A national group of sheriffs that claims the top law enforcers in American counties are not bound by federal law has successfully spread its doctrine to dozens of states in recent years.
The group, known as CSPOA, teaches that elected sheriffs must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or “unjust.”
“The safest way to actually achieve that is to have local law enforcement understand that they have no obligation to enforce such laws,” Mack said in an interview. “They’re not laws at all anyway. If they’re unjust laws, they are laws of tyranny.”
Well, yeah. Local sheriffs aren’t obligated to enforce federal law. That’s the federal government’s job. This has already been well established in the matters of sanctuary cities and cannabis legalization.
Pretty daft of these sheriffs to try to get the people they’re “protecting” killed by bullets and viruses, but that’s what those folks voted for. 🤷♂️
It all started with the legalize marijuana movement, now we are here.
Do you want local governance or top down governance from a thousand miles away? At what distance does it become colonialism? States are not required to enforce federal law, they just can’t violate the constitution.
States not enforcing federal law. Legal weed was the first real test of States not enforcing federal law. Now states are refusing to enforce all sorts of federal laws.
I think Good Things are good, Bad Things are bad, and violence should be used to make more of the first thing and less of the second thing.
An overseer torturing an enslaved worker on a plantation is "local governance".
The 54th Massachusetts Infantry shooting that overseer through the head and heart like Peter Weller 22 minutes into RoboCop is "top down governance from a thousand miles away".
The location of a government is not what makes it inherently good or bad, it's what that government does.
What about the FBI and the airforce bombing black neighborhoods in 1985? Like literally bombing them. Was that the kind of top down governance you want?
A big distinction being that sheriffs didn't legalize weed, State legislatures did. That does set up a big constitutional issue that the federal government has just ignored, but the linked article is different than that.
State legislatures repealed the laws against it that they had. After that it’s no distinction at all. State law enforcement was directed to not enforce federal law, because they’re not required to.
There’s no big constitutional issue: states cannot be compelled to enforce federal law, this is already clearly settled. This is why things like the age to drink alcohol are forced onto states by withholding highway funding, the federal government can’t pass a national 21 and over law and expect it to be enforced, so they told the states “pass your own over 21 law or we won’t give you federal highway money” which is constitutional they say under the equal protection clause because the condition applies to all states, and the courts have ruled this way. Now every state has their own individual 21 and over law, something many states didn’t want to do. This has to happen because state law enforcement cannot be compelled to enforce federal law.
These sheriffs, and the state gun law repeals and the silencer laws and all that kind of stuff are applying the same concept. Legalizing weed is really what kicked this movement into high gear, it was the first time in a century or more that states managed to prominently just not enforce federal law, now it’s become a broader movement. Nobody but feds are required to enforce any federal law, they’re just required to abide by the constitution.
Yeah, this is where "law and order" is diametrically opposed to "rule of law". These people feel like they can do whatever in their fiefdoms, free of the law applying to them. I'm not comfortable with the "ACAB" slogans, but when I encounter LEO like this that are getting too big for their britches, it makes it hard not to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with the institution of policing.
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