This Needs Fixin'

Well, this wasn’t what I’d intended to write about today.

Oh, well.

You go to blog with the jackbooted fascist thuggery you have, not the reasoned discussion of political philosophy you want to have.

You should read that linked article, though: FBI Arrests Judge, in Dangerous Escalation of Immigration Enforcement.

So, first, no one should be above the law.

Especially not agents of the State who (as I wrote yesterday) should be held to higher standards because of their positions.

So the default position here is that if Judge Dugan did in fact break federal law then fine, arrest her like anyone else.

But seriously, this is from the States’ rights party?

You do not arrest a judge for her actions in her own courtroom unless you are alleging abuse of office or some other corrupt act.

Especially if that judge is part of a different sovereign’s judicial system.

I mean, sure, it would be problematic if she’d been a federal judge too, but that would be a separation of powers issue.

Still not correct, but at least only involving one State.

But the state of Wisconsin is supposedly a sovereign entity under the United States’ (admittedly very odd) multiple-sovereigns concept of pseudo-federalism. And in that case, the federal government should have no jurisdiction other than for corruption over a state judge’s official actions.

You could reasonably call this an act of war against the sovereign state of Wisconsin.

Yeah, it’s kinda imaginative and out there an idea, but it’s formally consistent with U.S. law.

Which kinda highlights one of the more pathological contradictions in U.S. law.

We should fix that.

•