Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker sums up in a single word the recently announced framework of an agreement between the United States of America and the Taliban: Surrender.
“This current process bears an unfortunate resemblance to the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War,” writes Crocker in a Washington Postop-ed. “Then, as now, it was clear that by going to the table we were surrendering; we were just negotiating the terms of our surrender.”
He’s not wrong.
It may seem strange that, after successfully toppling the Taliban government, a savage regime that had given safe haven to Al-Qaeda to launch its 911 attacks against us, we would now, nearly two decades later, be anxious to cut a deal with that same Taliban, even possibly bringing them into a power-sharing role.
Anything to get the heck out of Kabul and back to the good ol’ USA. And it is a recognition, right or wrong, that the Afghan government is unsustainable.
The alternative? Keep a significant contingent of U.S. troops in Afghanistan . . . forever. Or until we have fashioned a brand new westernized-Afghanistan that is no possible threat to us.
Yep, forever.
“Winning may not be an available option,” contends a new Rand report, “but losing . . . would be a blow to American credibility, the weakening of deterrence and the value of U.S. reassurance elsewhere, an increased terrorist threat emanating from the Afghan region, and the distinct possibility of a necessary return there under worse conditions.”
One of the things many people no longer understand about these United States is its — their — peculiar genius: decentralism.
The extreme of this is that contentious notion of state nullification of federal law, which most “smart” people deride (contra Jefferson and Madison) as itself made null and void by the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
And yet even nullification skeptics often support some form of nullification, like fighting marijuana prohibition or ObamaCare at the state level. State initiatives, especially, have driven much of this resistance to centralist, top-down regulation.
But a state initiative in Washington State, I-1639, passed last year, has devolved the nullification idea to where it gets even trickier. The gun control measure passed last year 60-40, but residents of rural counties are none too pleased. As reported in The Guardian, many of the sheriffs in the 27 counties that voted against the measure are not enforcing the law, which they see as unconstitutional.
“The refusal of law enforcement officers to enforce the new restrictions plays into a longer history of so-called ‘constitutional’ sheriffs resisting the gradual tightening of gun laws,” says The Guardian, which goes on to mention “the doctrine of ‘county supremacy,’ long nursed on the constitutionalist far right, which holds that county sheriffs are the highest constitutional authority in the country.”
Whatever its legal merits, this form of resistance to state law enjoys a deep American tradition.
As regular readers know, I am a big proponent of initiative and referendum rights. And one reason to support them is to add a countervailing power against central authorities dominated by special interests and political elites.
In Washington state, a freshly implemented ballot initiative and a raft of new bills may produce some of the tightest firearms regulations in the US. But standing in the way is a group of rural law enforcement officers who say point blank that they won’t enforce any of it.
The Klickitat county sheriff, Bob Songer, is one of them. He told the Guardian that the initiative passed last November “is unconstitutional on several grounds. I’ve taken the position that as an elected official, I am not going to enforce that law”.
Songer also cited ongoing litigation by the National Rife Association gun industry lobby and others which aims to demonstrate the laws violate both the second amendment and the state’s constitution. He also said that if other agencies attempted to seize weapons from county residents under the auspices of the new laws, he would consider preventively “standing in their doorway”.
In November, the state’s voters handily passed an initiative, I-1639, which mostly targeted semi-automatic rifles. As of 1 January, purchasers of these weapons must now be over 21, undergo an enhanced background check, must have completed a safety course, and need to wait 9 days to take possession of their weapon. Also, gun owners who fail to store their weapons safely risk felony “community endangerment” charges.
Feeling the wind at their backs after the ballot, gun campaigners and liberal legislators have now gone even further in the new legislative session. Bills introduced in the last week to Washington’s Democrat-dominated legislature look to further restrict firearms. Some laws would ban high capacity magazines and plastic guns made with 3D printers. Others would mandate training for concealed carry permits, and remove guns and ammo during and after domestic violence incidents.
Washington’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, who proposed several of the bills, said in an email: “Now is the time to act. Washingtonians have made it clear that they support common-sense gun safety reforms.”
Kristen Ellingboe, from Washington’s Alliance for Gun Safety, which has long campaigned for more firearms restrictions, said that “for a long time our elected officials thought that gun violence protection was somehow controversial, but they have been behind where the people of Washington are on this issue”.
But like other west coast states, Washington exhibits a deep cultural and political divide between its populous, coastal cities and its more sparsely populated rural hinterland.
I-1639 passed on a roughly 60-40 split; in the big, blue counties west of the Cascade Mountains, such as King county, where Seattle is located, the margins were even bigger.
However, 27 of Washington’s 39 counties rejected the ballot measure. Many of those counties are in the state’s more rural, sparsely populated districts.
It is in these counties that many – including sworn officers – are promising to resist the laws.
In Ferry county in eastern Washington, more than 72% of voters rejected I-1639. In the county’s only incorporated city, Republic, the police chief Loren Culp asked the council in November to declare the city a “second amendment sanctuary”. That vote has been delayed until March, but in the meantime, like Songer, Culp says he will not enforce.
The sheriff in Ferry county, Ray Maycumber, told the Guardian that he would not be enforcing the laws either, at least until the NRA’s litigation is completed.
“There’s a window of time when I get to make the assessment”, he said. Should the NRA not succeed, he said, he would “consider if I want to go on in the job”.
The “sanctuary” idea has caught on with other rightwing activists. Matt Marshall is the leader of the Washington Three Percent, a patriot movement group which has held several open carry rallies in downtown Seattle in the last year.
Marshall is attempting to persuade rural Washington counties to adopt local second amendment sanctuary ordinances. Next week, together with the Patriot Prayer founder and former Senate candidate Joey Gibson, he is addressing a meeting of Lewis and Pierce counties to try to persuade them to adopt resolutions which would mean that the gun laws were not enforced.
The refusal of law enforcement officers to enforce the new restrictions plays into a longer history of so-called “constitutional” sheriffs resisting the gradual tightening of gun laws. There are also hints, in the stance, of the doctrine of “county supremacy”, long nursed on the constitutionalist far right, which holds that county sheriffs are the highest constitutional authority in the country.
Such notions have long been promoted by figures like sheriff Richard Mack, who leads the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. As gun laws throughout the west have gradually tightened in recent decades, resistance along these lines has become prevalent in areas with strong political support for gun rights.
Since the initiative passed, and they made their positions public, both Songer and Culp have been lionized in conservative media. Earlier this month, Songer detailed his position on the Alex Jones show, where he appeared with Gibson.
On this resistance to the new wave of gun restrictions in Washington, Ellingboe, the gun safety campaigner, said that “it’s disappointing that the gun lobby is trying to undermine the will of Washington voters”.
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Some rural sheriffs in Washington State say they will not enforce the state’s new gun laws — which could wind up being some of the strictest in the country — arguing that they are unconstitutional, the Guardian is reporting.
Some of The Country’s Strictest Gun Laws
In the wake of recent mass shootings — including one at a Las Vegas music festival in 2017 and another at a Parkland, Florida high school last year — Washington’s voters passed initiative I-1639 in 2018, which by-and-large regulates semiautomatic rifles. Since January 1, 2019, purchasers of such weapons must be 21 years of age or over, must undergo an enhance background check and complete a safety course, and must wait nine days to take possession of their weapons. Further, weapons must be stored properly, or their owners will face felony endangerment charges.
Washington’s legislature, now controlled by Democrats, has demonstrated a willingness to take things even further when it comes to gun laws. Some proposals recently introduced into legislature would ban high capacity magazines and plastic guns made with 3-D printers. Other initiatives would require training for concealed carry permits, and remove guns and ammo during and after domestic violence incidents.
The Deep Divide Between Washington’s Rural And Urban Population
Like other liberal West Coast states, Washington isn’t all blue. In fact, the political and cultural divide between the state’s urban, liberal voters and conservative, rural voters, is almost palpable. Of Washington’s 39 counties, 27 of them – the least-populated, most rural – all rejected I-1639 handily. Statewide, however, the initiative passed by 60 percent to 40 percent.
Refusing To Enforce The New Laws
It’s in these rural counties where county sheriffs say they won’t enforce the new laws. One of them is Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer.
“[I-1639] is unconstitutional on several grounds. I’ve taken the position that as an elected official, I am not going to enforce that law.”
Songer went on to claim that if another Washington State agency tried to enforce gun laws against citizens in his county, he would stand in their doorway as a barrier between the citizen and the agent.
Over in Ferry County, Sheriff Ray Maycumber said that until the National Rifle Association’s (NRA’s) lawsuit against Washington’s new laws is resolved, he won’t be enforcing the laws, either. And if the NRA fails, he’ll consider whether or not he wants to remain in law enforcement.
2nd Amendment Sanctuary Cities
Taking a cue from the illegal immigration debate, some elected officials in rural Washington are calling for towns and counties in the state to be “2nd Amendment Sanctuary Cities,” where law enforcement would simply not enforce the new gun laws, and where residents would be protected by local law enforcement against arrest and confiscation of their weapons.
In the Washington Post’s Book World segment, surprise was noted how quickly Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe’s Tea Party manifesto, Give Us Liberty, fell off in sales. Why? Perhaps “Tea Party folks . . . already knew who they were and what they believed?”
Good guess.
But what do they believe?
Alveda King is the niece of Martin Luther King, whom she refers to as “Uncle Martin.” Fielding questions from CNN’s Larry King after she had participated in Glenn Beck’s recent Washington rally, Ms. King insisted that “It’s not so much about the man as the message.” The “issues” she emphasized were the ones that Beck, to the surprise of many, had also emphasized: Faith, hope, charity, and honor.
“My uncle said we have to live together as brothers — and I add, as sisters — or ‘perish as fools.’” If Ms. King is not out of place in Beck’s wing of the Tea Party, then what of all the noise about racism? Could widespread opposition to Obama be mainly about policy?
When Rev. Sharpton talked about “going all the way in civil rights,” Ms. King clarified something that might be useful in helping left-leaning folks understand Tea Party folks’ attitude towards policy: “My uncle was not teaching that we needed the government to take care of us.”
His main message had something to do with liberty. And respect for all.
Tea Party people appear to be in the main stream of modern American culture in claiming such ideas as theirs, too.
Dear Reader: This “BEST of Common Sense” comment originally aired on January 7, 2002. There are tough problems in the real world. Many of them cannot be solved by “public policy” or faceless bureaucracies, but only by people who care about and for each other. Realizing the limits of government doesn’t solve every problem, but it does prevent some problems from getting even worse. —PJ
Recently I joined the growing chorus calling the war on drugs a failure. My comments were provoked by a DEA raid against the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, a place where cancer patients in pain can obtain marijuana that is legal under state law, but illegal under federal law.
Well, I got a flurry of responses. Some said we need to get tougher. A woman wrote: “Paul, the way to stop drugs is to instantly execute people who push it — no trial.”
On the other hand, a gentleman wrote: “Until we start seeing addiction as a medical rather than criminal problem, we’re never going to get out of the bunker in this failing war.”
But one listener summed up what many folks were trying to say. He wrote: “Okay Paul, I agree with you. But what is your proposed solution?”
There are many solutions. The war on drugs hasn’t prevented the damage done by addiction or alleviated the pain felt by loved ones. We’d all love to pass some law that would miraculously solve the problem, but there is no magic wand.
The problem of addiction has to do with individual people and their individual circumstances. And that’s how it must be addressed: Individually, by people who care, not by distant bureaucracies who may do more harm than good.
Ultimately, love is the answer, because love does conquer all. But government isn’t love.
Dear Reader: This “BEST of Common Sense” comment originally aired on October 3, 2005. When I read in the paper about a fifth grade class re-writing the Constitution, I immediately thought about our judiciary. Then I discovered the whole effort was part of a program mandated by Congress. We should all — freely — read the Constitution. Luckily, it is shorter than most of the bills in Congress. —PJ
James Madison, father of our U.S. Constitution, must be rolling over in his grave. You see, he forgot to put love in it. In the Constitution, that is.
By congressional edict, schools and universities across the nation were recently required to spend some time on or around September 17 teaching about the Constitution. That’s the date our nation’s founding document was ratified back in 1787.
One institution of higher learning, Irene’s Myomassology Institute in Michigan, was forced to comply because some students training to be tomorrow’s masseuses receive federal money. The Institute gave students a flier.
Marlboro College in Vermont held a parade featuring professors dressed up as constitutional articles and amendments.
Virginia’s James Madison University celebrated with a “We the People” cake and a trivia contest.
But you ask: What has love got to do with the Constitution?
Oh, yes, I almost forgot Sharon Alexander’s fifth-graders at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia. In following the federal order, they did what too many federal judges do: they re-wrote the Constitution. Actually, just the Preamble. Their new kid-friendly version states that “kids, pets and adults” are entitled to “electricity, food, water, schools and love.”
Our Constitution doesn’t talk about love. Love isn’t government’s job. That’s ours. Government is power. And our Constitution is all about limiting that power. Read it — and read it to your kids, too, if you love ’em.
