We have, sadly, been down this road before.
I'm not talking Sheriff Joe and his minions since even Joe was too smart actually to announce it as policy. But it was the key campaign platform of Loren Nichols when he ran for city council in Kennewick, Washington.
Execute undocumented immigrants. Kill them. Locally. By city ordinance.
Sure, the plan was unconstitutional (for many reasons), though his chief opponent (who apparently didn't actually oppose the idea, just didn't give it priority over improving the city's fisc) doesn't appear to have pointed that out. Really, who pays attention to the Supreme Court, anyway? It's just nine people who dress funny and tell us whatever they think this week. We all understand that the actual Constitution is the one that says funny looking people should be killed.
Sigh.
In a three way primary race, Nichols came in second which gave him a spot on the November ballot. Where he lost. Got hammered, really. From the Tri-City Herald:
Kennewick City Council, Pos. 7 Ward 3
Steve Young 6476
Loren Nichols 2796
Everyone from Switzerland who was planning to sneak into Kennewick breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone of Hispanic extraction or surname who lived in or ever passed through Kennewick, regardless of citizenship, breathed two sighs.
The thing is that bad ideas never die.
And so we come to Joe the Plumber. You know, the guy whose name isn't Joe (it's Sam) and who isn't a plumber but gee, it's catchy. Sam is running for Congress against Marcy Kaptur, long-time Democratic Congresswoman from Toledo.
Sam's something of a wild-man having made his conservative bones by mouthing off to Obama about how terrible it is to tax business and the rich since it would certainly hurt his business (which, as it happens, he didn't have, just as his name wasn't Joe and he wasn't a plumber) during a Toledo campaign stop in 2008. But he's made his name as a straight shooter who always tells the truth (except about himself) and who never flinches from being ultra-conservative and politically incorrect.
Which, I suppose, is why we have to take him at his word when he speaks. Which he did Friday night in Prescott, Arizona at a fund-raiser for Arizona state Senator Lori Klein. Tom Troy in the Toledo Blade.
For years I've said, "Put a damn fence on that border going to Mexico and start shooting … " That's how I feel. I'm not going to hide it just because I'm running for office. I want the borders protected, and I'm very adamant about that.
Doubt that he said it? Matthew Hendley in the Valley Fever blog of the Phoenix New Times has the video of Sam doubling down. He says,
"Political correctness will kill this country, and I think it's on the way there right now -- that's why we gotta get people up there to really speak their mind and say what they mean," Wurzelbacher said. "Ya know, for example, I'm running for Congress. How many congressman or people who are running for Congress have you ever heard [say], 'Put borders on the troop and start shootin'?'"
Klein said Sam was kidding when he said he was serious. Marcy called on Sam to retract the suggestion.
Monday Sam was campaigning in Wisconsin.
Which abuts Canada. With which we have the largest unguarded border in the world?
They can be sneaky up north, too.
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