Stability For Our Time

Two men cross the border illegally. One moves far from the border. He gets a job, then a second job, working hard and saving money. He sends some back home to support his parents, but saves the rest. He buys a car. He rents an apartment. Then he uses money he's saved to buy a trailer and rents it out. He uses the rent money to pay for a second trailer where he lives. He continues to work hard, saving his money, and he builds a real life for himself here. The other gets here and also gets a job, only this time, it's peddling drugs and doing small jobs for the local gang. He joins up and becomes one more petty thug among thousands.

Here's my question. Does it make sense that our immigration laws treat both men the same?

On the other hand, we have the federal government. Arizona crafted a state law that virtually mirrored the federal laws on immigration and identification. The only difference between the two was that the Arizona law empowered state and local police to do the job the federal government wouldn't. Now, a federal judge has determined that it is illegal for states to enforce federal laws when the federal government, in this case, the Obama administration, doesn't want them enforced. Think about that just for a moment. The federal government has just declared that it can ignore it's own laws as it wishes, and the people and the states have no legal recourse.

Of course, this is no real surprise to anybody who has been paying attention. The Obama justice department has already shown with the New Black Panthers that they will engage in selective prosecution, enforcing laws only when it benefits them, and ignoring them when they don't. If you don't believe me, then just ask yourself one simple question. If Klansmen in full regalia had engaged in the same acts in, say, Mississippi, as the NBP thugs did in Pennsylvania, would Eric Holder declined to push the case?

Nope, I don't think so. We would have seen the biggest media circus trial since OJ.

So, our federal government has now officially declared that not only are they above the law, they can legally squelch any attempt by the states to hold them accountable for their inaction. Does it sound like we're still living in a representational republic? Or any kind of republic at all?

Laws are effective only when the people have confidence that they will be applied and enforced equally. When the people lose that confidence, they lose respect for the law, and for those who enforce it, and more importantly, begin to reject the legitimacy of the laws and the government which makes them. Folks, this is how revolutions get started. If you're a rancher in Arizona, and you're property has been vandalized repeatedly by illegal aliens over the last 10 years, costing you thousands of dollars, how would you feel if the federal government told you that not only weren't they going to do anything about it, they were going to forbid your state to do anything about it? Would you feel angry and betrayed? Would you maybe decide that if the government refused to do their job, that you might have to do it for yourself? Would you feel like the government represented you fairly? Would you feel like you owed any loyalty to that government?

I don't live on the border so I can't answer any of those questions, but somebody in Washington better start thinking about them pretty quick because I'm willing to bet that there are thousands of people living in Arizona right now that are thinking about those questions every night as they patrol their property, trying to prevent further damage and destruction.

The bottom line is starkly simple: If the federal government is unwilling to do one of the few jobs specifically allocated to it by the Constitution, then what good is it?