By Doug Newman – email me here.
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The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism. — Supreme Court Justice David Davis, Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

Conservatives are a lot like the liberals they claim to diametrically oppose: they are in total denial about the real world implications of their favorite government programs.

Consider, for just a few minutes, what Donald Trump’s plan to round up and deport 11 million illegal immigrants in 2 years would look like in real life. It ought to scare the crap out of just about anybody.

Let’s do the math. Deporting 11 million illegal aliens in 2 years – or 730 days – would mean arresting 15,068 per day every day, which equals 628 every hour, which equals 10.46 every minute, which equals one every 5.7 seconds.

And a president could not do this without approval from both houses of congress and due process through the courts. The Bill of Rights does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens. Its protections apply equally to both. If they do not protect Julio, the accused illegal alien in the Rio Grande Valley, they do not protect you either. They apply regardless of accusation or any particular political climate. They apply to everyone or they don’t apply to anyone.

To deny due process – to assume that we can just accuse, arrest and deport people – is to make an unspeakably dangerous and – I’ll just say it – STUPID assumption. It requires assuming that government officials – or at least those officials that you like – are always right and would never ever overstep their bounds.

Conservatives insist that they hate and distrust the government. Yet too many of them actually place total blind unthinking trust in certain segments of the government.

Trump says he can go around the courts here. Presidents of constitutional republics cannot go around the courts. Tyrants, despots and dictators disregard the legislative and judicial branches of government.

To assume that Trump’s deportation plan won’t happen without widespread reckless violations of everyone’s civil liberties is just as naïve and – I’ll just say it again – STUPID as assuming that Obama was going to give us all free healthcare or that Bernie Sanders is going to give us anything for free.

Is that what Trump supporters want? The fact that so many people have placed blind unthinking trust in an aspiring tyrant like Trump is even scarier than his deportation plan.

Trump is a profoundly dangerous man – more so than any other candidate. And that is saying something. Whether he stays in the Republican Party or makes an independent or third party run, he must be stopped.

And, if elected, he must be resisted.