Taking The Law Into Their Own Hands

The Minuteman Project is up and running and we should be very scared.

Founded by Vietnam veteran Jim Gilchrist, this group of American "patriots" has taken arms to patrol America's border with Mexico.

Although the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration, Mr. Gilchrist contends that the Minutemen are performing a job that, in his view, "the government refuses to do." By tracking illegal immigrants and reporting their presence to the Border Patrol, the Minutemen purport to heed the call of "the vast majority of Americans" who are fed up with "illegals and immigrants taking our jobs when millions of Americans cannot find full-time work, alien gangs trafficking in drugs and committing crimes, illegals crowding our schools and bankrupting our hospitals, increased urban sprawl and traffic congestion, and so on."

Since when have Americans lined up for jobs gardening or picking strawberries? Let's be serious - illegal immigrants are not responsible for L.A. traffic congestion.

Despite the innocuous descriptions of the organization and the disclaimer that it will not accept assistance from or interference by racist groups, the racist hysteria that propels the White Minutemen to action is best illustrated by the following solicitation for volunteers:

Accordingly, the men and women volunteering for this mission are those who
are willing to sacrifice their time, and the comforts of a cozy home, to muster for something much more important than acquiring more "toys" to play with while their nation is devoured and plundered by the menace of tens of millions of invading illegal aliens.

Future generations will inherit a tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures with no common bond to hold them together, and a certain guarantee of the death of this nation as a harmonious "melting pot." The result: political, economic and social mayhem. Historians will write about how a lax America let its unique and coveted form of government and society sink into a quagmire of mutual acrimony among the various sub-nations that will comprise the new self-destructing
America.

America is being devoured and plundered? Only by violators of federal securities and tax laws.

When various Black organizations (Nation of Islam, Black Panthers) took up arms to defend the Black community from lynchings and other arbitrary acts of violence, the FBI came down on them with a vengeance, admonishing Americans about the supremacy of the rule of law. In contrast, it is okay for White Americans, in the name of protecting America from non-White cultures that don't assimmilate, to create a de facto police force without objection from the government. What's next? Will the Minutemen take to the streets to combat drugs, prostitution and other common street crimes?

If the U.S. government does not do anything to stop these self-appointed police forces, we should expect to see more of these vigilante militias take it upon themselves to enforce laws that they believe are going unenforced. Quite an ominous prospect for persons of color who will likely be within their line of sight.