Recently, Arizona law makers passed a law that says that police can ask to see a person’s papers if they are suspicious of them being an illegal alien. There has been a firestorm ever since. First, I am generally an advocate of fairly open and easy immigration. If you can get a job and make money here and you will obey the law (and pay taxes), I am for you getting in and having a shot at American freedom. America is full of immigrants. Second, I will admit that I am very concerned when the government makes judgment calls. I worry about the abuse of power and could see bad things coming from a law like this—were it abused. I generally think that the police (in general) do the best job of making discretionary decisions (Shall I compare thee to Congress?), but I could see how an overzealous policeman could stir up trouble with this law. So, for the record, so far I have real ambivalent feelings about this law.
That said, I must admit that I can understand the zeal that people in the Southwestern states must feel concerning this issue. Our federal government has not been willing to protect our borders. This would only be minor nuisance if the only people coming across the border were law abiding migrant workers. This, however, is not the case. I am a fan of the writer Cormac McCarthy. He is most famous presently for No Country for Old Men which was turned into an Oscar winning film by the Coen brothers. It chronicles life along the border where gruesome practices and actual monsters are spawned by the tidal wave of illegal drugs flowing across our Southern border. If these sort of people were crossing the border of Maryland and entering DC we would declare war on someone. Presently, the federal government does nothing. Nothing, that is, except make fun of Arizona for trying to do what the federal government has been unwilling (not unable) to do. They mock Arizona and call the law racist. There no doubt are racists in Arizona and good people could be harmed if some people with a racial axe to grind use this law to bad ends. At the end of the day, however, any wickedness that results from this law should be laid at the feet of the federal government. They have abdicated one of their actual responsibilities (in favor of doing so many, many more things that they have no business or authority to do).
In the movie No Country for Old Men, the crazed, amoral, killer (played with savage, calculating, randomness by Javier Bardem) is the main character. In McCarthy’s book, the sheriff (played deftly in the movie by Tommy Lee Jones) is the central character. The sheriff is supposed to be keeping the riff-raff at bay and protecting the people from the invasion of drug funded psychopaths from the South. He, however, has abdicated this responsibility and instead gets to listen to old people who keep asking this question, “How can this happen here?” People in Arizona must be muttering the same questions. The answer, of course, is the same. The person or institution meant to protect has abdicated and the monsters then rule the night (and eventually the day now in places like Juarez). In the end, when good men abdicate their responsibility a place becomes No Country For Old Men. Old men, you see, are vulnerable and on the border now vulnerability means death…or worse. The drug gangs are now targeting the wives, children, and relatives of anyone who opposes them. They rape, torture, and kill men, women, and children. Beheadings are common (http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100401/wl_mcclatchy/3466915). Some of the stories I won’t even link to; they are so gruesome. These are some of the people moving across our borders. Our federal government—the very people charged with protecting us—only mocks states for trying to stave off the flood caused by their own abdication. One has to begin to ask the question: Does this federal government represent me? Will they protect me? Who do they represent and protect?
Remember Calvin’s haunting words at the end of his Institutes (this is where the entire book leads)! He famously said: Audiant principes, et terreantur! (Calvin 4.31.1st Sentence) “Hear princes and tremble.” He said this when he called upon lower magistrate (Lesser Magistrates if we bow to Calvin’s terms) to oppose the evil rules, the injustice, the abdication, and the wickedness of unjust rulers. The government must protect the people. Calvin believed that if government did not protect the people then God will destroy the government. God’s judgment is the cause of the fear and trembling in the sentence above. A rag tag bunch of men around 1776 grasped this theory and stood their ground against the greatest empire in the world. Today, we must call on our Lesser Magistrates again to stand in the gap for us, to protect us from the results of federal abdication, and to protect us (maybe one day) from the federal government itself.
Next week in Pennsylvania we have Primary elections. Most of the ink in these elections goes to the US Senate and US House races. The most important races, however, might be the ones determining the Lesser Magistrates who might be called upon to stand up for you against federal encroachment. Do you know your candidates for Governor, State Senator, and State Representative? You’d better make this your business soon.
