Having a problem with people trespassing on your land, vandalizing it, stealing things, and just generally causing a nuisance? Well whatever you do, don’t you dare actually try to detain them so that you can contact the proper authorities. Especially if those people are crossing the US/Mexican border illegally on to your land; they might sue you for millions of dollars. I want to make it clear that this is about the stupid law involved in this incident. I’m not trying to turn this in to a political debate over the hot topic of illegal immigration. My argument is simply that this is another example of how broken the civil law system truly is.
I’m not sure who to be more offended at: some legal action group who feels it is necessary to make political points by bringing civil action on behalf of people they don’t care about beyond their ability to use them for their own political gain. Or perhaps my loathing should be reserved for the judge who allowed these proceedings to continue, wasting more of the courts time and money on frivolous trials. Yes, this trial is frivolous. Ignore the obscene monetary value that they are seeking and look first at the fact that these people were trespassing on his land, all he did was detain them long enough for the authorities to respond. Sure, he threatened them, but if a bunch of people are illegally on your land in the middle of the night your first instinct most likely isn’t going to be to make them tea and cupcakes. You’re protecting the things you have worked hard for in life, and making threats isn’t exactly something that is a stretch of the imagination in that situation. The fact is he didn’t shoot them. He didn’t let the dog loose on them. He did, however, make them believe that he was capable of these things, but what’s wrong with that? What’s the point of a guard dog or a weapon if people don’t believe you actually are willing to use it. He merely created in their minds the belief that he was capable of taking more severe action. If the claim is true that he actually kicked one of the women, not in self-defense, then yes, I believe that one woman alone has a valid claim to press criminal or civil charges against the rancher (however not to the tune of millions of dollars).
Let’s talk about the millions of dollars. How do you come to that kind of figure in the first place? Are the lawyers bold enough to make some potential lost wages claims against the rancher? Are they willing to say that by not allowing them to illegally enter the country he prevented their potential future livelihood? They were entering the country illegally, they had no expectation of work, or any associated freedoms. Yes some basic civil rights do apply. Merely shooting them would constitute murder. Locking them in some basement for weeks on end would be unlawful detainment. However holding them in the field while calling for the authorities, to me, seems like a reasonable course of action. When committing a crime, in this case illegally crossing the border, you have to know that there are potential consequences – your are, in fact, a criminal. It’s another case of the criminals perceived rights being more important than the fact that they were committing a crime. To expect, now that you’ve been caught, to be rewarded by millions of dollars is, at best, insane.
One can hope that the men and the woman of the jury are as offended by the lawsuit as I am. That they can see it is without merit (though there is a potential argument on behalf of the woman who was kicked), that the illegal immigrants are without legal standing in this matter. However with the politically correct and bleeding heart nature that has become more prevalent in our culture one cannot be assured that some people on that jury won’t lend credibility to the plaintiffs and actually believe that they were somehow wronged. Should it come to that I can only hope that they settle on a more reasonable figure, perhaps on the price of bus tickets back to their town of choice in Mexico.
Just a Man with a Mash Paddle 