The HIV virus which causes AIDS (acquired immune deficiency
syndrome) does not kill people directly. It destroys their immune
systems, allowing a waiting disease that would otherwise be fought
off by the body to kill them. The American political left, despite
efforts since Woodrow Wilson called our Constitution “political
witchcraft,” has not been able to directly inject a fatal disease
(or at least not a rapidly fatal one) into our political system. So
they are turning to destroying the national immune system by
encouraging Americans to abandon belief in our Founding documents
and principles.
It’s working. With the help of friends and useful idiots, the
Progressive left has severely weakened the country’s ability to
defend itself from their fundamentally un-American vision by
weakening Americans’ understanding of and respect for the
principles that have historically opposed almost everything
Progressivism stands for. One obvious symptom: an America in which
citizens understood what their nation truly stands for would never
have re-elected President Barack Obama.
Unless Americans fortify our national immune system by
redoubling our commitment to protecting the Constitution and the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, we will suffer the
bitter consequences of Progressive “success” in much the same way
that an AIDS-infected body suffers the subsequent “success” of
pneumonia or tuberculosis or cancer.
Like the human body, our body politic has secondary immune
systems, though often dormant until needed, within non-federal
areas of the government where people from state legislators to
local elected officials to judges to law enforcement officers take
an oath to support and defend the Constitution.
In the current debate over our Second Amendment rights, the
dormancy is lifting among a particular group: the sheriffs. They
recognize the early symptoms of the disease and are trying to do
something to prevent the U.S. becoming a victim of full-blown
political immune deficiency syndrome.
Across the nation, sheriffs are stating publicly that they will
not enforce what they believe to be unconstitutional edicts from
the White House infringing on Americans’ fundamental right to keep
and bear arms.
We’ve heard it in Minnesota,
Arizona,
Oregon,
California, South Carolina,
Alabama,
Georgia,
Texas,
Colorado (at least four sheriffs in my home state), and from an
ever-growing
list of sheriffs from East to West and North to South.
Though gun rights are the trigger for the discussions, the
language they are using and the point they are making are not
primarily about guns, but about the Constitution and the rule of
law.
From Pine County, Minnesota Sheriff Robin
Cole: “I do not believe the federal government or any
individual in the federal government has the right to dictate to
the states, counties or municipalities any mandate, regulation or
administrative rule that violates the United States Constitution or
its various amendments.”
From El Paso County, Colorado Sheriff Terry Maketa: “Like every elected
official in the state, I took an oath to support the Constitution
of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Colorado.
This means all rights.… Some have suggested this is a political
issue or a right and left issue. I strongly oppose that suggestion.
This is a constitutional rights issue and we should all stand by
this document which is the foundation of this nation.”
From Linn County, Oregon Sheriff
Tim Mueller: “Any federal regulation enacted by Congress or by
executive order of the President offending the constitutional
rights of my citizens shall not be enforced by me or by my
deputies, nor will I permit the enforcement of any unconstitutional
regulations or orders by federal officers within the borders of
Linn County Oregon.”
From Larimer County, Colorado Sheriff Justin Smith:
Colorado was established with the Constitutional Office of
Sheriff. Statutes define the specific duties of the Sheriff, but
through tradition and law, it is clear, the Sheriff’s duties
include the absolute obligation to protect the Rights of the
citizens of the county, and the Sheriff is accountable directly to
those citizens. The Colorado Sheriff occupies this independent
office which is not a subservient department of county, state or
federal government.
As Sheriff, I will not:
• Enforce unconstitutional federal laws
• Obey unconstitutional laws
• Allow others to violate the Constitutional Rights of those in my
county
If a conversation with a local police officer is representative
of police more broadly, the feelings within that community are
similar to those within sheriffs’ offices. But the police chiefs’
political situations, generally reporting to local elected
politicians to whom they are beholden for their appointed jobs,
puts them in a trickier position regarding public displays of
affection for the Constitution.
While each of the sheriffs’ statements above was within the
context of protecting the particular right most obviously under
assault today, they also stand alone as basic operating principles
fundamental to America’s retaining its character as a republic
conceived in liberty, a character that is not a quaint accident of
history but based on our Founders’ deep understanding of human
nature. Our national character, including both freedom and
federalism, is the cause of American Exceptionalism (which Obama
does not believe in). Our national character is our national
immunity to tyranny.
Barack Obama and his allies are working to destroy that
immunity, just as HIV/AIDS does to a human body, opening the flood
gates for a fast-spreading cancer of the rule of men rather than of
laws, of socialism (or socialism-lite) rather than free enterprise,
of beggar-thy-neighbor sloth rather than the vigor of
self-sufficiency, of subservience rather than liberty. The patient,
our once-great nation, is already symptomatic.
Taking away gun rights has historically been the first step of
tyrants on the path toward taking away all important rights. In
addition to the practical impact of various “gun control” measures
on law-abiding Americans’ ability to defend our homes and property,
the left’s assault on the Second Amendment should be seen as part
of a much larger attack: the attempted murder of America as the
freest nation in human history.
Garfield County, Colorado Sheriff Lou Vallario put it well:
“[T]he intentional degradation of the Second Amendment, for some
radical factions, is NOT about safety or guns, but about
eliminating our rights and controlling the population. I have no
doubt that success with eliminating the Second Amendment will only
fuel the fire of such radicals to eliminate the remaining
ones.”
What is implied by the sheriffs’ positions — and what needs to
be made explicit to all Americans, particularly those who take an
oath to protect and defend the Constitution — is that public
officials have not just a right but a responsibility to consider
the constitutionality of a law or an order, at least until a court
has had the final say. As with medicine, an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure.
The abandonment of this responsibility is one of the greatest
failures of politicians generally and Republicans specifically,
turning many into unwitting collaborators in the destruction of our
nation. These useful idiots exist at all levels of government, from
former President George W. Bush who signed the McCain-Feingold
campaign finance bill despite repeatedly recognizing “constitutional
concerns” to local politicians like Larimer County Commissioner
Steve Johnson.
When asked about Sheriff Smith’s refusal to enforce
unconstitutional (as he sees them) laws and edicts, Johnson said,
“Last time I checked in my civics class, the only ones that could
rule a law unconstitutional sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Johnson, while a state senator, was the leading GOP legislative
sponsor of the largest tax increase in Colorado history and has
long been an
econometric. (With Republicans like him, who needs Democrats?)
But overtaxing, while at least temporarily harmful to our nation
and locales, pales in comparison to the permanent damage done when
people like Steve Johnson have neither the courage nor the wisdom
to understand that their oaths of office require them to
defend citizens’ rights.
A sheriff or a county commissioner might not technically “rule”
on a law or order, but they can — indeed they must —
consider its constitutionality. Given that courts rule on the
constitutionality of only a small minority of laws, and that even
in those cases a final ruling may not occur for months or years
after a law or order is imposed, public officials have an
affirmative responsibility to make their own determinations.
Indeed, the lack of court action, much less timely action,
regarding most laws, and the increasing partisanship of the
judiciary at the expense of the rule of law, makes the judgment of
others sworn to uphold the Constitution that much more
critical.
Imagine a nurse saying “I think what you’re doing will make you
sick, but I’m not going to suggest that you stop. Instead let’s
wait to see if you become extremely, perhaps terminally, ill.” That
would be a dereliction of duty so severe nobody would allow, or
even conceive of it, particularly not most nurses. But that is just
what so many of our politicians — sworn to protect and defend the
Constitution — do every day by refusing to take a stand when
presented with unconstitutional orders.
Whether willful collaborators or simply ignorant, spineless and
clueless politicians such as Steve Johnson should not be tolerated.
They are a political HIV virus, destroying our national immune
system alongside people like Nancy Pelosi who respond to questions
about constitutionality by asking “are you
serious” as they wait for the opportunity to inject the body
politic of a once-mostly-free nation with a final, fatal
disease.
Sheriffs across the nation, not least in a wave sweeping
Colorado, are to be thanked and congratulated for awakening
Americans to the idea that the oath of office is not made of idle
words, but of a solemn vow whose abandonment — leading to the
political equivalent of full-blown AIDS, allowing a scourge of
disease to enter a defenseless body — has terrible, permanent
consequences.
