwick of lefty feminists. Moreover—and conveniently—in the process of trying to get something to stick, drug dealing was omitted in favor of accusing Arpaio of going after lone tokers.
Still, I always appreciate heated opposition to what I put forward.
Update IV: WHERE WERE HIS ROCKS? How dare this border patrolman defend himself! I’m appalled. Israelis are expected to retaliate with rocks when they’re assaulted with same, why was this U.S. Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona unprepared to rock it?
To the good news: “the agent and his dog encountered [and illegal alien] in the area of ‘D’ Hill just outside of Douglas. The man assaulted the agent with rocks and the agent shot back.”
This reminds me of the iconic scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Challenged to a duel by a scimitar-wielding enemy, Indiana Jones draws a pistol and dispatches the swordsman without further ado.
Spot on! Well said, Ma’am.
The reason Sheriff Joe ruffles so many feathers is because he is a man doing a man’s job in man-like fashion. If the liberal types who attack him would trim the lace off their panties maybe they would see the light.
Right on Sheriff Joe.
Arpaio is a hero in my book! A reminder: Giuliani as Mayor of New York followed the same philosophy to reduce crime in NY by 60+!!! Remember his predecessor, the moronic Mayor Dinkins – someone who knew how to put on expensive suits but had no brain. I had hoped we learned a lesson there – but lessons must be re-learned by each generation, sometimes at a heavy price.
One of the negatives of technology is that it gives each generation less time to learn the lessons of the past while providing enemies more powerful tool with which to destroy us. Not promising.
But Sherrif Arpaio and his supporters fully understand. He is an inspiration!
annon above was me being spastic – sending the message before filling in the blanks 🙂
Joe Arpaio: Tyrant and Gestapo
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2007/03/scum-also-rises.html
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/search?q=joe+arpaio
Sheriff Joe is called “America’s Toughest Sheriff.”
http://americanpatrol.com/09-FEATURES/091231-FEATURE/091231_Feature.html
The state certainly has the judicial power to round up tax violators, prostitutes, drug users, stop sign “runners”, seat-belt violators, jaywalkers, drunks, defective headlights, too little air in tires, expired gun licenses, and others who may have violated one of 83,290,315 state statutes. They can then check for illegal aliens. Great.
It might be that the CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE. Anyone who mouths off at some power hungry cop can be cited for “resisting arrest”. Does anyone want to live in a state that is a TSA-goon airport writ large because of the benefit of ridding the state of a 3,000 criminal drifters and 50,000 gardener/painters. If the local authorities go after real criminal violators of NATURAL RIGHTS (rapists, murderers, burglars) and deports THOSE people – they have my full support. If the local authorities abuse “laws” such as gun registration or smoking on ones balcony and similar trivialities in the name of rounding up a few illegals, then I am an opponent. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely – so we must be ever vigilant.
The best thing to do is to CUT OFF THE WELFARE SPIGOT and enforce the laws based on natural (negative) rights.
Hmmm-don’t know what to make of Ms. Mercer. According to View From the Right, she doesn’t defend Western civilization vigorously enough. Then she ticks off the left-libertarians by recognizing that this isn’t a perfect world and that non-state threats to peace and safety must be dealt with.
Sounds like clear thinking to me.
In 2010 I resolve to read my copy of Broad Sides
I am NOT expert enough on Arpaio to know whether he is a “tough but honest” sheriff or a corrupt Hank Quinlan (see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052311/ ) – the “border sheriff” in the movie Touch of Evil who correctly suspected a Mexican criminal but whose own flaws come out during the movie. Obviously, Raymond & William Grigg view Arpaio as some “Tyrant and Gestapo” – and I shall plead specific ignorance.
I completely AGREE with Ilana on the need for local sovereignty vs. 14th Amendment abuse. Nevertheless, each state has to BALANCE:
1. The threat that “benign” illegals constitute in terms of cultural corruption, negation of rule of law, and welfare statism
2. The threat that “violent” illegals constitute to public safety
3. The threat of unbridled police power.
It is rather easy for police to “target” someone, citizen or illegal, if they so desire and a sheepish prosecutorial network and jury pool will go along. Martha Stewart is a famous example on the federal level – and Nixon wanted to target his “enemies”. Anyway, I appreciate my being able to sound my pessimism on your forum.
The question is – who will police the police?
To those who think that it can’t be done without a hugely intrusive, bloated federal apparatus, I offer this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback
If you went to every town in the Sonoran Desert (where I was born) asking for militia volunteers to help seal the border, you’d quickly realize that state or federal help would not only be undesirable, but unnecessary.
The question is – who will police the police?
The armed citizenry. You remember them, Mr. Pauli; the xenophobic, Post Office-shooting rednecks that you enjoy heaping scorn on.
Isn’t he the chap who wanted to erect a cordon and carry out stop-and-search of random drivers?