Let’s face it, we’ve been pretty rough on Sheriff Joe Arpaio lately. I call him Crazy Joe, but he’s not crazy at all. Nobody wields the power he does without being awfully smart. The trite expression is crazy like a fox, and indeed he is. Fox-like, I mean.
That some think the criticism of the sheriff is undeserved is shown by the Heritage Foundation’s Hans A. von Spakovsky, who has posted at the National Review Online’s “The Corner” about The Persecution.
That some think the criticism of the sheriff is undeserved is shown by the Heritage Foundation’s Hans A. von Spakovsky, who has posted at the National Review Online’s “The Corner” about The Persecution.
The Washington Times has a good editorial today about the “ideological vendetta” being waged by the Holder Justice Department against Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. The vendetta was prompted by Arpaio’s participation in the 287(g) program, which allows local police to help enforce our immigration laws by detaining illegal aliens. This is a program the Left wants ended, and since they have not been able to persuade Congress to get rid of the authorizing legislation, they are prodding the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to do it for them.
This is a real sign of the desperation by the Civil Rights Division. They have been harassing Arpaio for the past year and even generated a DHS audit of him (despite having had no complaints that he was not complying with the rules of the 287(g) program), trying to scrape up enough evidence to justify a civil-rights lawsuit against him.
Most of us were unaware that this was a political vendetta by “the left” against the sheriff because he’s been too effective in stopping illegal immigrants. It wasn’t about putting prisoners in pink underwear, in tends, in the desert, eating subsistence gruel. It’s about the lefties sacred cow of giving welfare to illegals.
Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic explains further by providing letters from his readers.
Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic explains further by providing letters from his readers.
Bottom line – Arpaio is perhaps the best representative of the true base of the GOP in this state. The more people attack him, the higher his ratings go up. Most establishment Democrats in Arizona believe that, especially considering what’s happened in previous years. One person I’ve worked with closely in the past worked at the highest levels in the Napalitano administration for most of her time in as Governor. This person explained to me that Janet got heat from the left over most of her tenure for not being tougher with Joe and holding him accountable. But her people knew that Janet walked a tight rope – she won by less than a point in 2002 – and was really the only thing keeping the right-dominated legislature from passing whatever they wanted. So she erred on the side of a general hands-off approach, and won Joe’s silence for the most part. His aggression was not something they wanted to have to deal with, particularly because of how intrusive and invasive Arpaio’s methods are.
And then there’s the appeal to the adult community-types:
It seems that Sheriff Joe Arpaio feels the fear and anger of the common man. He understands what they want and need, and he’s not afraid to give it to them. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a man of the people, a populist.
One of the more common themes in the comments here is that the pervasive injustice in the functioning of the American legal system will bring about an uprising, a popular insurrection, when the common man has had enough of government abuse. It’s possible that those who feel this way, who believe that this is the future, are right. The only problem is that the uprising is more likely to be led by Sheriff Joe Arpaio than Thomas Jefferson.
There are a great many people dissatisfied with the United States government’s handling of things. But you may be even less happy with the alternative. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a very popular fellow.
Sheriff Joe’s whole shtick is about how tough he is on crime. And my parents don’t really care about the particulars of how that happens. To them, stories of immigrants skirting the law or committing crimes are tragedies that must be stopped.
It seems that Sheriff Joe Arpaio feels the fear and anger of the common man. He understands what they want and need, and he’s not afraid to give it to them. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a man of the people, a populist.
One of the more common themes in the comments here is that the pervasive injustice in the functioning of the American legal system will bring about an uprising, a popular insurrection, when the common man has had enough of government abuse. It’s possible that those who feel this way, who believe that this is the future, are right. The only problem is that the uprising is more likely to be led by Sheriff Joe Arpaio than Thomas Jefferson.
There are a great many people dissatisfied with the United States government’s handling of things. But you may be even less happy with the alternative. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a very popular fellow.
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The explanations seem to me to tell only half of the story. There’s lots of folks — I’m one — who think that crimes by illegal aliens are a real problem, but don’t see how putting jailed people (illegal aliens or not) in pink pajamas addresses that. ACORN folks are wrong on a lot of issues? I think so, but I’m missing how arresting and prosecuting them for clapping in a public meeting will persuade them otherwise. The Mexican Mafia guys do bad stuff? Got it — but riffling through a convicted member’s lawyer’s briefs, and running — at least in theory — the chance of a conviction for an assault going away because of that?
Forgetting, just for the moment, the issues of whether any of those things are okay, Arpaio seems to have done a brilliant job of salesmanship in persuading a huge part of the local public that this sort of thing is somehow effective, without having any useful numbers to point at. (As somebody who, for example, doesn’t want to be robbed, I’d be far more persuaded by numbers showing robberies going down than by numbers showing increased arrests, convictions, and/or jail sentences for robbers.)
Mussolini, orthogonally, didn’t make the trains run on time; he just had the schedules changed so that whenever they arrived was officially on time by the new schedule. (These days, he’d be twittering, “350th train in row arrives on time! Il Duce FTW!”)
Also orthogonally: locally to me, the now-disbanded and formerly amuck-running Metro Gang Strike Force is being replaced by a federal one. Implicitly, the local authorities are admitting that they can’t run a metro-wide one; that they don’t know how to get cops volunteered from some departments to focus on making cases against gang members, rather that on procuring wide-screen tvs for their rec rooms. Maricopa County isn’t, apparently, the only place that manifestly can’t handle local issues without Daddy Fed.
Your lack of comprehension of Arpaio’s popularity could explain your decision not to reside in an adults-only community.
I particularly like this part for showing tgat he’s not really worth attacking:
“His aggression was not something they wanted to have to deal with, particularly because of how intrusive and invasive Arpaio’s methods are.”
Yep. He’s the misunderstood, falsely targetted, good guy.
A few more like him and we can safely declare ourselves a fascist state.
Scott wrote:
“One of the more common themes in the comments here is that the pervasive injustice in the functioning of the American legal system will bring about an uprising, a popular insurrection, when the common man has had enough of government abuse. It’s possible that those who feel this way, who believe that this is the future, are right. The only problem is that the uprising is more likely to be led by Sheriff Joe Arpaio than Thomas Jefferson.”
Which way things go is always a crapshoot. My reading of history is that there are two kinds of uprisings.
The first type tend to be led by elite groups who are peeved at having their “privileges and immunities” interfered with. The Magna Carta and the American Revolution are good examples. That scenario would occur because the Sheriff Joe’s of the world expanded their activities to those who are their current base of support–upper class white people, generally. Given the arrogance of the criminal/industrial complex, that scenario is certainly not far-fetched.
The second type is actually more of a coup type situation, where a “man on a horse” promises the middle and lower classes more safety/security/protection than the “effete” system has been able to afford them. The Menshevik Revolution as well as the rise of Fascism and Nazism fall in this category.
Which one we get first depends on events that we cannot foresee. Given the state of the economy, the latter looks more likely at this point, but could be followed fairly rapidly by the former.
Interesting times.
So how many of these insurrections have you been around for, old man?
I dunno about him, but don’t actually remember being around for the second stage of that Russian revolution — you know; the one where they separated the Menshiviks from the Boisheviks.
As you’ve obviously recognized, that’s precisely the revolution that I was thinking of as I wrote this post.
“I call him Crazy Joe, but he’s not crazy at all. Nobody wields the power he does without being awfully smart.”
You can, of course, be crazy, wield power, and be smart.
True.
You can blame the sherriff for being a demagogue who violates people’s rights. Or you can blame a corrupt policy of tacitly allowing illegal immigration.
Personally I blame both. I note however that the former is a response to the latter. If illegal immigrants were treated like everyday law breakers, the sherriff would have no reason to exist and would fade away.
I’m not clear how the latter justifes the former. And if it does, can’t the same be said for any perceived evil?