Opinions

Banish the bad guys? Sounds good, except for the Constitution.

Togiak's traditional council is onto something. Relying on only "known fact," it is banishing a guy -- the second in a year, mind you -- from its village for the next 10 years. Ten years. Banished. As in the heave-ho. Can you believe it?

The two, it turns out, are brothers. The first of the banished, from Dillingham, earlier drew the whole megillah and hit the adios jackpot. He received a lifetime ouster -- and the tribal council president warns the panel is considering additional banishments for actual Togiak tribal members who can be tossed out of the tribe.

Holy cow! What a sensational idea. Why did we not think of it first?

Dave Bendinger of KDLG News reports the council, based on "known fact," is accusing the men of sneaking booze and drugs into the dry community, but there are no state criminal charges and nobody is releasing their names. Bendinger reports local airlines say they have been asked not to transport the men to Togiak.

Both were deep-sixed after the village of 800 or so, about 70 miles west of Dillingham in Western Alaska, noticed a spike in hard drugs and booze being smuggled in.

"It's been getting worse, and we're saying enough is enough," Council President Jimmy Coopchiak was quoted as saying.

Apparently, banishments happen, albeit infrequently, in rural Alaska. In Togiak, to banish somebody you petition the tribal council, which meets with the tribal three-judge panel. Once the banishment order is signed, tribal police will arrest the banished if they show up in town again.

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"It's rare, but we are exercising our sovereign authority as a federally recognized tribe," Togiak tribal court clerk Helen Gregorio was quoted as saying in the news story.

Rural Alaska has a tough time wrestling with a host of problems -- with liquor and huffing and hard drugs near the top of that list -- and not getting much help from the state or feds. The rest of Alaska faces the same problems, but Togiak is showing us the way out.

OK, admittedly those pesky federal and state constitutions might get in the way of our banishing scum to the ends of the earth and, yeah, the American Civil Liberties Union types might get their undies in a wad, but where there is a will, you can betcha there is a way.

Being a tribe is the obvious answer. Maybe we can form a tribe, or join a tribe or pretend we are a tribe. If we can skirt that Constitution thingy, the advantages are countless.

Prisons? Jails? Empty them out and shut them down. We can turn them into fish plants. Just haul the miscreants to the airport and fly them to Oregon where nobody will even notice them. There are a host of other advantages, too. Banishment would reduce the number of lawyers and judges in Alaska -- certainly a blessing in its own right. The overall costs of the criminal justice system -- from law enforcement, to the courts, to the correction department -- will shrink like Gov. Bill Walker's chances for a second term. Our streets will be safer and Oregon will be up to its hippie ears in criminals. Really, what is not to like?

Perhaps the system's biggest advantage would be that it is quick. No stupid delays. No courtroom drama. No civil rights malarkey. No appeals that grind on endlessly. No this and no that. Get on the bus and get out.

Just like that, we rid ourselves of our drug dealers and meth labs -- which should open up a lot of cheap housing in Mat-Su. We could round up thieves, pimps, assorted punks, organized criminals, violent yahoos, the occasional politician and, of course, Democrats. With the adios standard being simply "known fact" -- rather than our now-unworkable "true fact" standard -- we can just about get rid of anybody we want, anytime we are ready.

That guy down the street with the rusted washing machines and school bus with the broken window in his front yard? Toast. The guy who plays his ABBA album as loud as possible? See ya. The old lady with the whining, barking dog? On the plane. People who clog the fast lane? Or chew with their mouths open? Out of here. There is no limit to how tranquil, organized and efficient this state will be once we get around that silly founding document business and clean it up. It is a known fact.

Of course, the fly in the ointment is criminals escaping punishment and being free to continue preying on others, but in my estimation any system that gets rid of problems quickly using only "known fact" is, if not vastly superior, at least more efficient than what we have now.

Of course, you agree, right?

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.

Paul Jenkins

Paul Jenkins is a former Associated Press reporter, managing editor of the Anchorage Times, an editor of the Voice of the Times and former editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

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