Minutemen, but not the American revolution kind

This is going to be another very bias argument from me, but considering the group in question and the things I've seen of them I'm not too worried. The Minuteman project is a group dedicated to protecting the U.S. / Mexico border, “acting as unarmed and unsanctioned eyes and ears of the Border Patrol" according to an article from fox news. They characterize themselves as a patriot group dedicated to protecting the country. This is relevant to me right now as I have been hearing more stories about them reforming after they largely disbanded around 2010.

The first time I learned about the Mmp it was in regard to an incident at an mmp demonstration. It was a long time ago and I don’t remember all the details, and I have not been able to find coverage about this specific incident. The overall point was that the mmp was speaking at a college hoping to recruit and spread their message. However the students were less than receptive to the message, staging a protest where they attempted to take the stage. The protest, and the demonstration, ended quickly as a young female student attempting to get on stage was violently kick in the face by one of the minutemen members on stage. This is not the only incident of violence attributed to them. Though their mission statement is stated as being there to simply observe and assist the border patrol in a legal capacity they were essentially an armed militia group operating in remote unpatrolled areas, controversy was inevitable. In fact it seem the reason that the group is having difficulty reforming is because they are having a hard time separating themselves from the violence they and many copycat groups caused.

The reason I’m so against this group pertains to a one of my previous posts. I wrote before about groups that seem to have embraced a new form of patriotism which is essentially racism masked as patriotism. This, I believe, is the principle the minutemen run off of. Ambivalence, the concept that racism is somehow necessary and beneficial in some instances. In media today we see this in discussions about Muslims. As the U.S. has been attacked by a Muslim group many have characterized all Muslims as terrorists, and thus that legal policy should be adopted to address them as such. However as any rational person knows there is no group of people that is inherently bad. But nonetheless many people believe anyone of Muslim background could be a threat. So to do the minutemen believe that illegal immigrant are all inherently detrimental to the country. I am not a big fan of slippery sloop arguments but in this case I have seen it happen. If racism is seen as necessary, that is not a large step from it being actable. Worse yet it will extend not just from the original group to any group a racist person, now free from social restraints, might tailor an argument to prove a group is inherently deficient or bad.

Their mission, intentions, and efforts aside, as a group focused on a specific group is always going to attract those with prejudice toward that group. And when those people get together it gives rise to notions that their behavior is more acceptable. We live in an age where racism is not acceptable, and to allow a group that targets a specific group is going to undermine that.