Light the fire

My son is a financial planner and advisor but he spent yesterday morning talking to clients who are homeless due to the Waldo Canyon fire near Colorado Springs.  “We didn’t talk much about their savings but rather about how they could cope and to offer my house and office as a place to regroup.”  The fire is in Waldo Canyon, just up US 24 highway from Manitou Springs to Woodland Park.  The hills are full of gorgeous mountain homes as well as many tourist attractions.  But as of today, 10,000 people have been evacuated, Garden of the Gods, Cave of the Winds, North Pole are closed and the famous Pikes Peak Hill Climb may have to be cancelled.

Moreover, the fire was manmade.  Aerial photos reveal that the first burn was around a tent area at Palmer Lake, but it was not one but about a dozen fires that broke out almost all at once.  When fires break out in close succession this often indicates an arsonist or group, a pyromaniac, who just wants to see a lot of action.  But the multiple starts, so close to the outskirts of Colorado Springs as well as some buzz authorities have been picking up on the net have spawned another theory--Islamoterrorism.  Apparently that is what is being noted on several suspect Islamic websites.  A pyromaniac doesn’t try to kill people around a city.  But the close quarters to prime homes, multiple starts, and choice of Springs--headquarters of six military bases and NORAD--would seem like a good target for a radical group.  We’ll just have to watch how this plays out.  Meanwhile we have thousands of displaced folks, and unlike a hurricane or tornado, you can’t go back the next day.  Fires like this often last weeks or months.  The Hayman fire of 10 years ago, which was primarily in wilderness in Teller County, lasted 4 months.  Even if your house escapes destruction, the smoke is unbearable and you must leave.

And of course this coincides with the Supreme Court agreeing with part of Arizona’s 1070 law and part being struck down.  The important part, the ability of the state to ask for identification and determine if a person who was held for probable cause was here legally was upheld 8-0.  But the other parts of the law that ask for employment verification were not.  This is not surprising.  After all, a legal alien is required to carry their ID (so-called green card) at all times. And participation in a crime is grounds for deportation.  Hence if someone is held for probable cause, it is no stretch to see why all the Supremes agreed that the state can ask questions.  But, of course, Obama hates this.  He continually lies about how you could take your kid out for ice cream and find yourself deported.  Not true since this stop-and-demand for ID has never been part of AZ law. So, in a snit, the administration said that if AZ calls-in a case for ID verification, they won’t answer.  AZ has been singled out.

That gets really ugly then.  Suppose the Waldo Canyon fire wasn’t at Springs, but near Flagstaff.  Or suppose some terrorist incident occurred at Tempe Stadium.  And suppose ICE still wasn’t answering the phone from AZ.  What then?  Should AZ call a sheriff in St. George, Utah for help in asking identity of a captured and suspected foreign terrorist?  Could the lack of cooperation between AZ and federal authorities lead to no arrest and an eventual larger terror incident in say, Chicago? Not that we couldn’t survive say, the thermonuclear erasure of a metropolitan area, but we surely cannot survive a government that snidely smirks at our Constitution.

What would our ancestors say to a ruler who refuses to execute the laws of the land?  Maybe something like, “He has refused his assent to laws…He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people…the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without…obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners[these latest immigration policies]…He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual [midnight Christmas Obamacare passage]…obstructed the administration of justice [Holder/Fast and Furious]…He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their Substance [EPA, Labor,16000 new IRS agents]…He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws [UN Agency 21]…imposing taxes on us without our Consent [healthcare mandates ‘made up’ by HHS]…taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws [Auto bailout and bank bailouts violated time-honored contract law]…declaring themselves Invested with power to legislate for us in all cases [judges who legislate from bench as per New London]…A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be ruler of a Free People.”—Declaration of Independence, 1776.

I dunno.  What do you think they’d say? I think it is time for a fire, a voter’s fire, Nov. 6.  And I’d let it burn all the way to Washington, DC.