HMD: Trump's Unapologetic Defense of the Rule of Law
I agree with pretty much everything in this.
But that includes this:
The authority that Trump invoked in activating the Guard—10 U.S.C. 12406—provides that “the president may call into federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.” Trump’s order is confined to the “temporary” protection of ICE and other federal personnel, as they enforce federal law, and to the protection of federal property in places where protests against federal enforcement have occurred or are likely to occur. Another clause of Section 10 U.S.C. 12406 holds that “orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States.” Whether a president can activate the Guard for such a limited supporting-only function without going through a governor, without invoking further legal authority, and without violating the Posse Comitatus Act is an untested question that a court will rule on after a hearing this Thursday.
Tuesday’s mobilization of the Marines to protect ICE agents is equally complex, but even more politically fraught. This latest step in the escalating feud over law and order in California risks looking excessive, notwithstanding that violence and vandalism have been spreading to other cities both within and outside of the state.
We're in another Scylla/Charybdis bind here. It's easy for the sane among us to become overly fixated on the insanity on the left--the open borders, the valorization of law-breaking, including violence, the property-destruction, the selective enforcement of laws, the general deranged chaos the ideal of which has captured the mind of the left...and, so, to ignore the Charybdis of Presidential overreach and other kinds of lawbreaking.
I don't have and don't deserve much of an opinion about this. I just want to know the answer. Even if Trump can send in the Guard (and, maybe, the Corps) it's not at all clear that he should. The people of CA voted for this. It's madness, but they did vote for it. And the states are the laboratories of democracy. I'm inclined to let Californians reap what they've sown...to shamelessly mix metaphors. I mean, if other states like what they see, they can emulate. I'm not sure how far things have to go off the rails before other states call the experiment a failure... God knows what it would take for NY or IL to draw such a conclusion.
OTOH, California is kind of the Wuhan Institute of Virology of democracy...and the madness and stupidity and chaos it's cooking up are unlikely to remain contained. So there's that, too.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home