The local Minuteman group was filming an informal day-labor pickup station where employers pick up cheap illegals. I do not know the precise reason why the men were filiming, though I presume they were preparing film for anti-immigration activist purposes.
Robert Copley, Jr., was one of the cameramen. He was assaulted by several illegals, and another cameraman almost had his camera stolen. I am unable to find a written account of the episode, but there is video coverage at Fox News.
Former state senator and Hispanic activist Polly Baca implies they had it coming: "The minutemen are acting in a totally unamerican fashion... it is not their place to enforce our laws, it is the place of our police officers, our safety officers to enforce our laws."
I do not know whether Fox News significantly misrepresented her remarks, but talking that way about an assaulted citizen journalist is despicable. I don't follow the Minutemen, but when their efforts at perfectly legal amateur information-gathering are classified as unamerican the message is loud and clear: "Shut up!"
I actually met Polly Baca at my home parish's immigration forum a few weeks back. Her speech contained plenty of cant, but was hardly so offensive as her remarks on Fox News. She proposed a Marshall Plan for Mexico, a proposal which seemed to me a recipe for corruption. Pressing her on this point, she said we needed to get good people into office. Flatteringly, she suggested I get involved. I made a joke about the joys of apathetic anarchism, yet I was really laughing at something else. If only she knew that Pat Buchanan is one of my favorite pundits...
Addendum:
A Freeper rewrites Senator Baca's statement:
"it is not their place to not enforce our laws, it is the place of our police officers, our safety officers to not enforce our laws."
No comments:
Post a Comment