Just got this from a friend newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/5/9/132244.shtml .
As I read down the article, I noticed that Montgomery County, Maryland was mentioned...again (see the Friday and yesterday's post).
But, what prompts me to write is a tendency I've seen over the past 20 years with the Federal government, and the press plays a significant part. The thought came again to the fore when President Bush used the term "vigilantes" to describe the participants in Minuteman Project in Arizona (www.minutemanproject.com/ ). First, look up the term vigilante. The definition is a member of a vigilance committee. The history of the vigilance committees was to watch over a community where there was no legally established method of jurisprudence. The vigilance committee was born out of frustration and the lack, or in many cases, the unwillingness of the local constabulary and courts to protect citizens and their property. Movies and TV have given the term vigilante a very negative meaning. Were all vigilant committees positive? "All power corrupts..." So, the answer is no. There are the examples that the media glorifies. That being said, the vigilance committee came out a need that government was not addressing (basically, the prime reason for existence of government- to protect the rights of its citizens to enjoy their lives and property, the latter being an extension of the former [read Bastiat kids, just as Uncle Amendment X has told you to do!
www.constitution.org/law/bastiat.htm ]).
So, the question I ask is this: What drove these men and women of the Minutemen Project, all United States citizens, to use their time, money and other resources to expose themselves to possible danger and death on a hostile border? They could easily have spent this time with their families, at their jobs. But they chose to volunteer to protect their families by standing watch on a border that George Bush seems unwilling to protect. They finally felt driven to do something that the government is absolutely unwilling to do.
Tom Clancy, the author, is considered a military expert. He has been called to testify before Congress as an expert witness. I was introduced to him 10 years ago by a friend of mine. I'm not a fiction reader, but reading "Debt of Honor" and I was hooked.
Clancy's recent book is "Teeth of the Tiger" and combines Columbian drug lords, radical Islamists, the Mexican border and a co-ordinated attack on America. There is evidence that Middle Eastern men are smuggled across the border for $50,000-per man. Most people are charged $1,000 or so by the coyotes. So, somebody REALLY wants Middle Easterners in America. Middle Easterners and others are referred to as OTM-other than Mexicans. And OTM's account for about 25% of all illegal crossings.
Vigilantes, Mr. President?
I think not at all.
