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Expand the Minuteman Project!
What
could be more American—more in touch with the American Revolution—than
helping the federal government enforce laws against the free travel from
one country to another? If anything smacks of liberty and freedom, it is
keeping these wretched refuse away from the Land of the Free, lest they
come in and corrupt the apple-pie principles that make this country so
special. The
Minuteman Project claims to be “Americans doing the jobs our government
won’t do, operating within the law to support enforcement of the law.”
Hear, hear! I do believe the
only trouble with this movement is that it is limited to the mere
protection of our sacrosanct (as in, State-created) borders. What
we must do, to regain our patriotic heritage as enshrined in the
Declaration of Independence, is expand and extend this approach to other
areas of policy in which the government has proven unwilling and unable to
adequately enforce the laws. Indeed, we are a country of laws—not of
men. A nation of edicts and legislation—not of human beings. And the
laws must be enforced, to the letter, or else we might as well resign
ourselves to pure anarchy. Let
us begin by considering one area of insufficient enforcement: the War on
Drugs. Why, oh why, cannot the government do its job in stamping out these
demonic poisons? I modestly propose that we apply the Minuteman strategy
to this epidemic. Thousands of us must take up arms and inform the State
of any funny business we witness. Let us infiltrate the rock concerts, the
frat parties, and the other stomping grounds of sin. Cell phones in hand,
we can call the DEA and demand that
they put a stop to the drug use that, as much as anything, is responsible
for the downfall of civilization. And
we shouldn’t stop there. No, no, no. For the government can only run
smoothly if it is sufficiently funded—and what is a country without a
sufficiently-funded, smoothly-running government? The government therefore
needs plenty of tax revenue, but the IRS has done a terrible job at
catching tax evaders. I’m not just talking about the big-shot CEOs.
I’m talking about the waitresses and pizza deliverers who do not claim
their tips on their 1040s, the reprobate teenagers who do not fess up when
they earn money mowing neighbors’ lawns, the babysitters who conceal the
profits they make and refuse to give back their fair share to the
government—that is, the society—which has allowed them to live,
prosper and thrive. Turn
them all in! We need a Minuteman Project, millions of Americans strong, to
assist the IRS at every turn in stopping these tax evaders. I am sure this
would make the original Minutemen proud. One bizarre irony in all this is that, while most of the men currently assisting the federal border police are undoubtedly as patriotic and American as the Lincoln Memorial itself, some among them are just as criminal as the detestable invading hordes of immigrants the movement seeks to repel. I would bet a good number of them, rugged individualists as they are, have refused to register all their firearms properly, and some might even be carrying weapons contrary to state and/or federal law. For
the Minuteman Project to succeed, these gun law–breaking criminals among
its ranks must be purged. An additional Minuteman movement must come
forward, willing to inform the ATF, FBI and Justice Department of every
deviant they see violating any of our sacrosanct gun laws. For a nation
without well-enforced gun laws has just as much in common with the America
envisioned by the original Minutemen, as a nation without well-enforced
borders. When
I think about the problems facing America, they all come down to a
government not doing enough to enforce its many wonderful laws. Our
freedom and dignity cannot survive another decade unless the government
does its duty and fulfills its obligations and promises. The current
Minuteman Project understands this, as its members reflect on what made
the promise of the American Revolution so thrilling and beautiful. The
colonists who threw off the yoke of the British Empire fought for life,
liberty, property, well-enforced borders and a government that would carry
out its laws mercilessly. The last thing they wanted was an inactive,
impotent central government. Let us expand the Minutemen Project throughout every sector of U.S. government policy. If our government is unwilling to do its job in keeping illegal immigrants away from this free country, stamping out drugs and arresting users, rounding up tax evaders without relent, and enforcing the 20,000 gun laws in America that make this the freest country on earth, we need patriots, in the spirit of the American Revolution, to force the politicians to crack down on lawbreakers. We need voluntary IRS helpers, FBI helpers, DEA helpers, and FDA helpers to complement the volunteer snitches for the border gestapo. I’ll
be doing my little part by standing on the street corner and calling the
police every time I see a jaywalker, or a motorist who doesn’t signal
when he turns. What
will you be doing any time soon to preserve the American Revolution and
the American government (but I repeat myself)? discuss
this column in the forum Anthony Gregory is a writer and musician living in Berkeley, California. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history at UC Berkeley, where he was president of the Cal Libertarians. He is a research assistant at the Independent Institute, a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation, a guest editor of Strike The Root, and a contributor to Rational Review, LewRockwell.com, Antiwar.com, The Libertarian Enterprise, and Liberty Magazine. See his webpage, AnthonyGregory.com.
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