From \"Few minutes with Minutemen is plenty of time for GOP group\"\r\n
\r\nBy Bud Kennedy of the Star-Telegram\r\n<\/p>
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\r\nBRYAN, TX - The Texas Minutemen brought their borderline paranoia to the heart of Aggieland this week.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nA Republican club invited the Wise County-based Minutemen to tell about their escapades guarding the Rio Grande. But what they heard was too loony even for Aggies.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhen the Minutemen's quirky leader started rambling about \r\n<\/p>
\r\n1. a secret plan to \"merge Canada and Mexico with the United States,\" the good Republicans in the home of the George Bush Presidential Library started squirming in their chairs behind half- eaten barbecue plates.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n2. When a Minutewoman from Dallas started complaining that ranchers can shoot diseased cattle at the border but not humans,\r\n<\/p>
\r\n3. and blamed permissive immigration on the \"greedy business people\" of America, their Republican host finally had enough and stood to cut off questions.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"Thank you,\" said Dan Garcia, 29, an Iraq war veteran and now a Texas A&M University student. Almost apologetically, he told the Brazos County Young Republicans, \"Our goal was just to set up a forum where we could hear different opinions.\"\r\n<\/p>
\r\nLater, he said the discussion \"got out of hand a little too quickly.\"\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"I don't think disease should be part of the issue,\" said Garcia, a Brownsville native and the son of immigrants from Mexico who earned doctorates. \"Some of the things they said, I totally disagree with. As Republicans, we're not xenophobes. We just want to know who's coming into the country.\"\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt was his idea to invite a Minuteman to draw more people to a meeting when some Young Republicans have gone home for the summer. It worked: Instead of five or six Republicans, the meeting drew 25 guests to C & J Barbeque.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nGarcia said he looked up Minutemen on the Web and found the Wise County group.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nShannon McGauley, 42, a private investigator from Boyd, leads one of two factions of Minutemen volunteers in Texas. His faction reports to a California man who is affiliated with a Bible-preaching fringe political party and\r\n<\/p>
\r\n4. who openly opposes allowing any other \"cultures\" or languages in America besides his own. \r\nThat part bothered Garcia before the meeting.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"What makes America great is that we pull the best from all cultures,\" he said in an interview. \"As a Republican, I value hard work and personal integrity. People bring those values to the U.S. from all cultures.\"\r\n<\/p>
\r\nMcGauley agreed to make the drive to Bryan for gas money, Garcia said.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nMcGauley and other Minutemen have eagerly accepted invitations from border-minded Republican clubs lately, using the opportunity to promote their financially struggling volunteer effort and to preach their conspiracy politics.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n5. In Bryan, their handouts included something about the Trilateral Commission.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nMcGauley, a stubby man with a necktie that stops about four inches too soon, called himself a \"bail bond enforcement agent.\" He and a brother bill themselves on the Web as the only known pair of twin bounty hunters.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nBefore they hunted border crossers, they might have been hunting something else.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn a Yahoo discussion group called \"smalltowntexassingles,\" somebody using his brother's name posted a 2002 ad introducing twin brother private investigators looking to \"get to know\" singles. They have also advertised a lawn service.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nEarly last year, after volunteering in a Minuteman Project patrol in Arizona, McGauley registered the name Texas Minutemen.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe other faction is the Falfurrias-based Texas chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which emphasizes lawful borders more than fear of Hispanic \"culture.\"\r\n<\/p>
\r\nFor the Bryan audience, McGauley began with a routine report on risks along the border. He described\r\n<\/p>
\r\n6. the cat-and-mouse game Minutemen play watching the border,\r\n<\/p>
\r\n7. the rumors of Iraqis crossing illegally\r\n<\/p>
\r\n8. and the plans for another patrol Sept. 11 along the Rio Grande near Laredo and Del Rio.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n9. The volunteers simply watch for border crossers and alert the Border Patrol, he said.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n10. They carry concealed weapons for self-defense, as allowed under state law.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nA small group of Hispanic students and adults from Texas A&M University watched from a front table. Hispanic students have been part of the Gig 'Em tradition since at least 1894, when an Aggie from Hidalgo, Mexico, named N. Valdez scored A&M's very first football touchdown.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThey bristled when McGauley's co-founder, a retired Dallas software engineer named Sandra Beene, started talking about \r\n<\/p>
\r\n11. shooting \"varmints\"\r\n<\/p>
\r\n12. and about how ranchers used to shoot cattle that crossed the border for fear they might have diseases.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"Now, we're bringing all the diseases that we wiped out right back in,\" she said.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n13. Then, a barber from Bryan spoke up from the crowd to complain about trucks from Mexico using the planned Trans-Texas Corridor toll superhighway.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"Trucks are going to roll all the way into Kansas City from a foreign nation,\" McGauley said as if free trade is somehow sinister.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nHe mentioned the secret \"plan\" to merge North America, which must not be a secret up in Wise County.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nLate in the discussion, Beene made this telling comment:\r\n<\/p>
\r\n14. \"Once, in this country, we imported a lot of people who were black, and we created a slave class of human beings,\" she said. \"And we're still paying for that, through all the resentment. And black people are still paying for it, too.\"\r\n<\/p>
\r\nLesson 1: Some of these Minutemen don't want anyone of another color or culture in Texas.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nLesson 2: Republicans need to be careful about welcoming the Minutemen.<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Minutemen prove to be too much even for Texas Republicans","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2006\/07\/167835.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}