Frank's wrong on Minutemen
GORDON DILLOW
Register columnist
Sunday, April 1, 2007

GLDillow@aol.com The word "racist" is probably the most over-used word in America. Just the other day I searched for it on the Internet and got 26,200,000 hits.

No, wait. Thanks to my colleague, Frank Mickadeit, that's now 26,200,001.

As you know, Frank writes a Monday-through-Friday column that appears on page 2 of the Register Local section. It's a fine column, well-written and funny, a must-read for anyone interested in local politics and local mayhem and a television show called "The Real Housewives of Orange County."

True, in the manner of former Register columnist Jeff Kramer, Frank occasionally takes shots at me for being an old, baldheaded, gun-owning, cop-supporting, military-loving conservative throwback – all of which is accurate. But Frank's a good guy, and with five column deadlines a week looming over him, he's also one of the hardest-working men in the newspaper business.

Unfortunately, however, in a column last week about ongoing internal leadership struggles within the Minuteman anti-illegal immigration movement, Frank made an accusation that people who don't believe that our immigration laws should be enforced frequently hurl at people who do.

He called the Minutemen a bunch of "racist vigilantes."

Well, the American Heritage dictionary defines a "vigilante" – interestingly, "vigilante" is originally a Spanish word that simply means "watchman" – as "one who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one's own hands." This would include members of the Old West "vigilance committees," as well as Superman, Batman and the Green Lantern.

Meanwhile, the same dictionary defines a "racist" as someone who believes that "race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others." Certainly there are people out there of every race who believe that, even though the notion is laughable on its face. For example, anyone who believes in the inherent superiority of the white race need only look at some of the white guys I know – my portly pal Frank, to name just one – to see that theory of superiority dashed into a million blubbery little pieces.

So anyway, by those definitions, are the Minutemen – and others who oppose illegal immigration – "racists" and "vigilantes"?

Sure, some of them may be – as are some members of pro-illegal immigration groups who scream at white people to "go back to Europe" and violently disrupt anti-illegal immigration meetings.

But I've spent some time reporting on Minuteman members and supporters – actually, the Minuteman movement is now so fragmented that it's hard to call them "members" – both on the border and here in Orange County. And most of the ones I know are neither racists nor vigilantes.

Instead, they're guys – and gals – like Bob Shuff.

I've known Bob for several years. He's a 67-year-old retired ironworker and former Marine from Fullerton who with his wife, Pat, has long been concerned about the impacts of illegal immigration – emphasis on "illegal." A self-described "independent Minuteman" who avoids the infighting within the group, Bob has spent a combined total of 165 days in the rough border country east of San Diego – he's there right now – sleeping in his pickup truck and eating Vienna sausages out of a can and watching for people trying to illegally cross the border.

Yes, Bob keeps a firearm nearby when he's out in that wild and often lawless area – as I would, too. But so what? There's a certain Democratic U.S. Senator who's been in the news recently who packs concealed heat when he's walking the streets of Virginia – and nobody calls him a vigilante.

In any event, in all that time on the border, Bob has never shot, hanged, assaulted, detained or even touched an illegal immigrant – not even once. If he or the guys with him see illegal border crossers they notify the Border Patrol and leave it at that. They don't take the law into their own hands. They're simply the border equivalent of a Neighborhood Watch.

"All we do is observe and report," says Bob, a big, gruff guy with a voice that sounds like a garbage disposal grinding up a spoon. "I don't know where they get that vigilante crap. We're just a bunch of old men trying to help protect our country. Sometimes on weekends we'll have grandmothers sitting in lawn chairs down here."

As for the "racist" canard, Bob has heard it a thousand times.

"That's what they always say," Bob told me. "My godson is a Martinez, and my son-in-law is a Trujillo. And I'm a racist?"

Of course, I'm not vouching for every guy who is or calls himself a Minuteman. I've met some who are too strident, too tightly wound, too wrapped up in their own fantasy worlds – just like some journalists I know.

Still, I wish Frank and others would be more careful about applying the "racist" label to people who happen to disagree with them about illegal immigration. It's been overused to the point of being trite, and it substitutes name-calling for argument.

But even if Frank doesn't take my advice, he'll still be my pal. Because Frank has one overwhelming redeeming quality, one aspect of his character and personality that will always endear him to me. And that quality is this:

At least he isn't Kramer.

Contact Dillow at 714-796-7953 or GLDillow@aol.com

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