Republican hypocrisy on looting

Republicans artifacts complaints outrageousOnce again Republicans reveal, through statements by Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, their outrageous hypocrisy by complaining about the police arrests of elderly white people, et al. for looting Indian artifacts. Apparently Hatch and Bennett don't have a problem with white people ripping off the cultural heritage of Native Americans. Nothing in their statements deplored the actual ongoing criminal activity, just the fact that the justice system took action.

Republicans have promoted themselves as the party of "law and order" for decades. What they mean is setting the justice system against the impoverished and people of color to maintain order for their overwhelmingly white constituents.Comment:  Couldn't have said it better myself.

Where were these hypocrites when the United States was breaking treaties and the law to oppress and victimize Native people? Oh, right. They were rooting for the Anglo lawbreakers against the innocent Natives. In other words, they were cheering "the justice system against the impoverished and people of color to maintain order for their overwhelmingly white constituents."

I'm reminded of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, in which he spends a lot of time criticizing government officials for repressing Indians, other minorities, immigrants, workers, et al. Here's a quote from Zinn:[A]t this peaceful demonstration, I was attacked by police mounted on horseback and on foot. Before I knew it, I was clubbed and knocked unconscious. You might say I woke up with a new consciousness. I woke up realizing that things my radical friends had been saying to me were really true, that the police and the government were not detached bystanders, that freedom of speech did not really exist for dissenters, for radicals, for troublemakers. So it gave me a radical view of the United States, a critical view of the role of the state and of the instruments of the state—the police, the Army, and so on—as not being neutral at all in political battles, but being generally against workers and against striking people, against dissenters of all kinds.When was the first time law enforcement officials took the side of the poor huddled masses against the rich white establishment? The forced enrollment of the Little Rock Nine in 1957? Almost 200 years after the Declaration of Independence declared that all (white, property-owning) men are created equal?

Yet here we go again. Conservative officials are squealing like stuck pigs because the government is enforcing the law. Against their own kind, that is. To them the crime isn't looting Indian artifacts. It's arresting people who loot Indian artifacts.

"We can't be criminals. We're upstanding white people just like the Founding Fathers. Call my lawyer at the country club and tell him to do something. Those good-for-nothing Indians are on the warpath again."

As the letter writer said, none of these sniveling conservatives has addressed the actual crimes. None of them has said, "The methods of arrest were too harsh even though the arrests themselves were valid." No, the looters are trying to play their "Get Out of Jail Free" cards. "We're white so you can't arrest us for harming Indians."

For more on the subject, see Natives Against Artifact Thieves and Looters "Outraged" Over Indictments.

Below:  "When I do it to you, it's the law. When you do it to me, it's an outrage."