As I sat down to write today’s column, I initially thought that I might draft a missive on Afghanistan and the mess we see there. I confess, I’m pretty fed up with certain GOPers complaining about leaving too soon while refusing to acknowledge that a certain former president they seem quite fond of is the guy who signed the deal with the Taliban to withdraw now, and who freed from prison the Taliban leader that appears to be the new so-called president of that war-weary nation. I’ve even squabbled with some of my liberal friends over the departure.  I think Biden is doing as good a job as can be done in a very tough situation.

And while there are certain humanitarian imperatives that we must pay attention to (such as our former translators and their families), I strongly feel that 20 years of support and more than 2,300 American lives, and a trillion or two US dollars, is enough. If the Afghans can’t create a stable government in 20 years, what hope is there? If we stayed another couple of years, would that fix things? Twenty more years? Forever? It appears the same folks who did their own “research” on the internet about the COVID vaccine have now magically transformed into foreign policy experts on social media, presumably from similar deep dives into the dark corners of cyberspace, but I digress…

Then I thought I’d write more on the vaccine issues, and how enraged I am to see the aforementioned “experts” who saw on a website that the vaccine has a nanochip and other such nonsense. But such epistles from me are not likely to have convinced anyone who watches Fox and OAN that they should get a shot, so again, I digress…

Instead, as is my apparent want in life, I wish to draw your attention to an obscure story on Colorado Politics that may well have missed your attention, involving the good folks out in Mesa County. Now, you likely have seen Mesa County in the news recently, regarding the GOPers out there engaging in some election shenanigans, I mean “protecting the vote” actions. And while I could write on the significance of one political party being committed to making it harder to vote, instead I want to write about a legal issue going on out there involving the chief judge out there. For it is in these tiny and unpublicized cases that we often find some of the most important tests of the degree to which we actually support the Constitution (see Gideon v. Wainwright for an amazing example of this). And that is because one’s belief in the principles of that remarkable document are only truly tested when they are applied to those for whom we have, if not contempt, at least great concerns.

In Mesa County, a man who had had several protection orders taken out against him was arrested several times after his release from prison on various charges regarding violating the conditions of the existing protection orders. The only problem was that all those orders had expired. He was arrested for violating non-existent orders. The chief judge out there got named in a lawsuit about the apparently unlawful arrests.

Now, I suspect that most of us feel some sympathy for the government officials involved here. If a guy has had several orders of protection against him, the chances are he’s not a very nice fellow. But here’s the thing: shouldn’t government, at all levels, be required to follow the law? What if, say, you yourself had just gotten out of jail for some action you took (feel free to make yourself the hero of this story), and after you had served your time and returned home, you were arrested without legal justification? Would you be outraged? I’m guessing, yes.

There are some technical issues in this case, such as how a court is to know that protective orders have all expired and how local law enforcement can know the same. Those are legitimate questions. But the gentleman in question ended up spending time in jail on several occasions due to being arrested wrongfully. 

I have previously mounted my rickety soapbox to proclaim the idea that our nation is only strong and noble when it defends the rights of everyone, even those we find to be vile and disgusting. We must, for example, support the right of people to, say, burn an American flag as an act of free speech, because the government must never be allowed to define which political speech is OK and which is not. We are only protected when we are all protected. 

And so, this fellow who spent time in jail and had multiple protective orders against him is not likely to be a very nice guy. Chances are we don’t want to hang out with him. But the Constitution doesn’t allow us to alter the fundamental laws and principles of our nation because we don’t like the person they seem to be helping. If the protection orders are expired, either leave the guy alone or get a new one. As a former (military) law enforcement officer myself, I submit that we must lean over backwards to ensure the rights of everyone, even a likely-unlikeable guy from Mesa County. 

Sometimes true justice sticks in your craw a bit.