Under the order, private businesses can choose to display signage indicating that ICE cannot enter without a warrant—thereby designating “their property as part of a city-wide network of community spaces that stand together in affirming the safety, dignity, and belonging of all of our residents,” the mayor said.
Johnson touted the order for building “a broad civic shield that limits the reach of harmful enforcement practices. It strengthens neighborhood solidarity and it reaffirms Chicago’s role as a welcoming city.”
Who says who can and can’t dictate policy now? There are no longer any rules. Laws are violated continuously by the very government that is supposed to follow and enforce them. The Constitution is nothing but a piece of paper now. A right-wing authoritarian power, enthusiastically supported by at least a third of the populace, has control of all three branches of the federal government. Troops are being deployed against the residents of states and cities the regime doesn’t like. The federal funding they are owed is being withheld. There is no more “you can’t do that”, there’s only strategy and tactics on how to deal with the situation. The available options are shrinking every day.
NYT just ran an article today, interviewing academics who study countries that have slid from Democracy into Authoritarianism
Quote from Prof. Sean Westwood :
Strategy and tactics tell us that your idea is not realistic. You need to understand that laws are threats of violence and the last person to speak in any situation is the person holding the biggest gun. The mayor of Chicago cannot out gun the federal government and it’s nonsense to suggest he should try.
“Resistance is Futile” is a catchy philosophy, but not exactly a convincing one.
That’s not what I said at all. He is resisting. But he isn’t talking about arresting Federal agents like an online idiot who doesn’t know how anything works.
Pardon me for living in reality.
That sure is what it sounds like you’re saying, and while votes on lemmy are largely meaningless, they do seem to indicate that most people share the interpretation of your message that I’ve arrived at. Is it possible you’re not expressing your position as clearly as you think?
I can see how my first comment might not have been clear, but surely I can’t get much clearer than “That’s not what I said at all”. It sounds like you’re suggesting that your interpretation of my comment is what I meant regardless of what I was trying to say.
The mayor’s plan of “Ice free zones” is a great strategy because it sets up the inevitable court case. Regardless of what anyone on Lemmy thinks, the guy talking about “There are no rules anymore” is the doomer, not me.
There are, in fact, rules, and we either use the courts or [redacted so I don’t get banned]. Police officers arresting ICE is not on the table both due to federal supremacy and also because cops are fascists anyway and most are pretty happy about what ICE is doing. If you think cops are going to save you, you haven’t been paying attention.
Okay, I think part of the pushback you’re getting is due to you being just flat wrong about how local / state / federal law enforcement interaction works - a state municipality can absolutely arrest federal LEOs. It happens, not with frequency but it is not unknown by any means.
This situation is largely unprecedented in the political landscape but legally it’s completely feasible for the Chicago mayor to do what’s being proposed, and while I do doubt CPD would choose not to be their usual bastard selves, in a great deal of recent reporting they do appear to be siding with the city over ICE (or at least, not siding with ICE over the city. Which is shockingly egalitarian by their standards, really).