Unintended consequences - Arizona lawsuit

From The Washington Times:

Obama lawsuit invites fortified state militia
Arizona has enacted a law that enables state and local police to support federal immigration enforcement, in a carefully circumscribed manner. This moderate statute is under vicious attack by the Obama administration and assorted amnesty advocates. Yet Arizona and her sister states in the Southwest could take dramatically stronger actions to bring order to the border. And they would have both history and the Constitution on their side.

History first. In 1916, criminal gangs rivaled the authority of the Mexican government. Led by Pancho Villa, they launched attacks against Americans on both sides of the border. Following a bloody raid that killed American soldiers and civilians in New Mexico, President Woodrow Wilson dispatched 15,000 state militia to the border and sent Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing and thousands more soldiers into Mexico after Villa and his bandits. Once Pershing's force clashed with the Mexican army, Wilson ordered another 75,000 National Guardsmen to the border region. Supported by an enraged American citizenry, Wilson reacted swiftly and with substantial force to secure our southern border and drive out what was, in effect, a marauding army of Mexican invaders.

Today, armed drug cartels openly challenge the Mexican government. Deadly battles occur frequently in Mexico, where more than 6,500 people were killed by cartel forces last year and more than 5,000 have been killed so far this year. Paramilitary bands have entered the United States illegally and set up sentry and command posts. Federal authorities have actually ceded control of public land in Arizona to these invaders. Cartels claim openly that Mexico's border with the United States has been moved northward to Interstate 8. Federal officials have even advised the public to avoid the Sonoran Desert National Monument, which is not on the border; it's 35 miles southwest of Phoenix.

This is interesting. President Wilson would have felt right at home in the Obama White House as he was very much a proponent of 'Progressive' large government and entitlement spending --but-- let some Mexicans get a little aggressive and he opens a can of whoop-ass on them. Liberal politician with a good pair of military and protectionist stones. We need more people like him if we are going to be stuck with a Progressive government. And Pershing was the perfect choice -- the story of what he did with the 'moslem threat' in the Philippines is wonderful -- shut them down for 100 years. A bit more:

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu reports that attacks on police and American citizens have increased in the past several months, saying, "It is literally out of control." Mitch Ellis, federal manager of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona, warns that the area is "increasingly violent" because of "smugglers and border bandits." The police chief of Nogales, Ariz., has received threats that cartels may use snipers positioned just across the border to target law enforcement personnel in the U.S.

Of course, this is not just about trafficking in drugs and illegals. According to reports, "hundreds of Somalis" with ties to "terror cells" have infiltrated the United States from Mexico. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and kindred groups are all reported to be actively moving their members across the border. Trust me, these folks are not entering the United States illegally in order to get work in your neighbor's backyard.

And the unintended consequences? Read your Constitution -- it's all in there:

The Constitution is informative here. In Article IV, Section 4, the federal government is required to "protect each [state] against Invasion; and [on request of the state government] against domestic Violence." As St. George Tucker noted, this provision guards against "the possibility of an undue partiality in the federal government," for example a "sectional" president who might, for political reasons, decline to protect states in a certain region. Today the federal government, at the direction of the president, has declined to carry out its duty under Article IV. Leaving aside its other possible consequences, this intentional failure to protect Arizona raises the question of what action the state is now entitled to take under the Constitution.

This brings us to Article I, Section 10, Clause 3, which provides that "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress ... engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."

So, the militias organized and armed by a state may go to war when the state has been invaded or is in imminent danger. This is clear under Article I, and plainly justified when the federal government has deliberately failed to protect against invasion as required by Article IV. As Joseph Story explains in his treatise on the Constitution, the prohibition against states engaging in war is "wisely" limited by "exceptions sufficient for the safety of the states, and not justly open to the objection of being dangerous to the Union."

Very interesting... I hope the State of Arizona carries this out. They need protection, the Mexican gangs are just getting bolder and will continue to flaunt the borders (to our detriment) until we grow a pair and stop them. The Democrats are looking at a pool of faithful voters but these people have no desire to participate in this nation, they are just looking for a free ride or to make some money selling drugs.

October 2022

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          

Environment and Climate
AccuWeather
Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Climate Depot
Ice Age Now
ICECAP
Jennifer Marohasy
Solar Cycle 24
Space Weather
Watts Up With That?


Science and Medicine
Junk Science
Life in the Fast Lane
Luboš Motl
Medgadget
Next Big Future
PhysOrg.com


Geek Stuff
Ars Technica
Boing Boing
Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
FAIL Blog
Hack a Day
Kevin Kelly - Cool Tools
Neatorama
Slashdot: News for nerds
The Register
The Daily WTF


Comics
Achewood
The Argyle Sweater
Chip Bok
Broadside Cartoons
Day by Day
Dilbert
Medium Large
Michael Ramirez
Prickly City
Tundra
User Friendly
Vexarr
What The Duck
Wondermark
xkcd


NO WAI! WTF?¿?¿
Awkward Family Photos
Cake Wrecks
Not Always Right
Sober in a Nightclub
You Drive What?


Business and Economics
The Austrian Economists
Carpe Diem
Coyote Blog


Photography and Art
Digital Photography Review
DIYPhotography
James Gurney
Joe McNally's Blog
PetaPixel
photo.net
Shorpy
Strobist
The Online Photographer


Blogrolling
A Western Heart
AMCGLTD.COM
American Digest
The AnarchAngel
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Babalu Blog
Belmont Club
Bayou Renaissance Man
Classical Values
Cobb
Cold Fury
David Limbaugh
Defense Technology
Doug Ross @ Journal
Grouchy Old Cripple
Instapundit
iowahawk
Irons in the Fire
James Lileks
Lowering the Bar
Maggie's Farm
Marginal Revolution
Michael J. Totten
Mostly Cajun
Neanderpundit
neo-neocon
Power Line
ProfessorBainbridge.com
Questions and Observations
Rachel Lucas
Roger L. Simon
Samizdata.net
Sense of Events
Sound Politics
The Strata-Sphere
The Smallest Minority
The Volokh Conspiracy
Tim Blair
Velociworld
Weasel Zippers
WILLisms.com
Wizbang


Gone but not Forgotten...
A Coyote at the Dog Show
Bad Eagle
Steven DenBeste
democrats give conservatives indigestion
Allah
BigPictureSmallOffice
Cox and Forkum
The Diplomad
Priorities & Frivolities
Gut Rumbles
Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0
MegaPundit
Masamune
Neptunus Lex
Other Side of Kim
Publicola
Ramblings' Journal
Sgt. Stryker
shining full plate and a good broadsword
A Physicist's Perspective
The Daily Demarche
Wayne's Online Newsletter

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on July 19, 2010 10:34 PM.

Cool technology - a train that lays its own track was the previous entry in this blog.

A long day is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Monthly Archives

Pages

OpenID accepted here Learn more about OpenID
Powered by Movable Type 5.2.9