This news is a couple of days old but it's still making me angry, so...

[giandujakiss]

Just in case anyone missed it -

Here are the "top 10" most disturbing charges in the DOJ lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, who purportedly has been terrorizing Latinos for years. And the thing that kills me aren't that these things happened, but that this guy has been in power for so damn long. It's like something out of the 1950s Dixie South. You keep expecting Gene Hackman or maybe Ned Beatty to show up in some capacity.

Meanwhile, Catholic bishops are investigating the Girl Scouts over their affiliations with the Sierra Club, Doctors Without Borders, and Oxfam. There is no word in that sentence that does not leave me speechless. Or at least, that does not leave me without speech except for words that would be inappropriate for a family blog.

Comments

[sapote]

(which I have notably not acted on partially because it would be hugely impractical, partially because I would probably just get shot, and partially because we went and invented all this due process so that people wouldn't just physically assault people they hate oh WAIT that's the core of the grievance here)

[giandujakiss]

Oh no - we invented all this due process so that government actors couldn't just physically assault people they hate. You're a private citizen, you can punch people all day long without violating their due process rights.

[sapote]

... TRUE.

I honestly have to wonder if this is even commensurate to the Dixie South, honestly. I am going to look into this more: I don't know if during the immediate pre-Civil Rights era the stated goal was ever actual removal of an ethnic group from a state (I'm not asserting that that's true; like I said, I'll look into this). I know in Arizona the fact that Latino people are leaving in droves is actually held up by a lot of people as proof that these kinds of actions are successful.