Nineteenth-century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz remarked that war is a mere continuation of policy by other means. Here in the 21st century, we are much more civilised: when politics ends, we don’t resort to war, we just try to put our political opponents in jail.
The latest example of ‘lawfare’ followed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s decision to fly 48 illegal immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a playground for the rich and self-proclaimed ‘sanctuary city’ for illegal immigration.
It is fair to ask how any of this involved Florida, the state of which DeSantis is actually governor, but the funds for the enterprise were legally appropriated by Florida’s legislature. The flight was part of a broader trend of governors along the Mexican border attempting to shift the burden of record-breaking illegal immigration from impoverished border towns to the rich cities and states that support a lenient policy on the border.
If they can’t get him on misusing state funds, and they can’t defeat him in his upcoming reelection bid (which seems to be the case, based on polling) DeSantis’s enemies will take the Clausewitzian approach and throw him in jail, if they can. A much retweeted thread by Left-wing pundit Judd Legum laid out the road map for jailing the Republican governor: by offering these people a ride under what he alleges are false pretences, Legum says, DeSantis is guilty of “fraud or kidnapping.” A Democratic sheriff in Texas seems interested in the idea.
The first indication that this might not stand up to scrutiny is that Legum does not even know what crime he thinks DeSantis committed. Fraud and kidnapping are two very different crimes!
Kidnapping, in Texas law, is when someone ‘intentionally or knowingly abducts another person.’ That same section of the code defines ‘abduction’ as ‘to restrain a person with intent to prevent his liberation by (A) secreting or holding him in a place where he is not likely to be found; or (B) using or threatening to use deadly force.’
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