Federal judge to Arizona: Drop dead

Was anybody surprised by the ruling yesterday gutting SB 1070? Not likely. I, for one, expected it. Using federal power to remake the country by any means necessary — including judicial quasi-legislation — is par for the course these days. We live in a parody of a republic where the central government, its employees, and crony capitalists exist for no higher purpose than self-aggrandizement.

The spirit of liberty has been corrupted before, but on a local level: Tammany Hall in 19th century New York, Jim Curley in Boston, the Daley machine in Chicago — the political process run by and for bosses. But never before has the political class openly expressed its contempt for the United States as a whole.

Now you see it in its awful glory, taking over corporations, telling banks who they must lend money to, passing bills thousands of pages long that no one has read in their entirety but full of plums for special interests, condoning voter intimidation, refusing to enforce laws and the Constitution whenever they feel like it.

It would not be entirely correct to say that the Failed Messiah wants to subvert the Constitution. He is simply indifferent to it, hardly knows that it exists. His law is street law. He's the leader of the pack. Plenty of followers, as well as collaborators from the opposition party, function as his enablers. And of course the FM is only a more extreme version of his predecessor: Shrub II also didn't like borders, and looked the other way as they became the thinnest gauze; invaded two countries without bothering about the formality of asking Congress for a declaration of war.

Now a federal judge has ruled (in effect) that Washington doesn't have to protect and defend the United States, and that no state can either force it to or step in and take responsibility itself. While the ruling is bad to the point of immorality, the net effect could turn out to be positive. It shows Americans in no uncertain terms that their national government is neither of the people, by the people, nor for the people (aside from the people it has chosen to import for population replacement). If Americans are truly Americans, they will react fiercely but cannily, individually and in association with one another. Big Government is powerful and increasingly intimidating, but it is also stupid and clumsy. It is to be feared, but not as much as it can be taught to fear an aroused citizenry.