AZ Sheriff (Not Joe Arpaio) Will Take County Full Somalia. Congratulations, New Somalia!

From the old "Derp Springs Eternal" file, we bring you news of the remnants of Cliven Bundy Freedom Spring 2014. You may remember former Graham County (Arizona) Sheriff Richard Mack from that little to-do in the Nevada desert; Mack's the guy who came up with the brilliant plan to put all the women at the front of the Bundy lines if a shootout with federal agents broke out, so the world would see how murderous the feds were.

Well, it turns out that Richard Mack is just full of equally brilliant ideas! Last weekend, at a rally in Olympia, Washington, to protest that state's new tyrannical gun law (they require background checks on all gun purchases, which is exactly what led the Founding Fathers to rise up and celebrate the first Hanukkah ), Richard Mack announced his excellent new plan: He's going to get himself elected sheriff of Navajo County in Arizona. Then all the freedom-loving patriots can move there and take over the rest of county government, becoming the most freest county in the whole U.S. of A. And it'll work, too, since Richard Mack is one of those Posse Comitatus-type loons who believe that the highest legitimate office in U.S. America is the county sheriff. Mack even has his very own pretend national group, the "Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association," which agrees with him on this.

Mack urged all right-minded folk at the rally, and around the country, to come help him take over a county so they can Go Galt:

“I want you to carefully, prayerfully consider moving there with me, and I’m serious. You want to live in a free county? You want to live by constitutional law? You want to not be worried about federal government coming in and ruining your lives and families and hauling you off at midnight? Come live with us there,” he said.

He said that the establishment of “constitutional counties” was the last “peaceful” option for the movement to “regain our constitution and freedom in America.”

“If we’re going to take back freedom, we have one opportunity to keep it peaceful, and that is the enforcement of state sovereignty by our sheriffs and by our state and county legislatures,” he said.

Mack has been working with something called the Constitutional County Project, which no doubt has bezillions of members, and they are going to make sure that all sorts of wonderful things happen once they take over. They've got big plans for all kinds of terrific freedom-generating projects, like:

• Encouraging businesses to move to the county by creating a low-tax and low-regulation environment.

• Repealing local and county laws and regulations which are unrelated to protecting individual rights.

• Establishing and enforcing environmental regulations at the county level.

• Using legal and political means to protect the county’s residents against any attempt to un-Constitutionally interfere with peaceable living and enterprise.

It's not entirely clear why Mack and his brain trust think that the 100,000 current residents of Navajo County would embrace them as the liberators they surely are; even with a population density of only 10 people per square mile, it's just possible that several hundred idiots with pickups and guns will be able to take over. Then again, since the population of the county is 43 percent Native American, maybe Mack and his pals assume they're simply used to being shunted off land that white guys with guns can find a better use for.

Still, there's some local support for the idea -- the chairman of the Navajo County GOP is in favor of bringing in the Constitutional County folks, and the idea is also endorsed by Maricopa County GOP chair A.J. LaFaro, the wingnut who had a meltdown over that Latino guy delivering absentee ballots to a polling place. Who'd have imagined that guy would be cheering on a radical loon? We're only surprised Sheriff Joe Arpaio isn't in on this plan. Yet. [contextly_sidebar id="TO85vxpBOejdcSByPi1f4M1nLUsBEtwN"]

Despite such sterling endorsements, it's just possible that even if the gun-humpers actually managed to take over a whole county, the State of Arizona and the federal government might not choose to go along with Mack & Company making up their own environmental regulations and refusing to recognize any outside authority. Then again, who knows -- maybe they'll be persuaded by the sovereign county guys' clear reasoning, and if not, by their guns, which will surely buy them all the freedom they need, especially if they put all the women out front.

[ RightWingWatch ]