…we may hope that prosecutorial discretion will save us: Just explain to the nice prosecutor that we meant no harm, and violated the law by accident, and he or she will drop the charges and tell us to be more careful next time. And sometimes things work that way. But other times, the prosecutors are out to get you for your politics, your ethnicity, or just in order to fulfill a quota, in which case you will hear that the law is the law, and that ignorance is no excuse. (Amusingly, government officials who break the law do get to plead ignorance and good intentions, under the doctrine of good faith “qualified immunity.” Just not us proles.)
I don’t find it all that amusing. The whole federal code needs to be overhauled, in accordance with the Constitution. And it does seem unconstitutional, and a violation of mens rea, to prosecute and convict people for laws that they can’t reasonably be expected to have knowledge of.
“[T]here can be no doubt that the failure of the federal government to secure the borders is costing the states — even those not immediately on the border — millions of dollars in damages each year … [and] the federal government has effectively denied the states any means to protect themselves from these effects.”
Yup. Time for the 10th Amendment to be revived. Finally.
The FAA is taking the first step toward granting them (in a sense). It doesn’t say how big an exclusion zone would be provided. But this is unprecedented. I assume this topic will come up at the conference tomorrow or Thursday.