August 15, 2006--The One-Eyed Minuteman

I suspect that you, like me, when conjuring up images of the guys who have taken it upon themselves to patrol the border with Mexico to keep Wetbacks out of the U. S. of A., the so-called Minutemen, you picture some Neanderthal redneck who drinks beer by the six-pack and whose knuckles drag on the ground.

The last thing in the world I would imagine is that any of these vigilantes would be quoting anything coherent, much less from the writings of John Stuart Mills.

But then along comes the NY Times to confound things (article below). They report about a one-eyed 57-year-old decorated Vietnam veteran who comes from a family of two generations of newspapermen and from memory cites Mills’ assertion that “The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made so and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

He’s Britt Craig and he appears to be quite some romantic hero right out of a Hemmingway novel—after Vietnam, the Times says, “He drifted. Sailed. Fished. Pounded nails. Made music in Puerto Rico. Knew a few women and forgot a few women.”

Get the picture?

Most of the guys who do this Minuteman thing do so part time. Proverbial weekend warriors. Britt, on the other hand, is out there 24/7. For 500 days so far. Alone with an equally one-eyed over weight cat, he sleeps in his van and gets through the long days mainly by sulking.

He refuses to be absorbed into the “official” Minuteman “organization.” There is a lot of rivalry and competition among the men along the border. Each is trying to out-macho everyone else. There are, no surprise, few physical fights but a lot of bad blood and frequent exchanges of ugly talk. Craig has even been accused by some Minutemen rivals, who never served in the real army, of being a “phony war hero.” But he has the papers to prove it. All the rest have is a lot of swagger. And guns. All he wants is to do something significant—to be part of a society that “enforces its own basic rules,” claiming that if it doesn’t “is not a society at all.”

So he sits out there in the 110 degree heat keeping his eye out for the drug traffickers. That’s where he’s set himself up. In the most dangerous spot along the border. He dreams of bagging the elusive “coyote,” that’s what the smugglers are called, whose distinctive size 7 soccer cleats he’s been tracking for months. He looks forward to the day when they will be hanging from his rearview mirror like baby shoes.