The enemy.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio isn't the only Maricopa County official who regularly makes an arrogant ass of himself; the County Attorney's office has done a pretty good job of it too. Andrew Thomas was the County Attorney who helped Arpaio erect his police state, giving legal cover to the sheriff's most discriminatory and vindictive practices. But then Thomas was
disbarred for being such an overzealous, unethical, bigoted dickhead. He resigned in 2010 to run for attorney general but his racism in the name of Christ was even too much for Arizona's Republicans, and he lost in the primary.
After Thomas resigned to run for AG, Bill Montgomery won the County Attorney seat in a special election, even though former Republicans who held the office endorsed the Democrat. It's no wonder: Montgomery is another Christian fundy who's as looney as the rightwing zealots at the legislature. Remember Arizona's version of the Indiana LGBT discrimination bill that Gov. Brewer vetoed last year? Montgomery not only endorsed it but testified at the legislature in support of the vile POS.
Montgomery shifts his ugly attack to veterans over the orange cloud.
So last week County Attorney Montgomery appeared at a Republican Women's event alongside attorney Marc Victor to debate the decriminalization of marijuana. Arizona legalized medical pot in 2010, a ballot proposition approved by voters. Of course Gov. Jan Brewer and many in our birdbrained legislature, always thinking they know better than citizens, tried to nullify the vote with a lawsuit but failed—like nearly everything they do.
Montgomery's been on an anti-pot crusade since he assumed office. He joined the governor in trying to overturn the medical marijuana vote. Once it became law, the righteous ninny said he'd still prosecute medical users because the measure violates federal policy (about the only federal policy Arizona will follow). Montgomery even tried to deny a very young girl the extract from marijuana, which is the only medicine that relieves her seizures. The courts told him to take a flying leap. Montgomery also prosecuted people for eating pot candy he maintains is not covered under the medical law, more windmill tilting that the courts rejected. Needless to say, the people and courts be damned, County Attorney Bill Montgomery is no fan of the reefer.
Now two groups are spearheading efforts to put recreational pot on the 2016 ballot, similar to the Colorado law. County Attorney Montgomery doesn't think that's a good idea because God. That's right, he dragged the Old Testament into his anti-pot spiel at the debate.
Montgomery said the debate about marijuana legalization reminds him of a story about a garden and an apple "that started with a promise that you could eat this apple and nothing bad will occur."
So Adam and Eve eat the apple and humankind is damned forever; people smoke pot and eat too many Cheetos. Same thing. Truth is, nearly everything reminds Montgomery of
something in the Bible, although making the leap from a 3,000-year-old fairy tale to a Cheech and Chong adventure strains credibility. Would Montgomery say the same thing about pills that pharmaceutical companies tell us to swallow? Hooking people on Oxycontin is okay, but toking weed to relieve the same pain, which is not nearly as physically or financially damaging, will damn us all to hell.
But it gets better: Montgomery then combined God and the Founding Fathers, straight from Glenn Beck's chalkboard:
Explaining his theories on "true freedom," Montgomery maintained that the Founding Fathers wanted to build a United States that wasn't an "amorphous free country drifting about," but was geared toward establishing the type of freedom the Creator wants. He preaches that the country's founders wanted the "freedom to then become the creatures that God created us to be."
Maybe the "type of freedom the Creator wants" includes the freedom to smoke and eat His happy plant. How does Montgomery know God didn't create these "creatures" to be pot smokers? Why'd He put the herb here in the first place? And where, exactly, do God or the Founding Fathers, who liked a drink and experimented with hemp and hash, say we should spend billions of dollars and ruin thousands of lives to catch and lock up people who partake of the Creator's little forest?
But the debate got downright strange and ugly when a Vietnam veteran stepped to the mike during the Q&A and told Montgomery that, like many veterans, he has a medical marijuana card, and said he uses weed for back aches, pancreas issues and nerve pain.
He said that he no longer has to use the five prescription drugs he previously used to treat those issues. "Marijuana is a gateway drug; it's a gateway off of opiates and pharmaceuticals."
During the debate Montgomery repeatedly referred to people who use marijuana in any capacity as shiftless potheads. The vet said he found Montgomery's characterization offensive, but when he said he also smokes recreationally, that was too much for the County Attorney.
"Well, then you're violating the law, and I have no respect for you," Montgomery fumed. "And I have no respect for someone who would try to claim that you served this country and took an oath to uphold the constitution and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic, because you're an enemy."
The crowd booed and the veteran angrily stomped off. Ya know, screw Bill Montgomery. Here's a senior citizen (he's 66 and lives in Sun City) who fought for his country in a thankless war, serving four years, and Montgomery says he "tr[ies] to claim that you served this country"!
Tries? W T F ? Even worse, the veteran smokes a little weed for health and happiness, and this theocratic boob calls
him the enemy!
If Montgomery has "no respect" for people who violate the law, if he truly wants to track down the "enemy" in Arizona, maybe he should arrest most of the state legislature for their blatant disregard of church and state boundaries; maybe he should've locked up Sheriff Arpaio's butt long ago for proven racial profiling and intimidatory practices; maybe he should take the governor to court for using Koch's dark money to smear school officials.
Really, this session Arizona's legislature passed a shitload of laws that hurt public education, eliminate medical services and food for the poor, restrict women's rights even more, and provide tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations ... and County Attorney Montgomery has the nerve to call veterans who light up the "enemy"! GMAFB.