February 10, 2026

Hello, dear readers.

Where have you been?

Busy growing a future feminist, who's due in 10 weeks.

It's affected my ability to focus on TV shows.

Congratulations! Why come back now?

To discuss a Bonanza episode with a plot that's remarkably relevant to current events: “The Honor of Cochise,” aired 1961-10-08. I watched it recently while I was knitting hats to protest in.

What's the episode about?

It guest stars DeForest Kelley, aka the future Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, still in his "Black Hat in the Westerns" era. He plays a US Cavalry officer, Captain Johnson, who rides into the Cartwrights’ camp pursued by Apache. Naturally, being patriotic citizens of the USA (this week, anyway - do not ask us about Little Joe’s previous pro-Confederacy stances), the Cartwrights agree to protect him. They’re surprised to learn he’s stationed at a fort way down by the Arizona border; what’s he doing in the region of Virginia City, NV? Then Cochise (Jeff Morrow in brownface) arrives, and he explains to the Cartwrights why they’re chasing Captain Johnson so assiduously: he invited 30 Apaches to a peaceful dinner party, and poisoned them all with strychnine. Since the crowd contained women, children, and other noncombatants, they’re understandably pissed. The Cartwrights must decide between protecting Johnson, who is after all a representative of their government, and handing him over to be executed by the Apaches, who have an excellent point despite their lack of jurisdiction.

The resolution involves Ben convincing Cochise to let him go find another cavalry officer to arrest Johnson, and needing to search for one that wants to do that without also massacring the Apaches. But that’s not the interesting part.

What is the interesting part?

The moral commentary is the interesting part. You see, Johnson is not at all remorseful about killing 30 people.

Johnson:  I don't formulate the policy, Mr. Cartwright, that comes down from Washington. I just obey the orders.

Ben: And your orders were to poison women and children?

Johnson: The orders were to kill Apaches. The orders did not specify sex, age, or method. Now, death is death, gentlemen. What difference does it make how it's accomplished?

Ben: …but women and children?

Johnson: Apache women breed more Apaches, Mr. Cartwright. And Apache children grow up to be Apache killers! Destroying them is destroying the trouble at its source!

In scripting this exchange, the screenwriters might have taken inspiration from the real-life William T. Sherman, who in 1867 said “we must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, and children." In other words, genocidal actions against American Indians actually were part of US military policy in the era when Bonanza is set. They were being period-accurate by making Johnson feel so certain that he’s in the right. This gave them an opportunity to interrogate that belief, 90 years later.

The Cartwrights, to their credit, push back. But Johnson refuses to even consider the concept that murder is wrong, although he claims he would refuse “ridiculous” orders.

Hoss (Dan Blocker): would you kill white women and children if you was ordered to, Captain?

Johnson: That's ridiculous.

Hoss: No, it ain't ridiculous. Supposing your commanding officer gave you a direct order to kill 'em. Would you do it?

Johnson: Of course not. It wouldn't be right.

Hoss: Oh. Then it's more than just orders, ain't it, Captain? There is a right and a wrong.

Johnson: I don't know what you're trying to trap me into. All I know is killing Apaches is right. Right before the eyes of man and right before the eyes of God.

If that weren’t bad enough, Johnson is greedy, trying to take water away from the wounded Adam.

He’s dishonorable, firing on a parlay.

Johnson: What’s a white flag mean to an Apache?

Hoss: I'll tell you what it means - it means none of them took a shot, that’s what it means!

Ben: I oughtta kill you myself.

He’s a coward who won’t let himself be arrested, even though he has a chance to prevent a lot of further violence, and even though he’s being ordered to. (Mr. “Just Following Orders”, no less!) Hoss has to drag him out of their camp.

All this leads to the Cartwright sons, Cochise, and the (literal) cavalry that comes to save the day, all asking Ben Cartwright a very important question: why do you bother defending this asshole?

Well, why does he?

Because Ben is hoping to spare everyone further violence. If the Apaches kill Johnson, regardless of how justified that decision is, the cavalry will absolutely retaliate in nasty ways. In other words, he knows Johnson is guilty of murder, but he also knows that the rules of their society include:

1. Cavalry officers can kill American Indians and still be in the right.
2. American Indians can’t kill cavalry officers, and if they do, they’re the ones in the wrong.

Given that, he has no choice but to beg a cavalry officer to do the right thing and punish Johnson through legal channels. Luckily, this was network TV in the 1960s, so he miraculously finds someone who will.

Why are you bringing this up?

Guess.

Is it because the USA is now under occupation by a secret police force that was empowered to detain and deport the “worst of the worst” undocumented immigrants, but is instead targeting all minorities and straight up killing anyone who objects?

Ding ding ding! Immigration and Customs Enforcement is doing to us what the US Cavalry did to Cochise’s people, and many ICE agents are exactly as despicable as Captain Johnson.

If you raise your voice, I will erase your voice. - ICE agent to protestor, January 2026

ICE has outright killed 9 people this year, two of them US citizens [source]. It’s February, for pity’s sake. They have over 69,000 people held in detention centers, where medical care has not been available since they stopped paying their doctors in October. [source]. One such detention center, so-called “Alligator Alcatraz,” has had at least 1,200 detainees disappear without explanation [source] - and yes, that does rhyme with certain historical “disappearances” in Nazi Germany. 

I have the real feeling I "evacuated" 30,000 Jews already, by shooting them, at Riga. Is what I did, "evacuation"? When they fell, were they "evacuated?" I just think it is helpful to know what words mean... with all respect. - SS Major Rudolf Lange (Barnaby Kay) in Conspiracy (2001), based on the real-life Wannsee Conference

ICE has been credibly accused of using illegal torture methods to get people to drop their asylum claims [source], which puts the USA in violation of international non-refoulement treaties. And they’re routinely detaining or deporting people who have citizenship or legal residency in the US, claiming later in court that these were mishaps - but no, ICE won’t correct its mistakes, because that’s not their job.

We don't need a warrant, bro. - ICE claims exemption from the US Constitution, Jersey City, NJ, February 3, 2026

ICE is now also claiming that they don’t need warrants to enter private homes, and that they can detain anyone they like without probable cause. They’ve been known to grab children and use them as bait, as happened in the case of Liam Ramos, a five-year-old in a bunny hat whom they forced to knock on the door of his own home to see if any of his relatives would come outside [source]. Mind you, the Ramos family has an active asylum case, meaning they are not “undocumented” so much as “awaiting a court date to get documentation.”

I can only suppose that in 90 years or so, period TV will have an ICE agent saying:

The orders were to detain 3,000 immigrants per day. The orders did not specify age, sex, or method.

This is not even mentioning the multiple occasions on which ICE has tried to detain or deport American Indians, who - and I cannot stress this enough - are the only true non-immigrants in America. It even happened to Elaine Miles [source], whom we know as Marilyn from Northern Exposure.

All honest Americans are now in the position the Cartwrights are in during act 1 of “The Honor of Cochise.” Representatives of our government are asking us to endorse atrocities in the name of homeland security, while the Constitution, the law, God, and our consciences all demand that we not do that. 

Who's Cochise in this metaphor?

Take your pick among the state and local leaders who have tried to rein ICE in, only to be told they’re not allowed to even investigate murders committed in their own jurisdictions, because anyone ICE shoots definitely had it coming. People have been charged with nonexistent crimes after being shot [source]. An innocent mother like Renee Good or a sweet ICU nurse like Alex Pretti can be posthumously declared domestic terrorists in order to preserve that narrative.

The bizarre result is that states are forced to ask for the federal government’s permission to pursue justice, which is not how dual sovereignty is supposed to work.

Where's our honest cavalry officer who will save the day by doing the right thing?

Ha! I'm not looking for one, because I differ with the Cartwrights on one important detail: you can't actually trust the “good ones” to enforce boundaries against the “bad ones” in an organization that's fundamentally broken bad. To fix this situation, we need to abolish ICE.

Don't we need ICE?

People have often argued so. I, on the other hand, am not terribly convinced, because the fact of the matter is that we spent most of US history without them.

Seriously?

Seriously. Remember 2003? The Return of the King won a whole bunch of Oscars, Finding Nemo came out, lots of us stayed up until midnight to buy Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix? The space shuttle Columbia broke up on reentry? The US invaded Iraq and, when I told my social studies teacher it was wrong to preemptively strike someone else’s country, she called me a Nazi? (Yes, really.)

2003, when I was 12: that was the year that the Department of Homeland Security was created and absorbed (among others) the Immigration & Naturalization Service, which had previously been housed by the Department of Justice. Then INS was split into the Citizenship & Immigration Service, which handled applications submitted by immigrants, and Immigration & Customs Enforcement, which hunted down undocumented immigrants.

Prior to that - in other words, until 23 years ago - immigration enforcement in the US was more along the lines of getting a form letter from the government reminding you that your status was expiring, and you’d have to renew it or leave the country. This made sense because violations of immigration law were, and are, civil offenses - not crimes that should require intervention by armed law enforcement.

What changed?

We were told to blame undocumented immigrants for 9/11, that’s what. In point of fact, all 19 hijackers involved in that crime entered the US on visitor visas which were valid at the time of the attacks, and were therefore neither undocumented nor immigrants. Details!

Not letting the facts get in their way, ICE was born. 

OK, but didn't the Obama and Biden administrations use ICE to deport lots of people?

Sure! Obama’s administration set a record with 2.4 million deportees. But when Obama left office in 2016, ICE’s budget was $6 billion. As of this writing, they’ve been handed 85 billion dollars to do with as they please. This is more funding than any federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history, more funding than the federal prison system, and fourteen times more money than they spent setting the world record for deportations.

What are they doing with all that money?

Expanding their system of detention centers concentration camps; tripling their workforce; and sending untrained, heavily armed federal agents into schools, courthouses, streets, stores, and hospitals, with predictably disastrous results.

Since its foundation, ICE has been criticized for its tendency to “accidentally” detain US citizens, and its use of solitary confinement, among other things. There were always complaints.

Last year, though, when they reported 30 deaths in-custody, they noted it was the highest number in over 20 years. This tells me a very important, often-overlooked lesson: it doesn’t need to be this way.

ICE existed for 20 years without outright killing people at that scale. More importantly, when ICE didn’t exist between 1776 and 2003, the US chugged along just fine. This means we the people in 2026 can try something else - whether that’s a return to INS-style bureaucratic immigration enforcement, or a move away from the concept of criminalizing human movement altogether.

That sounds like a good idea.

Glad you agree! Here are some things you can do.

• The deadline for Congress to fund the Department of Homeland Security is Friday, February 13. Call your senators and representatives to demand better oversight and/or an end to ICE, in lieu of their writing more blank checks.
• Know your rights, and teach them to your friends.
• Take action for the Detention Watch Network's “Communities Not Cages”, an effort to stop ICE from turning literal warehouses into concentration camps.
• Follow this wonderful advice from the League of Women Voters.
• Stand up for your neighbors by going to protests, filming ICE activities, blowing whistles to warn people when you see ICE, and otherwise being a witness to whatever they're trying to pull. The good people of Minnesota have done this at scale and it's working, so don't be discouraged.

Most importantly, don’t forget that the federal government ultimately works for us, not the other way around.

As always, keep your sexy lamps burning.