Sunday, April 03, 2005

Why do we do this to ourselves?

For the past few weeks I've been seeing small articles and rumours about something called the "Minuteman Project." This project is a volunteer program where civilians (many of them armed) go down to the Mexico/U.S. border and using latest tracking and night vision technology patrol the border and look for Illegal aliens crossing into the United States. Even though many of these volunteers are armed they claim that they will use no force and when illegal immigrants are found they will notify the proper immigration officials.

When I first heard about this, my heart sank. What type of people will give up their time and volunteer in harsh conditions for such a cause? Definitely not the type of people you'd like to see walking around armed with weapons. Here is a quote from the project's website. It states that if we do not take action soon:

"Future generations will inherit a tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures with no common bond to hold them together, and a certain guarantee of the death of this nation as a harmonious "melting pot."

This comment makes little sense. Anyone can look back into American history and see that this thought is not new. With each ethnic group that has arrived in America, there have always been those who wish they did not come. But eventually, each finds its place in society. America is an adaptive society and will adapt to new cultures and new situations.

If people are truly worried about the future of American civilization, they should worry at the disregard of the some of the nations founding principles. In the American "Declaration of Independence" the writers state, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." This has been modified in our modern day to the effect of saying, only American men are created equal. If these Minuteman volunteers truly wanted to protect America from collapse they would spend their time and resources on finding solutions to economic inequalities in the world that cause many people to leave their lives and everything they know to make the treacherous journey towards the hope of better life.