Dispatch from the Realm of Common Sense

And a Notable Absence

In a grand display of legal gumption, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, with a hearty contingent of fourteen fellow attorneys general from states far and wide—Georgia, West Virginia, Mississippi, Iowa, North Dakota, Florida, Oklahoma, Montana, Louisiana, Indiana, Missouri, Utah, South Dakota, and Kansas—put their names to a letter that might as well have been titled, “We’re Watching You, and We Ain’t Pleased.”

The missive, addressed to Leo Terrell, chief of the Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, was a full-throated cheer for the renewed efforts to ensure that America’s immigration laws get enforced with the same vigor as a frontier marshal handling unruly desperadoes. The AGs, taking a moment to remind everyone that the past few years have not exactly been a golden age of law and order, heaped praise upon the Task Force for taking a firm hand where the previous administration had, in their view, let things meander like a lazy river.

The letter lamented the freewheeling atmosphere on college campuses, where foreign students with the privilege of an American education have, according to the AGs, taken it upon themselves to behave as if their student visas were a license to promote terror and treason. The signers declared that the days of hand-wringing were over, and it was time to start considering whether such behavior warranted a swift exit from our fair republic.

As an illustrative example, they pointed to the recent arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian national with a knack for violent radical campus demonstrations, as proof that such concerns were not the stuff of overactive imaginations.

“Your early efforts to hold both bad actors and universities accountable for tolerating and fostering anti-Semitic activity on campus are laudable, recognized, and appreciated,” the letter proclaimed, in a tone that suggested this was but the first volley in a campaign.

In a forthcoming interview, Wilson sought to clarify that while Americans enjoy the sacred right to say foolish things, there are limits to that freedom, particularly when speech veers into the realm of incitement and mayhem.

“Can you imagine,” he asked, with a rhetorical flourish fit for a courtroom, “if someone were out there passing out KKK or white supremacist propaganda to advocate for the open lynching of blacks? That’s horrible and evil, but that’s basically what this is.”

Now, lest anyone assume all state attorneys general were marching in lockstep on this issue, one notable name was absent from the list—Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford. His absence was left unremarked in the letter, but for those reading between the lines, it carried the weight of an ellipsis followed by a knowing glance.

And so, the letter has been sent, the battle lines drawn, and the message made plain–in this new era, there will be less tolerance for the intolerable, and those inclined toward stirring up trouble may find their welcome in these United States short-lived.