JH> 
JH> So true. And yet we in Texas are in a total denial of our Hispanic her
JH> I lived in California (born there too) and the same thing is happening
JH> there. It has been dangerous for anyone with dark skin to go to TJ. A
JH> friend of mine who was half Native American (with a sense of humor), w
JH> detained for about six hours at the border trying to get back home. Th
JH> thought his valid drivers license was a forgery. Of course this was ba
JH> my highschool days before everything was computerized. 
JH> It would be nice if there was a valid reason for this militarization, 
JH> they just aren't stopping the real problem: drugs.
 
      There is no valid reason for the militarization of thousands of
square miles of south Texas.  Military units sould simply not be used
to conduct civilian law enforcement.  They are not properly trained,
equipped, or managed to serve in such a capacity.  When I see almost a
third of Texas placed under the modern day equivilent of martial law
with federal agents and military forces conducting exercises in
civilian areas, violating private property, and conducting random
searches of our citizens a hundred miles from the border at federal
blockades on our highways, it angers me.  This is Texas and the soil
they are violating is the soil of Texas.  We, the people of Texas, all
the people of Texas, have endured tyrranies, dictatorships, and four
revolutions, saturating this soil witht eh sacred blood of our
ancestors, in a desperate and often hopeless struggle to secure our
liberty.  Having, at no small cost, secured our freedoms via such a
costly process, I cannot accept the sacrifice of these liberties at the
hands of any government, for any reason.
JH> Yes.  I think that in order for the border doors to open, we _must_ 
JH> dismantle our social  welfare programs. Of  course, _that_ by itself w
JH> take nothing less than a miracle.
 
        but inevitable...
 
                                      Mike Angwin
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