Following the scathing report that Eric Holder’s office issued which essentially indicted the entire Ferguson police department as hateful racists, rather than finding specific incidents of wrongdoing, a question arose. Can the Department of Justice in Washington reach out into the state and local levels of law enforcement and essentially close up a shop? Check out this video of a Fox News interview on the subject provided by Michael van der Galien at PJ Media.

J. Christian Adams takes Attorney General Eric Holder to task for his unconstitutional and even downright dictatorial wish to shut down police departments that aren’t as politically correct as he wants. Although Adams explains Holder’s actions are illegal, he nevertheless believes the AG may get away with it.

We may never find out if the AG can take this action directly because he apparently didn’t have to. Simply publishing the report was enough to prompt the Missouri State Supreme Court to take what they referred to as extraordinary action and remove the handling of even mundane cases from the control of Ferguson.

The Missouri Supreme Court announced Monday that it will take the “extraordinary action” of reassigning all Ferguson municipal court cases to the circuit court, starting next week. In a news release, the court announced the move was intended “to help restore public trust and confidence in the Ferguson municipal court division.” Ferguson municipal Judge Ronald J. Brockmeyer resigned his position Monday afternoon. Dellwood Mayor Reggie Jones said Brockmeyer also resigned Monday as prosecutor there.

It’s rather alarming, not to mention ironic, how the accusation by the feds is based on a conclusion that the confidence in the judicial system has been undermined. Were it not so tragic, that would almost be funny since the Justice Department – abetted by their willing surrogates in the media – has probably been the biggest agent provocateur involved in undermining that trust and confidence for quite some time now. And speaking of confidence, it’s no accident of local politics that Judge Brockmeyer resigned. He had a much more compelling reason.

Brockmeyer said the main reason he resigned is that he and his family had received death threats in the last several days. “That’s one of the most important reasons — it’s not worth jeopardizing my family,” he said.

There are regular death threats coming in to a judge. Stop and think about that for a moment. Yes, something has broken down in that community, but it’s not just the confidence of the community in law enforcement and the courts. The established fabric of civil society and the unwritten contract of law and order between citizens and the government has been frayed. It is one of the infrequently discussed but accepted premises of an open society such as ours that we only maintain order and safety for the citizens by the mutual consent of the vast majority. As long as nearly all of us agree that laws are a good thing and must be obeyed, the police are able to do their jobs and keep everyone safe.

But the reality in each and every community – and across the nation at large – is that the number of citizens vastly overwhelms the number of law enforcement officers. If all the citizens headed out at once to commit mayhem and fight against everyone in a uniform, the police wouldn’t stand a chance. But as long as the vast majority are law abiding and work to help the police defeat the lawless, civilization prevails. When you see masses of people able to freely take to the streets, burn down buildings, shoot up cop cars and threaten to assassinate judges, that thin veneer begins to break down. And when the state or federal government rewards that behavior by slapping down the cops and the courts, the wheels are well and truly coming off the wagon.

It’s a dangerous but probably informative experiment unfolding in Missouri right now. Let’s hope it doesn’t blow up the entire laboratory.