Posted on 12/13/2002 3:34:09 PM PST by SteveH
(Reprinted from NewsMax.com)
One Reporter's Opinion: Citizen Militia on the Border
George Putnam
Friday, Dec. 13, 2002
It is this reporter's opinion that I found it the height of hypocrisy when I read the headline "U.S. Plans to Seal Afghans' Porous Border." The plan is to slow the flow of illegals, illicit drugs, terrorists and contraband into and out of Afghanistan. The United States will finance the construction and maintenance of 177 checkpoints, staffed by 12,000 border police in that far-off land.
The cost is staggering – each checkpoint and its facilities to cost an average of $300,000. It is to include offices, sleeping quarters and, in some cases, clinics – this staggering expenditure to guarantee the sovereignty of Afghanistan.
Contrast this with the fact that our country cannot and will not control the flow of illegal aliens across our own porous borders – 15 million illegals that have poured into the United States, violating our sovereignty!
Where our government has failed us, several groups of patriotic citizens are taking up arms along the Arizona border with Mexico. One of these is Chris Simcox, a teacher-turned-newspaper-owner, who has formed the Tombstone, Ariz., militia called Civil Homeland Defense.
Chris says:
We will no longer tolerate the ineptness of our government in dealing with these criminals and drug dealers. It is a monumental disgrace that our government is letting the American people down, turning us into expendable casualties of the war on terrorism.
These armed civilian groups along our borders, providing civil homeland defense, are experiencing constant confrontations with illegals. There have been moments that bordered on extreme violence. It's bound to become more dangerous and, as one observer puts it, somebody is going to get killed.
Simcox, in a moment of frustration, told this reporter:
I defy our president to arrest any of us for doing what the government refuses to do to protect the sovereignty of our beloved country. This land belongs to every citizen; it's OUR land. I challenge my government to come and arrest me. We are not "crazies," we are concerned citizens, we are responsible people.
The groups are growing. There are now more than a dozen known militia organizations – armed civilian groups – on the border. It's time Congress and the president become involved.
Simcox says:
I am trying to force the president of the United States to do his job. He took an oath to protect us from enemies. He has no business sending troops to foreign countries when he has not sealed our own borders.
If we can protect the porous border of Afghanistan, with 177 checkpoints and 12,000 border police, surely we can protect the border of the United States of America.
I invite you to read on:
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/local/12_9_02armed.html
http://www.azstarnet.com/border/21206TOMBSTONEMILITIA.html
http://www.projectusa.org/Ezine/02-07-02-12.html
* * * * * *
The legendary George Putnam is 88 years young and a veteran of 68 years as a reporter, broadcaster and commentator ... and is still going strong. George is part of the all-star line-up of Southern California's KPLS Radio - Hot Talk AM 830.
Click here for George's complete bio
... and check out a new feature article in Insight magazine on George
These boys better hold their meetings on the church steps after services on Sunday. They better have a reporter tied to their belts. They better keep it squeaky clean. You can bet every third member is an agent or an informer.
The "sooner or later" refers to economic "elasticity", where (for example) housing prices remain artificially high due to fortuitious profit-taking in the stock market being re-invested in real estate (home upgrades, home additions, etc.) and causes a temporary resistance to falling prices in certain segments of the market (for example, housing) due to artificial constraints (for example, the mortage tax breaks built into the income tax structure at the behalf of the banking industry interests).
The disproportionate corporate influence in government is probably behind the disproportional government response to terrorism overall, i.e. the passage of a Homeland Security Act which actually contains ever-widening encroachments on individual civil liberties and Constitutionally guaranteed rights (in an attempt to promote safeguarding of corporate assets and the basic industrial infrastructure needed to support those assets), and which otherwise reads like a Christmas wish list of changes in the law for certain large corporate interests, such as the pharmaceutical industry.
Perhaps the current sweet spot in terms of careers is to be involved somehow in Pacific Rim sales (and even that is not a guarantee). However, sooner or later, the short term corporate idea of profit-taking heaven is, judging from the corporate walk, likely to lead us all towards some virtual location where Bangalore meets Belmont (with all that that implies).
Guys like Simcox putting fingers in the illegal immigration dike are involved in a noble effort but I suspect the decisions made in the corporate boardrooms already have doomed his efforts...
This is not a party issue but a class and power one..
IMHO, I am not focusing on a small part of the problem. What I'm trying to say is, I recognize that farmers/ranchers want to employ people they can pay with cheaper wages. They are doing this, right now, illegally and with no accountability. People show up who have no working papers. This is encouraging illegals to come into the country, and American employers are not discouraged from this practice because they aren't "getting caught" or "being held accountable." If there is a process where they feel they, the Ranchers/Farmers, are getting want THEY want (cheaper labors/greater profits), they will cooperate with the need to go through proper channels to achieve their goals.
You can't make Americans accept the kind of wages the Ranchers/Farmers want to pay. And if the Ranchers/Farmers have been getting by with lower wages to illegals, they'd rather go that route than pay higher wages to Americans.
But Farmers/Ranchers must be forced to help with this problem: their alternative: no Mexicans to pick their berries, avacados, or whatever.
And if employers are required to keep track of the Mexicans in their employ, and are forced to hire people through the legal process, i.e., only those Mexicans who have proper work papers and who will only get them if they, the Mexican workers, promise to return to their country at the expiration of the work permit, if the employer understands that he/she/it is required to monitor the Mexican workers, at all times while in their employ, then American citizens will less likely be on the receiving end of criminal activity, of hospitals being used for free (but paid by U.S. taxpayers) by illegals, etc. I don't see how that does not fit into the bigger picture.
If everybody is feeling like their getting something out of this "new" situation, they will more likely than not see the benefit to actually complying with the new situation. Citizens are protected, Mexicans have jobs and don't have to hide, employers don't have to fear INS raids and losing trained employees.
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