More Mail from Arizona

 Posted on January 03, 2010 in Uncategorized

There's apparently a meme going around the Arizona "Patriot" community that I am asking why Arizona voters don't do something about Joe Arpaio. I am not.

There's no question why Maricopa County keeps reelecting Warlord Joe: it's because the voters are scared, and fear is a mighty motivator. As Brian Cuban writes, "When we are afraid it becomes all so disturbingly easy for us to dismiss out of hand the blood, sweat and tears that were put into the Constitutional rights we have today."

In response to the question I'm not asking, "Patriot" voter Laura Leighton of Tucson, Pima County, Arizona emails:

Dear Atty. Bennett: I live in Arizona. Why don't we do something about Sheriff Joe? We do – we have re-elected him 5 times and every time he runs we RE-ELECT HIM AND WILL KEEP RE-ELECTING HIM AND IF HE WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., WE WILL ELECT HIM FOR THAT, TOO!!! HE IS ONE OF THE FEW PEOPLE WHO IS OBEYING OUR LAWS, WHO IS PROTECTING THE PEOPLE OF THIS STATE AND COUNTRY. What are you – a globalist or just what Lenin called liberals "useful idiots"? Our state is now the murder capitol of the nation, the kidnapping capitol of the nation, the car theft capitol of the nation! If an American goes to a meeting and objects everything being given to Mexico or Mexican illegals, he or she gets arrested. But MECHISTAS can come and yell, "Death to the U.S.A.", "We will push the U.S. into the sea!", "Kill the gringos", and lots more terrorist chants and the police are not allowed to tell them anything or even so much as ask their name (despite the fact the Patriot Act is in force!). There is selective enforcement going on. I have two girlfriends whose children have all been murdered by illegals. I have spoken to a 15 y.o. who was shot at by Mexicans in his school because they tore down the U.S. flag and put up the Mexican flag and he said he was going home to get his flag. I spoke to the mother of a little 11 y.o. who was almost beaten blind by Mexicans. And many others and in all cases the schools refused to do anything. We h ave been infiltrated by Mexico in this state. They are teaching "hate" and "revolution" in our schools and when someone takes the proof down to the capitol, every time – it gets stolen (excuse me "it disappears"). The people of this state love Sheriff Joe – we know who represents us, believe me. Not like Napolitano who has vetoed almost every single thing that would have stopped our border from being overrun! Everyday I get tons of articles about illegals who have murdered, raped, robbed and especially molested American children (they are almost always Mexicans for some reason, perhaps it's the cultural tradition of "rapto") and they are almost always illegal aliens. Do your homework! I am a translator/interpreter and have worked my entire life helping hispanics and love it until I came here to AZ. Only Mexicans tell me how they hate the "gringos" and are going to take back their land (which they don't know but only owned for 24 years – the least of anyone. Mexico has an agenda and it's called "La Reconquista").

You'll notice that there's no mention of the United States Constitution-the people of Arizona "love Sheriff Joe so much," perhaps, that the Constitution is irrelevant. Also, the "we" who keep reelecting Arpaio is mostly rhetorical. Ms. Leighton, living in Pima County, doesn't get to vote for Joe Arpaio and Andy Thomas.

If Arizona were the murder capital of the nation, that might explain why Arizona voters are so willing to wipe their butts with the Constitution in the voting booth. I looked it up; it isn't. Arizona had 6.3 murders per 100,000 people in 2008; 12 states had higher murder rates.

I didn't research the rest of Ms. Leighton's claims, instead relying on the Roman legal principle falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus. I have no doubt that every day she gets articles about crimes committed by illegals, but I suspect that is a function of the "patriot" mailing lists she is on rather than some real propensity of Mexican men for molesting white children.

I put "patriot" in doubt quotes because, while this is what these people call themselves, "nationalist" would be a better word. Patriots defend the Constitution even at grave personal risk; therefore those who would surrender the Constitution are not patriots. Ms. Leighton and her ilk are more concerned with safeguarding themselves and the US-Mexico border than the U.S. Constitution. I'll give them nationalism, and give Joe Arpaio populism. The response of Joe Arpaio's supporters to his critics invites comparison to populist nationalists of the Twentieth Century. This discussion has a very high Godwin Coefficient (the probability, at the beginning of a discussion, of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler).

Even if all of Leighton's claims were true, what Sheriff Joe and Andy Thomas are doing-sacrificing the Sixth Amendment and separation of powers to fear and expediency-is wrong. I'm not talking about pink underpants and tent cities; I'm talking about a concerted effort to neutralize the courts, the press, and the criminal defense bar through intimidation. Fear doesn't justify violating, much less abrogating the Constitution.

(But wait. The Constitution isn't a suicide pact, is it? Well, not as explicitly as the Declaration of Independence was. But the closing words of the Declaration of Independence ("... we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor") demonstrate that the Founders were not as averse to suicide pacts as perhaps we are; is there some reason the rights of 1791 were less worth lives and sacred honor than the liberty of 1776? Of course not.)

If we leave the fate of the republic to scared nationalists like Ms. Leighton, the Constitution will be tossed out as a quaint historic document. America is not its borders nor its people. America is its Constitution; the nation can survive invasion and massacre, but discard the Constitution and America is lost.