VIVA LA MIGRA! is apparently not a universal concept.
While our overworked, underpaid and intentionally understaffed Border Patrol Agents on the line are doing what they can to deter the human wave of illegal aliens coming into our nation, it seems that some here in what remains of the America of my youth have taken a decided dislike to the entire force.
This from the Website of the U. S. Border Patrol local 2544 in Tucson, Arizona (note the Patrol Agents union estimate of the number of illegal aliens in our nation in their opening "welcome" paragraph):
Denny's Restaurant in Douglas Gives New Meaning to "Customer Service"
This is the type of institutional garbage on-duty Border Patrol agents have to put up with all the time.........this moron just got caught red-handed. He gave the agent the wrong receipt, then tried to take it back. The agent wisely refused to give it back. We can only assume that what the "host" wrote on the ticket [A misspelled vulgarity referring to the Border Patrol] was a signal to sabotage this agent's food. Many agents have become sick after eating in restaurants, and this should be an eye-opener. A copy of the receipt is posted here. 4-11-05
Thanks to the New York Times for publishing its lead editorial on April 11, "A West Too Wild," about the Minuteman Project. You can't buy publicity like that!
Of course, the editorial was a typically distorted piece of garbage claiming that "a few dozen gunslingers" and "vigilantes" pose a great danger to "themselves and others."
The reality: several hundred Minuteman volunteers have been on the border for 12 days without incident.
The NYT editorial smacks of panic by one of the most vocal of the open borders supporters.
With all the momentum on the side of immigration reduction, that the NYT continues to flail away with the same tiresome arguments shows a frightening inability to deal with fact.
The NYT, with its great liberal bias, simply does not understand immigration.
Note that it recommends that the Minutemen "put their guns away" and look for help where it really can be found…"in Washington."
You have to laugh out loud at that line.
Two decades of being ignored by Washington is exactly the reason the Minutemen are on the southwest border.
In the "A West Too Wild" editorial, the Editors of the New York Times, in solemn conclave assembled, declare, ex cathedra, that President Bush has "rightly labeled" the Minutemen "vigilantes." The President's error is understandable, diction not being his strong point, but don't the Editors of the Holy Times Itself own an office dictionary? The distinguishing character of the vigilance committees of the Old West was that they would punish people, by hanging them, beating them, or shooting them, without legal sanction or fair trials. That's what vigilantism is, and why it's wrong.
All the Minutemen are doing is watching the border and calling the Border Patrol, not even making a citizens arrest. Not vigilantism.
Clayton Cramer, who knows a thing or two about American History, points out
Vigilantism in American history has often been the result of there being no effective criminal justice system (for example, in the California mining camps in the first year or so of the Gold Rush), or where the criminal justice system was so corrupt that it might as well have been absent—of which the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 is a good example. It formed after a county supervisor shot to death a newspaper publisher in front of many witnesses—and the District Attorney refused to prosecute. The federal government needs to make a serious effort to secure our borders, so that people like Haab [who had made a citizen's arrest, but was not part of the Minuteman Project] aren't tempted to take the law into their own hands.
3 Britons indicted in terror plot is the headline in today's Washington Times.
The accused are not Britons at all, of course, but United Kingdom citizens of Muslim ancestry: Dhiren Barot, Nadeem Tarmohamed and Qaisar Shaffi.
Of course, they may have been born in Britain (one of them was nicknamed "Esa al-Britani)," but even so the headline should read "Three Muslims Indicted In Terror Plot" to convey more useful information.
Nathaniel Parker asks us if this was what Tony Blair meant by "New Britain." (Blair's old election slog was "New Labour, New Britain.") I said I thought New Britain was a town in Connecticut, which was now 26.8 % Hispanic.
