Wait Just a Minute
The questions you should ask a Minuteman.
By Somerset Perry, Georgetown University
Monday November 6, 2006
Although an errant fire alarm went off 15 minutes into it, Wednesday’s speech at Georgetown University by president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps Chris Simcox was decidedly less heated than expected. Protestors outside the event held signs saying, "Simcox + Bigotry Not Welcome" and inside wore red shirts, ready to walk out if Simcox said anything that crossed the line, but the Minuteman kept his rhetoric relatively cool.
Simcox went through his life story—he was a kindergarten teacher trained in a "multicultural approach to learning" before he experienced a life crisis on 9/11— and explained the necessity for and methodology of his vigilante group, which attempts to police America’s borders.
"The federal government has abandoned its duty to secure our borders," he said, and the MCDC are "nothing more than a neighborhood watch." Funny, most neighborhood watch organizations aren’t encouraged to carry concealed weapons, but I digress.
Mainly, Simcox just stuck to his talking points: Immigration is out of control, we must militarize the border, and vigilante groups are the only way because the government hasn’t responded. He stayed away from the Minutemen’s infamous overtly racist rhetoric. Simcox also avoided proposing any plausible solution to the underlying causes for illegal immigration, like desperate poverty in developing countries.
The response from protestors during the speech was less organized and pointed than it could have been, failing to skewer Simcox in a few places where his logic and facts were off or call him on the nasty language he has used in other interviews and speeches. After the speech, a line of more than 20 people, many of them in the red shirts, formed for the Q&A session and thus I wasn’t able to ask any questions, but I’ll outline here what a few of them would have been.
Although Simcox said that the Minutemen "have never broken a law and never abused a human being on earth," Simcox himself was arrested in January 2003 for illegal possession of a concealed firearm. Someone should have asked him about that.
Simcox dipped a tiny bit into his bag of stereotypes when he claimed indirectly that urban gangs in America are a product solely of illegal immigration. So another good question, considering how Simcox has claimed to be compassionate toward the people he reports to the border patrol, would have been why he once said this: "Those people don’t come here to work. They come here to rob and deal drugs." Or this one: "I mean, we need the National Guard to clean out all our cities and round them up. They are hard-core criminals. They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughters and they are evil people." These troubling statements needed to be aired in front of a crowd that may not have known to be skeptical of Simcox’s misleadingly friendly presentation. Instead many questions took the form of diatribes that were far less effective than hoisting Simcox by his own petard would have been.
Although he failed to show his true colors at Georgetown, Simcox’s previous statements show him to be racist, and it is disappointing he wasn’t questioned in a more meaningful way by protestors. Campus progressives should arm themselves with the facts on the rightwing demagogues who come to speak to them. In the end, the event was a bit more hot air than heated debate. Maybe all that smoke Simcox blew is what set off the fire alarm.
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Comments
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Oh my, your own bigotry comes through in your opinion piece – let me educate you more than you seem to have been at the institution of “higher” learning. First your comment -“explained the necessity for and methodology of his vigilante group, which attempts to police America’s borders.” A vigilante is someone who takes the law into their own hands -no volunteer of MCDC has ever broken a law and has no intention to do so -thus we cannot be deemed a vigilante group -vigilant yes, just as you seem to be in your quest to dig up perceived racism -try looking in the faces of the protestors who spewed more bigotry and hate than any volunteer of MCDC ever has. Besides the vitriol displayed by you and your fellow protestors would never be tolerated by MCDC.
— Chris Simcox - Nov 6, 10:40 PM - #Next -“Funny, most neighborhood watch organizations aren’t encouraged to carry concealed weapons” -millions of responsible citizens carry concealed weapons every day and never misuse them -it would probably cause you to wet your pants if you knew that you are surrounded by dozens of people legally carrying a concealed weapon every day.
Next -“Although Simcox said that the Minutemen “have never broken a law and never abused a human being on earth,” Simcox himself was arrested in January 2003 for illegal possession of a concealed firearm.”...and what does that have to do with MCDC or harming another human being? My charge was in no way connected to MCDC and by the way was a misdemeanor -irrelevant..like your opinion.
Next-“Simcox dipped a tiny bit into his bag of stereotypes when he claimed indirectly that urban gangs in America are a product solely of illegal immigration.” -I never said that, in fact I said that we have enough domestic crime of our own without inviting the hoards of foreign national gangs that have invaded our cities nationwide -ever heard of MS-13 or the Latin Kings? Hope you never fall victim to their heinous crimes.
Next-clever of you to take the following statement out of context -“Those people don’t come here to work. They come here to rob and deal drugs.” Or this one: “I mean, we need the National Guard to clean out all our cities and round them up. They are hard-core criminals. They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughters and they are evil people.” I never said that about the illegal aliens -that statement was addressed to the real criminals like MS-13 and other evil gangs.
Next -“These troubling statements needed to be aired in front of a crowd that may not have known to be skeptical of Simcox’s misleadingly friendly presentation.”
Every presentation that I have made has been exactly the same; rational, reasoned and friendly because the goal is to find a solution to the problem.
Next -“Although he failed to show his true colors at Georgetown, Simcox’s previous statements show him to be racist,” – my colors are always the same -logical and reasoned and I challenge you to come up with form of racist comments…you can’t.
And by the way I rarely divulge another fact because I never feel I need to defend myself but instead I like to save it for vitriolic ideologist like you -I have a bi-racial Euro-African child and two of my sisters are married to Hispanics and I have three beautiful Euro-Hispanic nieces and a nephew -we have wonderful times at family gatherings and are quite proud of our blended family -diversity is a beautiful thing.
For you and your parents -an education must be a terrible thing to waste when tainted by hate.
Thanks for attending the lecture -I know you learned something and realize you are terribly misguided and have lost the argument.
Chris Simcox
oh damn son, you got taught.
ahahahahahah
— Matt - Nov 9, 06:03 PM - #What was the point of the article? I’m not saying that I aggree with the minutemen, or Mr. Simcox, terrible racist things have been said, not necessarily by Mr. Simcox, but there is reason for people to be concerned. Mr. Simcox should be cautious about what he says, knowing that it will misconstrued by people in the media, and then potentially people who are crazy-racist could embrace what’s been said and then further ruin any possibility for meaningful dialogue to occur, not to mention it could stir up a hornets nest of problems and further inflame things. If it’s important enough for the minutemen to have been created, then it’s important enough for you to make every attempt at avoiding this, including self-editing. Also, Mr. Simcox, there is an obvious difference between carrying a concealed weapon, and masses of of people rallying together encouraging the use of concealed weapons, It looks less than legitimate, It sure looks like hunting to me, how do you think this makes you appear to the rest of the country.
This is a serious topic and there are problems assoicated with illegal-immigrants that effect some of us more than others. That being said, this article does nothing to address these problems and only attempts to invalidate Mr. Simcox’s opinions. — elise - Nov 9, 06:58 PM - #One of the biggest fears about the Minutemen is that they’re an established hate group that the FBI used to keep tabs on, as they were labeled “ subversive”. This type of mainstream designation by politicans and the media is causing people who prefer to live in a fantasy world to except extremists and their agendas.
— Sharon Dupree - Nov 9, 11:10 PM - #Mr. Simcox,
I’d think that you being the older and, supposedly, wiser individual would result in a retort a little less…immature. When your rebuttal is dripping with such acerbity, it diminishes your point.
Also, stating in an argument that your opponent lost does not, in fact, mean that you won. It just means that you’re too insecure with your rebuttal to believe that people could come to that conclusion on their own.
And even though I could go on for quite some time, I’ll just finish with one more point. You don’t even know the author and are already making heinous assumptions about him. I’m sure that he wouldn’t wet his pants about concealed weapons nor is he as stupid as you seem to think he is. As far as I can see, he made it into Georgetown University, a feat all its own, and was featured in this magazine. So there’s no reason to be so condescending and talk down to anyone just for an opinion. Besides, you’re in the public eye, get used to people disagreeing with you.
— Chandler McCoy-Simandle - Nov 10, 06:52 PM - #Perry responds to this thread in a blog post here: http://www.campusprogress.org/page/community/post/sperry/C3Q9
— Graham - Nov 14, 10:55 AM - #How would u like to see America taken over by Mexico? Our government was already begining to reflect their policies. If you like an invasion, and u want to give everything away, forget the Mexican Patriots, I ‘ll come with a truck to your house tomorrow. If you are well to-do, u won’t have a clue what I’m talking about. Why don’t you start having a “Poor” day, where u go and check out poor Americans. There’s something wrong with a country’s people who would rather help foreigners intead of their own PEOPLE!
— Zena - Nov 23, 04:34 PM - #