Sunday, April 23, 2006

The beast within

If you listen to Lou Dobbs or Michelle Malkin or Sean Hannity, you'd have the impression that the Minutemen are just a bunch of sincere citizens whose only concern is hearing the border. Sure they are.

That would explain why a Colorado legislator received racist death threats late last week for making some disparaging remarks about the Minutemen:
Colorado Rep. Terrance Carroll received an e-mail Thursday, purportedly from a supporter of the Minuteman Project, the anti-illegal immigration group, that referred to lynching and told Carroll to "enjoy hell."

The Denver Democrat turned a copy over to the Colorado State Patrol, which is investigating.

Carroll, a lawyer who is black, said he was most bothered by the lynching reference.

"It was disturbing," he said. "This nation has an awful history of lynching."

The e-mail said, "You are so SOOOO lucky lynching and the firing squad for treason aren't available punishments anymore . . . I'd vote you in, in a heartbeat . . . "

"Enjoy Hell, Yellow Belly," the e-mail continued. "It takes a patriotic man to represent his country, and Sir, you are neither patriotic . . . nor a man."

What inspired this ugliness? Some remarks Carroll made earlier in the week, suggesting a little turnabout as fair play for the Minutemen:
The subject line in the e-mail read, "Build a wall around Colorado to keep out the minutemen." Carroll said that was a reference to a joke he made, which appeared in the Rocky Mountain News.

"I said, 'Perhaps we should build a wall around Colorado and keep Minutemen out,' " Carroll said.

He said the joke was made about what he sees as doomed approaches to "trying to stem the flow of immigration."

I'm sure I sound like a stuck record, but this incident is also notable for the naked eliminationism expressed in the e-mail. But then, eliminationism and racism are essentially two sides of the same coin.

So, for that matter, are the nice, "sincere citizens" and the ugly brutalists on the unlit side of their ranks -- whose presence, of course, is just a coincidence.

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