Washington Sheriff Declares He Won’t Enforce Inslee’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Order | Talking Points Memo

TPM Article Topics
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The sheriff of Klickitat County, Washington has decided that he’s simply not going to enforce Governor Jay Inslee’s (D) stay-at-home order.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1307714
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Ok. I will drive on the Oregon side from now on when I go to Portland.

Edit: my point is that this county looks exactly like the picture. Wheat and windmills and the mighty Columbia. It is academic. Only a few people live there.

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If law enforcement officers feel free to blow this off, why should average citizens feel obliged to obey the law?

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Klickitat - the sound that comes from a defective sheriff’s head when failing to properly complete thinking process.

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Klickitat - the sound the Sheriff’s head makes when he hits the floor after falling ill with COVID-19, after dining out with his girlfriend at a local restaurant.

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The sheriff is about half the population.*

Actually he is .005%.

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Well, I’m hereby declaring myself the sheriff of Kittycat County, and as my first Hereby Declaration as sheriff, I’m hereby declaring that the sheriff of Klickitat County is A Idiot.

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I had to double check, and Yep, this is the same sheriff that has signs posted along major highways stating

“ Warning
from Sherriff Bob Songer
If you are selling or using
illegal drugs you better
move out of Klickitat County
or
GO TO JAIL“

Here’s a picture (article is from 2017, the sign in Goldendale at least was still up in the fall of 2019):

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How soon will we be a lawless society? Too many Americans have no idea how government works. The common good has been revoked. Dystopia, Armageddon, whatever.

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What a shock. Fat, old white dude in a cap says “Freedum rules!”

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I can’t figure out why fat guys in uniform with a gun and aviators think they look like Rambo.

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Heretofore and henceforth bar none and in absentia. Amen.

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More like Brian Dennehy’s sheriff in First Blood.

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Apparently, they don’t remember the end (or the late beginning and middle for that matter) of that movie.

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One of my favorite memories is when I stopped and took a piss while looking at the Columbia against a, and I kid you not, scale replica of stone henge that they have there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryhill_Stonehenge.

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The sheriff must not have much of a life if he wants to die for no good reason.

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LOCK HIM UP!
LOCK HIM UP!!
LOCK HIM UP!!!

Damned lawbreakers.

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Arrest him and charge him with obstruction. Enough is enough.

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How far does the belly have to extend over the belt line before someone can run for sheriff in this bozo’s neck of the woods?

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There’s a line of thinking, sort of born out of English Common Law (not that those invoking it would know that), that the Sheriff is the true, ultimate arbiter of the law in his jurisdiction. Because he’s the elected law enforcement official closest to the people, he’s imbued with the right to interpret the laws for their constitutionality. Anyone above that isn’t truly “elected” by the people in this mode of thinking and therefore they lack the jurisdiction to impose their interpretation on the people.

If memory serves, it’s born out of the time when the Shireiff was the King’s designate in a Shire and therefore it was his duty to faithfully interpret and execute the law as an extension of the King’s will. Since we don’t have a King, it’s morphed into a legal free-for-all in the minds of its American adherents.

If Sheriffs were truly able to do these sorts of things, it would make interstate (and intrastate) affairs just about impossible to navigate in any sane way since every jurisdiction could have entirely different Kafkaesque rules for how to conduct business and you would have to know the rules for each jurisdiction where you wanted to do business. It’s basically the point where all libertarian fantasies fall apart. Our federated system makes these sorts of issues barely tolerable and if you empowered individual counties to be able in interpret things on their own, things would quickly become untenable for any sort of medium to large business venture.

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