"You don’t defeat terrorists by adopting their tactics" - Del. Bob Marshall

February 23, 2012 5:47 AM

"The legislative goal of HB1160 is to codify in Virginia law noncompliance with...section 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA)."

"The official summary of 1160:

'A BILL to prevent any agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of Virginia from assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the investigation, prosecution, or detention of a citizen in violation of the United States Constitution, the Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation.' "

Maryland, Tennessee, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Washington have introduced similar legislation.

posted by dubold (36 comments total)

First part seems decent, this part "...the Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation." seems borderline secessionist
posted by edgeways at 5:57 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Delegate Bob Marshall is also on record as believing that disabled kids are God's way of punishing us for allowing abortions. It doesn't mean he can't have a good idea, but he certainly doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. He was also solidly in support of the failed effort to require intra-vaginal ultrasounds prior to abortions here in VA.

He's a right-wing nut job of the highest order. But he is kind of right about this issue.
posted by COD at 6:06 AM on February 23, 2012 [4 favorites]

He's also the sponsor of Virginia's HB1 which grants personhood rights to "unborn children."
posted by peeedro at 6:09 AM on February 23, 2012

So this law would prevent...what? Imposition of Sharia Law? Forced integration? It sure wouldn't prevent federal prosecution of medical marijuana, since that's an FBI thing (i.e. not "an agency of the armed forces").
posted by DU at 6:14 AM on February 23, 2012

Well, it reeks of State's Rights, so I would guess racism is somewhere in the background, but....
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:18 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Even a broke-ass clock is right twice a day. Good lookin' out, Bob. I swear I never thought I'd say that.
posted by joedanger at 6:20 AM on February 23, 2012 [7 favorites]

I have to imagine there are some Supremacy clause issues here.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:21 AM on February 23, 2012

Color me surprised. Even a blind pig, and all that...

I'm so used to the Virginia legislature do the exact wrong thing, that I kinda find this hard to believe. I'm going to have to read the fine print very carefully, because the term "stalking horse" keeps popping in my head.

Marshall previously reported that Governor Bob McDonnell is opposing this legislation.

Well, the crazy train is still in the station, anyway.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 6:22 AM on February 23, 2012

So this law would prevent...what?

Seems that they don't want the army acting as law enforcement of any kind. They just know better than to try and block them from federal law enforcement.

I don't think the army should be doing routine law enforcement inside the US. The police are at least nominally trained to match up actions with the templates of criminal activity. The Army is trained to bring down whoever their commanders identify as the enemy.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:25 AM on February 23, 2012

I don't think the army should be doing routine law enforcement inside the US.

The NDAA does no such thing, so that's a red herring.
posted by spaltavian at 6:27 AM on February 23, 2012 [2 favorites]

So this law would prevent...what? Imposition of Sharia Law? Forced integration?

I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but it's a stunt, and it's not really enforceable.
posted by empath at 6:27 AM on February 23, 2012

Seems that they don't want the army acting as law enforcement of any kind. ... I don't think the army should be doing routine law enforcement inside the US.

I agree with what you think and with what you think they want. But that's not what this law says.
posted by DU at 6:28 AM on February 23, 2012

But that's not what this law says.

Don't forget the signing statement.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:35 AM on February 23, 2012

..the Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation." seems borderline secessionist

... or that violates my religious views,


... or offends my moral conscience in any way whatsoever,



(no matter how kooky)


Oh fuck-it, I just wanna do what I wanna do and you can take your federal laws and stuff them.....
posted by caddis at 6:39 AM on February 23, 2012

The only thing I can think of that this law would even purport to prohibit is assisting with courts-martial against servicepeople in NOVa and Tidewater that would in some way go against Virginia law.

Oh wait - conceivably it might also prohibit people working for Virginia from answering questions as part of someone's security clearance application.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:44 AM on February 23, 2012

You have no idea how angry I am at the Obama administration for forcing me to find common cause with the exact same people who yesterday were insisting women who wanted to end a pregnancy had to submit to a vaginal probe first.
posted by Naberius at 6:48 AM on February 23, 2012 [5 favorites]

This got me to thinking. We've mentioned Obama playing 11-dimensional chess before here on the blue. What if Obama realized he could get the Republicans to do anything - anything at all. All he has to do is support some measure, and the Right will fall all over themselves lining up against it.

Hate NDAA? Sign it.

Now instead of the Right questioning anyone's patriotism for being "against America" and "supporting Islamofascism", we have them banging the big-government-new-world-order drums.

Get them all on record for being against NDAA, and they either continue to fight it - or they change their minds when the political winds change, and you beat 'em up as flip-floppers later. If they support NDAA, you've driven a wedge into their own party, and they eat their own.

That's the problem with - or what's so great about - ideologues. They are so predictable.
posted by Xoebe at 6:49 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

...they change their minds when the political winds change, and you beat 'em up as flip-floppers later.

This would be a workable theory if anybody ever "beat up" Republicans or if their supporters had attention spans longer than the flip-flop length. Has anyone been beating up Newt for infidelity or Mitt for socialism or Santorum for imposition of theocracy?
posted by DU at 6:55 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Delegate Bob Marshall is one of the most fascinating characters in Virginia politics. You'll find him quietly moving about Capitol Square with a Nikon SLR in his hand. (He mails other Delegates copies of photos, but they aren't allowed to use them in attack mail.) Every year he tops the charts with the number of bills he puts in.

Delegate Marshall is a total loon--but he is a consistent loon. He was Tea Partying before there was a Tea Party. Besides his headline-grabbing social conservatism (he once tried to ban in-vitro fertilization for single women, and said that Plan B turns "coeds" into "chemical love canals for frat-house playboys."), he has always maintained a devotion to keeping The Government from dealing with things in secret and trampling on Liberty.

He will never be in leadership because he has called out Virginia Republicans when they strayed from the Liberty standard. A few years ago, when they voted to keep subcommittee voice votes unrecorded, he was the only Republican to stand with Democrats. Voting along party loyalty lines for the sake of party loyalty doesn't strike him as terribly important.

He tries to make up for this with an intricate understanding of Jefferson's Manual, which governs the House rules, bucking his party a few years ago to force a discharge vote on a bill mandating insurance companies cover autism care. Under VA House rules, a bill killed in committee can be brought straight to the floor if a majority votes for a motion to discharge the bill. He knew it wouldn't work, but he wanted to force a floor vote to hang his colleagues, many Republicans, up on the tote board.

Regardless, he is the single most backwards, reactionary social conservative in the Commonwealth. He was the lead sponsor of the Marshall-Newman amendment, which is better known as the gay marraige ban passed in 2006. He fights to eliminate any all rights he could find for them. He seems to have let up on homosexuality lately because there isn't much left for him to do!

Politicos on both sides can't underestimate him. He came within 7 votes of hijacking a nominating convention for Senate in 2008 and seizing the nomination. He's back this year, with Tea Party blessing, to go after George Allen.

Now, I'm a staunch Democrat, but I will say that he's one of the few men that truly sticks to what he believes in. As someone who's spent a bit of time working in politics, that's a trait I can respect.

He's principled, whip-smart, and wily--Virginia's finest mind of the 17th century. It's too bad we don't have a principled, whip-smart liberal, equally as extreme in the Democratic party, to light up floor debates and remind the frequently supine and helpless Democrats what they're made of.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 6:56 AM on February 23, 2012 [13 favorites]

... he has always maintained a devotion to keeping The Government from ... trampling on Liberty.

Well, clearly he doesn't want The Government to trample on the liberty of people (i.e. men), but non-people (i.e. women) don't have any liberty to be trampled, so they are fair game.
posted by pbrim at 7:20 AM on February 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

@pbrim - Yeah, exactly. Capital-L Tea Party "Liberty."
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 7:24 AM on February 23, 2012

Has anyone been beating up Newt for infidelity or Mitt for socialism or Santorum for imposition of theocracy?

What is Steven Colbert? OK, I'll take "Tea Party Auto-Immolation" for $1000.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:42 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

That's the problem with - or what's so great about - ideologues. They are so predictable.


You're describing the opposite of ideologues, you're talking about partisans.
posted by empath at 7:54 AM on February 23, 2012

Stay classy Virgina.
posted by stormpooper at 8:03 AM on February 23, 2012

This looks, on one hand, like a pretty straightforward nod to the Lizard People / North American Union / REX-84 / "FEMA Camp" conspiracy theorists.

On the other hand it seems like it's probably not a bad idea anyway, and might prohibit some creepy information-sharing between state-level agencies in Virginia and the Federal government. I.e., it would give someone working at a state agency a good excuse with which to justify a refusal to cooperate with an investigation that they believed was in violation of either the US or Virginia Constitution or law and that might lead to someone being illegally detained.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:56 AM on February 23, 2012

I can't believe all the people who are saying this is a good idea. It's a blatant attempt at state sovereignty over the federal government. Think about voting rights, civil rights. If the state implements a poll tax, returns to prohibiting interracial marriage, whatever...

Now, you could argue that it's not going to interfere with normal law enforcement, but the civil rights movement require intervention of the National Guard, which would have come into conflict with this kind of law.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:10 AM on February 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

"is a total loon--but he is a consistent loon."

This was the only reason I respected Jesse Helms as well. He was as bigoted and xenophobic as one could be. But he was consistently so.

This of course is "old school" politics, in that people actually had their own morals, stuck to them, and were proud of them. Nowadays people have their own morals, ignore them during elections, and then either backtrack or over-complicate things to benefit themselves for the rest of their political career.

I believe this is also the argument Huxley's Brave New World predicted. In that there is too much information to digest in order to understand what's actually going on.
posted by Blue_Villain at 9:11 AM on February 23, 2012

It sure wouldn't prevent federal prosecution of medical marijuana

The first link of the post is to is to the Tenth Amendment Center. One of their pages addresses this:

An honest reading of the Constitution with an original understanding of the Founders and Ratifiers makes it quite clear that the federal government has no constitutional authority to override state laws on marijuana.

All three branches of the federal government, however, have interpreted (and re-interpreted) the commerce clause of the Constitution to authorize them to engage in this activity, even though there’s supposedly no “legal” commerce in the plant. At best, these arguments are dubious; at worst an intentional attack on the Constitution and your liberty.
posted by dubold at 9:13 AM on February 23, 2012

it would give someone working at a state agency a good excuse with which to justify a refusal to cooperate with an investigation that they believed was in violation of either the US or Virginia Constitution or law and that might lead to someone being illegally detained.


or serve as a convenient excuse for political protectionism. Oh sorry my town of
Wherethehellisit just passed a law saying we don't need to hand over XYZ felon because he gave us $100 and is the son of the mayor.

the ONLY thing that makes me not completely flip out about the proposal is the bit that seems to limit lack of cooperation to the US armed forces, which as already noted probably shouldn't be engaging in law enforcement activities within the US anyways.

But it does sort of seem foot-in-the-doory
posted by edgeways at 9:16 AM on February 23, 2012

the civil rights movement require intervention of the National Guard

If you're thinking of Little Rock, that wasn't the NG. That was the 101st Motherfucking Airborne.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:29 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

any agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of Virginia...

Is this supposed to mean any servicemember from Virginia or that Virginia has its own military (which I guess means the reserves or the National Guard)?
posted by psoas at 10:52 AM on February 23, 2012

This was the only reason I respected Jesse Helms as well. He was as bigoted and xenophobic as one could be. But he was consistently so.

I see this kind of thing expressed now and then, but I've always failed to understand it. I don't know that consistency or sincerity are necessarily virtues by themselves, or such virtues, that the despicable or crazy are due respect just by being consistently despicable or crazy.

Regardless of whatever might be the merits of such a bill, it's pretty obvious that there is more than a whiff of secessionism about this one.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:26 AM on February 23, 2012

Respect does not predicate agreement. I can respect a politician while thinking his/her opinions are insane.

Unfortunately, the modern voter doesn't even have the chance to choose that sort of thing because the modern politic involves documents like this one, which nobody can discern any sort of real meaning from.
posted by Blue_Villain at 12:47 PM on February 23, 2012

So this law would prevent...what? Imposition of Sharia Law? Forced integration? It sure wouldn't prevent federal prosecution of medical marijuana, since that's an FBI thing (i.e. not "an agency of the armed forces"). --DU

It would prevent employees of the Virginia government helping the federal government detain foreigners (or possibly American citizens) indefinitely without trial.

You could try reading dude. Or like, remembering stuff.

Of course the law in question mainly relates to people overseas (but possibly American citizens overseas) so local Virginia law would be largely irrelevant.

This got me to thinking. We've mentioned Obama playing 11-dimensional chess before here on the blue. What if Obama realized he could get the Republicans to do anything - anything at all. All he has to do is support some measure, and the Right will fall all over themselves lining up against it.

That's ridiculous. First of all, the GOP lead on this, it's something Obama 'capitulated' too, remember? He said he opposed before signing it. So if his goal was 'reverse psychology' it was a terrible strategy.
posted by delmoi at 6:19 PM on February 23, 2012

You could try reading dude.

Physician, heal thyself.

Try this: read the fucking FPP. Not the link, just the FPP itself, that contains the official summary that says it applies to citizens. It takes less than a second.

Maybe you don't know how accurate the official summary is. In that case, dubold provided you with a link to the actual text of the bill, which makes it clear that it applies only to actions against citizens.

I mean, really.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:01 PM on February 23, 2012

Obama 'vetos' NDAA military detention provisions.
posted by empath at 9:48 AM on March 5, 2012