In the Mexican state of Durango, six decapitated bodies were found in a cave. Two of the missing heads were found decaying close by, the other four missing. Monterrey, just over 100 miles from the border, found itself dealing with fifty-one bodies this past July. In the state of Chihuahua, according to a Mexican police report, seventy-two bodies were found in an abandoned mine in various states of decomposition. This latter group of unlucky wanderers had their bodies left just outside Ciudad Juárez or, for all intents and purposes, on the U.S.-Mexican border. One was actually a law-enforcement officer—a Mexican jail warden, in fact. Nonetheless, he was shot dead, and his body was dropped in a mine-turned-mass grave.

This summer has been brimming with brutally violent incidents involving the out-of-control Mexican drug cartels. These organizations survive off intimidation and drug money. Said drug money comes mostly from their smuggling operations into the United States.

Simultaneously in Arizona, there have been a myriad of lawsuits seeking to dismantle new immigration laws that aim to sort out those who are in the state illegally from those who are there legally. Here’s the question: Why is the Federal government fighting so hard against the state’s law?

The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution says, in brief, that states cannot take actions that supersede issues in which the Federal government has authority. Our current leftist government has used the aforementioned Constitutional provision to beat Arizona’s law into inefficacy in the name of a larger, centralized government. It’s Obama-Pelosi liberalism in its most base form: Take as much power as possible and nest it in DC. If our government had competent leadership at the top, this attack on the state’s measure would not be so problematic. National security and thus border protection is clearly the purview of the Feds. But where is the protection? In succession, the above-mentioned violence has crept closer and closer to the United States while the government has sat on its hands and done nothing about it.

Are we, as a nation, to condemn a state for taking brazen action to try and control a problem speeding straight for it? So far this seems to be the case as opinion piece after opinion piece has come out decrying Arizona’s actions against illegal immigrants. But what is the tipping point where we must make an exception for the state? When will the left concede that our current government is so inept at national security that stopping the impending massacres of our own citizens can only be done through state action? Arizona’s law has a lot going against it—notably the fact that it is a severe violation of the federal government’s power. But what is supposed to happen to us, or the residents of Mexico-bordering states, when the exercise of such power has been so badly neglected? Can a state break the law of the nation when the consequences of ‘just following orders’ could be so dire?

Nobody wants Mexican drug cartels to rule the American streets in addition to the Mexican ones they already control. But isn’t it hypocritical for the federal government to censure Arizona and invalidate their laws when no better solution is being offered? Going back to the status quo of ignoring the problem at the possible future expense of American lives is perhaps the worst possible solution. If protecting our citizens is truly a priority of the current regime, then use the Justice Department to invalidate the law and take new measures to protect our borders. However, if DC is just trumping a state law just to hold onto more power, that’s not acceptable. If the left wants to protect the United States, it needs to either lead or get the hell out of the way, because being a road block is just going to get people killed.