Denver Mayor Mike Johnston got himself some national attention recently, and not in the most positive way, for some comments he made soon after the election concerning the incoming administration’s promise to do the heretofore unthinkable — begin enforcing federal immigration laws. Said the mayor: “More than us having (the Denver Police Department) stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there… It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right? You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them.”

Well. The mayor evidently soon decided it might not have been such a great idea to impart a moral equivalence between Communist China’s act of official state savagery in mowing down peaceful (actually peaceful, not “mostly peaceful”) student protestors, and American federal law enforcement officers doing their jobs enforcing laws duly made by a democratically elected legislative body in accordance with the Constitution. In a subsequent interview he walked the comments back a bit, saying: “Would I have taken it back if I could? Yes, I probably wouldn’t have used that image. That’s the image I hope we can avoid. What I was trying to say is this is an outcome I hope we can avoid in this country. I think none of us want that.”

Yes, just to be clear, nobody in America wants tanks rolling over citizens. Check.

The mayor then went a step further, and in yet another interview tacitly agreed with the Donald Trump administration’s stated priority concerning deportation of illegals: “I think our line is clear. We think if you are a violent criminal (who) is committing serious crimes like murder or rape in Denver, you should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and you should be deported. We support that, we have always supported that, we’ll continue supporting, that we’ve worked with previous administrations on that we will do it going forward.” Good to hear.

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Johnston said some other things as well, including how he would happily go to jail to prevent the feds from carrying out their enforcement actions.

Now, this is the kind of foolish and unserious talk that punctuates an overheated political landscape, and prompted equally foolish and unserious responses from the Trump camp. Unserious or not, the whole episode does generate questions which deserve pondering.

What is it exactly Mayor Johnston proposes risking incarceration for? Thwarting the enforcement of duly enacted federal laws? Okay, perhaps he believes those laws are morally wrong. A lot of folks went to jails in the 1960s for staging sit-ins at white-only lunch counters and other acts of civil disobedience in pursuit of civil rights laws. Others have been jailed for blocking the doors of abortion clinics. Credit to Johnston at least for recognizing in doing what he proposes he would, in fact, be breaking the law, and doing so in a liberal democracy has consequences.

But let’s carry the thought a step further; would he display the same enthusiasm for curtailing other federal laws? Suppose, per impossible, Denver elected a mayor of a different political persuasion who decided to take such a stand to block, say, federal firearms laws. Or enforcement of corporate tax law.

And is it only federal laws that ought to be subject to such discriminate local approval? What if a smaller town mayor, or board of county commissioners decides the state’s oil and gas permitting policies are economically immoral. Or vehicle registration? One need not travel this road too long before finding oneself in a rather dark place.

The concept of “sanctuary cities” — enclaves of protection from certain laws — have always been something of an affront to the rule of law, whether incorporated to impart sanctuary from immigration laws or, in a more recent iteration, from certain gun laws. Democrats have become rather vocal about the importance of rue of law in recent years, in some cases quite correctly — in regard to Jan. 6 2021, for instance. And, it is fair to note, at least three of Colorado’s top Democrat’s — Gov. Jared Polis, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, and U.S. Rep. Jason Crow — displayed commendable consistency in condemning President Biden’s tawdry and scandalous abandonment of his promise not to pardon his son, Hunter. But it is impossible to escape the sense the concept of “rule of law” is embraced by some on the left only when politically agreeable.

Mayor Johnston’s comments were unserious, prompted, perhaps necessitated, by the political temperature of the moment. But the mayor is a reasonable man, and will come around. Serious thought will have to go into what to do about the almost geologically ordained porosity of the 2,000-mile southern border, and what to do about those who enter America athwart America’s laws. Following through on existing deportation orders and deporting violent criminals, as is the priority of President-elect Trump — and Mayor Johnston — seems an appropriate first step. No tanks or civil disobedience needed.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.