Freedom Folks: The Slumbering Beast Awakens

I just read this op-ed piece over at The Boston Globe. (Hat tip: Minuteman Blog)

Jim Gilchrist, who started citizens' patrols to catch illegal immigrants along the Mexican border, struck an even bigger blow last week for his cause: Running for an open California seat in Congress on an anti-illegal immigrant platform, he picked up 25 percent of the vote as an independent, in a normally Republican district.

Yes, yes he did.

Gilchrist's big protest vote grabbed the attention of almost every politician in Washington, thereby guaranteeing that curbing illegal immigration will be a refrain in next year's congressional races.

Yes, yes it will.

But by framing a crackdown on illegal immigration as a values test, Gilchrist and others make practical attempts to tackle the problem sound like feckless accommodations: guest-worker plans, flights to central Mexico, and opportunities to obtain green cards all strike the average talk-radio audience as ways of coddling wrongdoers.

Yes, yes they do.

I don't agree with everything Canellos has to say in this piece, but he's on the money about this issue becoming a major one for the 2006 elections, and even moreso in 2008. The slumbering beast that is the American people is starting to wake up to the problem that is illegal immigration. We've got to make sure our government knows that they have screwed things up in allowing this to happen, and hold them accountable for doing what it takes to fix it.