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Minuteman

Who Are The Minutemen?

In the decades leading up to the American Revolution, young men from various New England localities were selected out of the regular militia to serve in what today could be called special forces units, dedicated to protecting family, community, and colony. Their constant state of readiness at “a minute’s notice” earned them the title, “Minutemen,” a term now synonymous with patriots willing to fight for freedom.

On an April morning in 1775, all was quiet in the area around Boston, Massachusetts, except for a growing crowd of Minutemen, congregating on suspicion of British troop movements into their area. Revolution was in the air. At dawn on the 19 th, the British redcoats entered the town of Lexington and faced 77 Minutemen on the village green.

Wes Hall's MinuteMan Restaurants They used to be all over the state of Arkansas in the 60's and 70's, and which were quite good with their burger and other "meal" offerings. MinuteMan restaurants had the first microwave ovens in the state which they advertised as "radar ranges" and in which they heated their radar range fruit pies (fruit cobblers in cups) and which were also good, despite their coming out of the ovens steaming & dangerously hot (an oddity back then). All MinuteMan Restaurant chain stores have long been gone.

Here the Minutemen were instructed not to fire first, but that “if they [the British] mean to have a war, let it begin here.” Begin it did, with a single shot. “The shot heard ‘round the world” was so named because of its incredible impact on world history; the spark that lit the fires of American Revolution.

Minutemen fought valiantly for liberty across New England and, together with the regular Continental Army, brought an end to British tyranny in the Colonies. Their devotion, skill, and readiness proved to be an important chapter in the history of the U.S.A.

In recent times, the legacy of the Minutemen has been honored by Americans who share a concern for homeland defense. During the Cold war, “Minuteman” missiles were deployed to protect U.S. interests on a moment’s notice. And, since the infamous terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the term has also been applied to groups of volunteers that seek to protect America’s borders from unwelcome intruders.

The Minuteman Project is not a call to arms, but a call to voices seeking a peaceful and respectable resolve to the chaotic neglect by members of our local, state and federal governments charged with applying U.S. immigration law. It is a call to bring national awareness to the decades-long careless disregard of effective U.S. immigration law enforcement. It is a reminder to Americans that our nation was founded as a nation governed by the "rule of law," not by the whims of mobs of ILLEGAL aliens who endlessly stream across U.S. borders.

Accordingly, the men and women volunteering for this mission are those who are willing to sacrifice their time, and the comforts of a cozy home, to muster for something much more important than acquiring more "toys" to play with while their nation is devoured and plundered by the menace of tens of millions of invading illegal aliens.

Future generations will inherit a tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures with no common bond to hold them together, and a certain guarantee of the death of this nation as a harmonious "melting pot." The result: political, economic and social mayhem. Historians will write about how a lax America let its unique and coveted form of government and society sink into a quagmire of mutual acrimony among the various sub-nations that will comprise the new self-destructing America.

It is the mission of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps to see the borders and coastal boundaries of the United States secured against the unlawful and unauthorized entry of all individuals, contraband, and foreign military. We will employ all means of civil protest, demonstration, and political lobbying to accomplish this goal. MCDC Local Chapters are active from the Borders to the Courthouses. MCDC Volunteers are passionate about Border Security and the Sovereignty of our Nation!

Surrendering Our Sovereignty

Set in motion by President Bush about two years ago, The Security and Prosperity Partnership, involving what many conservatives see as surrender of U.S. sovereignty to a trilateral entity that could assume the form of a North American Union, much like the European Union that now dictates to the citizens of 27 European states. "The Security and Prosperity Partnership was launched in 2005 to ensure continued economic prosperity in Canada, the United States and Mexico, and to increase the security of citizens in all three countries," says a release from the Canadian government. It sounds innocent enough. Those in attendance are supposed to include, from the government of Canada: Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, and Maxime Bernier, Minister of Industry. Their Mexican and U.S. counterparts are Secretary of Foreign Affairs Patricia Espinosa, Secretary of the Interior Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña, Secretary of Economy Eduardo Sojo Garza-Aldape, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez.

The Canadian government says that a "media availability" will be held so that photographs can be taken and a few questions asked of the various officials. My question would be: what is the legal basis for the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)? My research can find no legal basis for this complicated process, now about two years old, involving the futures of our three countries.

My interest stems from covering an all-day February 16 conference sponsored by the Center for North American Studies devoted to developing a North American legal system. It occurred to me at this conference, after examining the literature provided to me and hearing the various experts on the panels, that a process has been well underway to merge not only the legal but economic, political, and social systems of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. I wondered how this was all set in motion and what justification there was legally, legislatively or constitutionally, for it to proceed.

On one level, as I discovered at the conference, much of it stems from NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was pushed through Congress by President Clinton, getting majorities in both Houses, and bypassing the treaty process that requires a two-thirds vote in favor in the Senate. Clinton knew that he couldn't get the votes that a treaty required.

President Bush, a supporter of NAFTA, entered the picture on March 23, 2005, when he issued a statement with then-Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and announced the establishment of the SPP. I had reported that the statement was signed by President Bush, but was corrected by a reader who said that, according to the SPP website, it was not. The SPP says, "The SPP is a dialogue to increase security and enhance prosperity among the three countries. The SPP is not an agreement nor is it a treaty. In fact, no agreement was ever signed."

Yet I found a statement issued by then-Prime Minister Martin, in which he declared that "President Bush, President Fox and I signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership…" A transcript of a "press availability" from June 27, 2005, shows Carlos Abascal, the Mexican Secretary of the Interior, saying that, "Our three leaders, President Fox, President Bush and prime Minister Paul Martin have signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America." Why would officials of Canada and Mexico say the document was signed when it was not? Are they simply in error?

I found the text on the website of U.S. presidential documents but it did not indicate a signature had been attached to it. It is not listed under the category of executive orders. I'm no lawyer, but if the document was not signed, what legal basis, justification or force can it have?

A Canadian report describes the SPP as "an international framework for trilateral and bilateral cooperation in North America" that is "not a formal international treaty" or "an overarching binding legal agreement." But what is an "international framework" that commits U.S. officials from various federal agencies to working with officials of two other countries? Why is such a process not subjected to congressional scrutiny and approval?

It sounds suspiciously like the "non-binding resolution" that the House passed opposing President Bush's policy in Iraq, except for the fact that, on the basis of this allegedly unsigned SPP document, federal officials have entered into other agreements with the governments of Mexico and Canada which have been signed. In other words, this is a non-binding agreement or announcement that has binding consequences on the American people. The SPP refers, for example, to a "signed" agreement with Mexico on consumer goods and a "signed" agreement with Canada on pipeline regulations. They are described by the SPP as "accomplishments." Who signed these documents? It doesn't say. Why should they be signed when the original agreement creating the SPP is not? It doesn't explain.

White House spokesman Tony Snow has cavalierly dismissed concerns about this process, saying the charge that the U.S. is being submerged in a North American Union and developing a common currency with Canada and Mexico is an "urban legend." He must be unaware of the deep involvement in this process of Robert Pastor, a former Clinton adviser and Carter official who was behind the North American legal system conference. Pastor, an adviser to every Democratic candidate for president since 1976, is the brain behind the "North American Community," as he calls it. His support for the Panama Canal Treaty and radical forces in Latin America prompted Senator Jesse Helms, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to threaten to prevent a vote on Pastor's nomination by President Clinton as Ambassador to Panama. Pastor withdrew his nomination. One of Pastor's ideas, a "North American Investment Fund" to provide $200 billion to Mexico, was introduced as a bill by conservative Republican Senator John Cornyn.

Snow's flip comment will not satisfy the growing number of conservatives who find this SPP process to be of dubious constitutionality. Free trade is one thing, but the idea of exploiting NAFTA as part of an effort to develop "North American Institutions," including a North American Supreme Court with the power to overrule the U.S. Supreme Court, is something else entirely. Yet these are some of the ideas being seriously discussed by those, like Pastor, who believe in "continental thinking." The Democrats who have taken control of Congress promised increased oversight of the executive branch. The SPP deserves some of their immediate attention. But Robert Pastor shouldn't be left off the witness list.

Cliff Kincaid. Surrendering our Sovereignty. Accuracy In Media. February 23, 2007.

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