Autonomous zones seem to have been all the rage lately, but a Republican senator has a plan to ensure the trend goes away and never returns.
On Friday, congresswoman Joni Ernst appeared on Fox News staple Hannity to discuss her new bill that puts the kibosh on lawless territories via defunding cities that allow ’em.
As reported by Fox News, here’s how she explained it to guest host Jason Chaffetz:
“The bill would prevent federal taxpayer dollars from going to those autonomous zones and the mayors and the governors that enable the lawlessness to continue For those mayors that prevent law enforcement from actually going into these areas and policing as they should be doing, we would strip away the federal funding that goes to those cities.”
“Anarchy cannot continue on our streets. If city officials or state leaders fail to do their job and protect their citizens, the federal government — American taxpayers — aren’t going to pay for it.” Sen. Joni Ernst said in a press release.https://t.co/Yxz5ae7Kds
— ❌ italian american 🇺🇸 (@ital_american) June 25, 2020
Joni even served up a pretty good if-then slogan:
“[W]e think it is the right thing to do. We certainly don’t want to enable those areas. If they truly want to be autonomous, then they can exist on their own.”
The Iowa senator’s move comes hot on the heels of Trump’s executive order which, as I covered previously, takes funding from states failing to protect their public monuments.
Here’s a bit more from that article:
The order instructs the DOJ and Attorney General Bill Barr to prosecute anyone who “destroys, damages, vandalizes, or desecrates a monument, memorial, or statue within the United States or otherwise vandalizes government property.”
According to the New York Post, the dictate also extends to “religious property” — specifically Jesus as well as any “other religious figure or religious art works.”
In addition, Bill’s directed to take legal action against “any person or any entity that participates in efforts to incite violence or other illegal activity in connection with the riots and acts of vandalism.”
Back to Joni, she looks at the current state of things — considering some of the country’s riotous revolutionaries — and sees irony:
“[I] think it is actually quite ironic, because we saw with the death of George Floyd a law enforcement officer that had lost the morality, was corrupt, lost all empathy for fellow human beings. And that’s exactly what we see these different groups embracing — is lawlessness, corruption, anarchy. You know, everything that they said that they were against, they are actually practicing in these autonomous zones.”
That brings to mind something I’ve wondered as of late — putting aside all political considerations and implications, where property damage is concerned, whatever happened to the simple principle of “Don’t touch something that isn’t yours”? That seems to have gone out the window. I guess it’s been sacrificed for the notion of a greater cause.
Either way, do we need a federal law against the takeover of public land and the establishment of a sovereign utopia, or has the failure of CHAZ/CHOP already put that dream to bed?
As per Joe Rogan, CHAZ became “exactly the same thing they get mad at when they think about a country” and “had two murders inside of a [dadgum] week.” And now, as noted by RedState’s Nick Arama, Louisville’s shot at pup-tent paradise has seen major gunfire with at least one life tragically lost.
Perhaps autonomous zones are on their way out. But if not — via the Ending Taxpayer Funding of Anarchy Act — Joni Ernst is ready to usher them to the door.
-ALEX
See 3 more pieces from me:
Joe Rogan Chars CHAZ/CHOP: ‘You Guys Had Two Murders Inside of a [Bleeping] Week’
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