Better Dead Than Rojo

There was an article yesterday in the Inquirer about a local man, John Ryan, who runs a local chapter of the Minutemen. The Minutemen, if you didn’t hear about them from your local friendly right-wing radio nut, are a loosely-affiliated group of gun-toting civilians who police the U.S.-Mexican border in search of illegal immigrants. I’m not quite sure who, exactly, the Pennsylvania chapter is keeping out — maybe those fishy Canadians swimming over into Erie? — but Ryan is heading down to the U.S.-Mexican border soon to do some policin’.

While the U.S. Border Patrol abhors their presence, and some members of the group are racists, for the most part the group — and Ryan and his Pennsylvania chapter, which isn’t affiliated with the main Arizona Minutement — is just shedding light on the problem with America’s open border, and if we can engage them in discussion, perhaps we can come to some sort of solution that can benefit us all.

Ha ha! Just kidding! John Ryan thinks that immigrants sneaking into the U.S. are here in search of reclaiming the Southwestern U.S. territories won from Mexico in the 19th century, as opposed to coming to the States to actually earn some money or start a family or be terrorists, or any actual reasons people come to the U.S. illegally. Reclaiming the Southwest United States for Mexico sounds about as far-fetched as thinking The Note and the Washington Post are in some sort of conservative conspiracy to fool the public into thinking the media is liberal.

But I digress. Ryan, though, is nowhere near the person with the zaniest ideas in Inky article. That would go to Kathleen Appell, who supports the Minutemen cause.

Kathleen Appell, 62, a Minuteman donor, recounted seeing men advertising a Mexican restaurant while en route to a July 4 barbecue in Southampton.

“There are these Mexicans with sombreros, dressed in Mexican outfits,” she said. “It was an American holiday. I felt like I was in another country. How did this neighborhood change so fast … that there even is a Mexican restaurant?”

Oh no! Mexican restaurants! Sombreros! Pretty soon it’ll be the United States of Mexico! Whatever shall we do? Better fence the border! Keep your sombreros and your tacos offa my flag!

Border worries reach from Mexico to Phila. [Inky]
Sept. 19, 2005: Blogicized: Blogs are the new blogs
Photo by General Wesc