LA Times And The Minuteman March
06/24/2008
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The LA Times blog , below, starts out "In May, it was immigrants marching for immigration reform. This weekend, about 50 protesters marched in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday..."

In 2006 there were two million pro-illegal marchers in the streets, largely because they were organized and funded by George Soros. More recently, and absent such funding, it's been smaller, in the thousands instead of millions. But it still seems ludicrous to compare those marches to a group of 50 protesters on behalf of immigration enforcement.

Does the disparity in the size of the marches mean that Americans support enforcement less than they do enforcement? Not at all.(Although it does mean there's less financial support.)

First of all, the millions of pro-amnesty marchers didn't signify American support for amnesty—because they weren't Americans.

Second, the millions of Americans who support enforcement mostly don't feel they need to march in the streets to support the law. This is a phenomenon that compares to the rarity of pro-Vietnam War demonstrations in the Sixties and Seventies, and the extremely rare "Peace Through Strength" counterdemonstrators during the pro-Communist "Nuclear Freeze" movement in the Eighties.

In both cases the general public didn't feel the need to march, since the national government was on their side. When some network news people referred to "Peace Through Strength" demonstrators in the Eighties as members of a "fringe", conservatives pointed out that the idea of deterrence was not only the official policy of the US Government, (supported by the American people and a strong bipartisan consensus) it was the policy of   every other government in the world. It was the pacifists who were the fringe, not matter how many people they could pack into Central Park for a nuclear freeze rally.

In the same way, people don't feel that they have to demonstrate against illegal immigration because it's already illegal.

They're wrong—marching would help show the patriotic immigration reformers in Congress that they have the support of the American people, and worry the others, but it's an understandable reaction.

 

Minutemen, others march in L.A. to protest illegal immigration

Minute_men_2 In May, it was immigrants marching for immigration reform. This weekend, about 50 protesters marched in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to decry violence by illegal immigrants and to demand that the Los Angeles Police Department change its controversial policy, Special Order 40, limiting when someone can be questioned about their immigration status, writes the L.A. Times' Anna Gorman.
The marchers, including anti-illegal-immigration Minutemen and local community activists, also called for justice for Jamiel Shaw II, 17, a black athlete who was shot and killed in March by an alleged gang member who authorities say was in the country illegally.[More]
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