Rave this if You Think Sheriff Joe Arpaio Is A Douchebag!

Thanks for taking the time to give your reasons for your hatred of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. I appreciate it, but allow me to retort. You say:

"For one thing, Arpaio uses Gestapo tactics when dealing with illegal aliens."

Absolutely false.

Arpaio uses legal and constitutionally acceptable "tactics" in dealing with illegal aliens. Have you paid attention to the recent lawsuit that Arpaio has been defending in court over the past couple weeks? His opponents accusing him of racial profiling and abuse of power are utterly failing to make their case in court, because they -- in fact -- have no case. It's all political theater, nothing more.

The Gestapo used extreme intimidation tactics, violence and even murder against fellow German citizens on the basis of their race (Jews, Gypsies, etc.), or because they were homosexuals, or because they were not as enthusiastically supportive of the ruling Nazi party as the Gestapo thought they should have been.

Arpaio hasn't murdered anyone for being an illegal alien, nor has he tortured or threatened anybody. The objects of Arpaio's attention (as the duly elected Sheriff of Maricopa County) are illegally here. These are not citizens. They do not have constitutional rights and protections. They are all law-breakers (by definition), and some of them are even criminals trying to escape justice in Mexico, or are criminal drug runners and human smugglers.

There is no comparison between Arpaio and the Gestapo. That's nothing more than overwrought partisan political rhetoric, and it's nonsense. The Gestapo was a vicious tool of an evil genocidal, authoritarian state. Arpaio is simply enforcing Arizona and federal law. Unless you're arguing that Arizona or the United States of America is an evil, genocidal, authoritarian state, you're comparison to the Gestapo is ridiculous. And still worse, your comparison of Arpaio's "tactics" and that of the Nazi Gestapo is a disgrace and an insult to the memory and dignity of actual Holocaust survivors/victims and anybody who experienced the brutality and evil of the Nazi regime.

"Then he sends men to Hawaii to investigate President Obamas' birth certificate?"

So what?

"The salaries of the men he sent are paid for by the taxpayer, to take care of Maricopa County business, not flying off on a Hawaiian vacation."

False again. The "Cold Case Posse" that Arpaio sent to Hawaii was entirely volunteer and didn't cost taxpayers a dime. And why the hell do you care anyway? Do you live in Arizona or Maricopa County? It's not your money. I actually live in Maricopa County, Arizona myself and it doesn't bother me that he used a volunteer investigative team. By the way, you say they found nothing but that's not quite true either. I don't think Obama was born outside the United States, but they didn't find "nothing." Did you even bother to read Arpaio's reports or watch the press conferences?

I'm even willing to agree with you that Arpaio is indeed a media blowhard (I've actually called him a media whore in the past) and I don't agree with everything he's ever done by any stretch, but he's not the Gestapo and he's not violating anybody's rights -- constitutional rights or even basic human rights. Making convicted criminals wear pink underwear and banning luxuries such as cable TV for the scum of society isn't a Gestapo tactic and there's nothing stupid about it. The criminals hate it, and I view that as a positive.

We have a saying here in Arizona that the only people who really hate Arpaio are criminals. They hate him. He's the toughest Sheriff in America, and so obviously lawbreakers hate him. But they respect and fear him. I don't know where you live, but shouldn't you want criminals to hate and fear your local Sheriff? Isn't that actually a good and positive testament to his effectiveness?