From San Diego Union-Tribune:
When public debate becomes dangerous
Lionel Van Deerlin
UNION-TRIBUNE
June 15, 2006
Late in the 17th century, the good burghers of Salem, Mass., decided they'd had enough of witches. History has judged their solution to this problem something of an overreach.
If we are to draw a lesson from events of that era, it would be that people with the best of intentions can often cause unanticipated harm. A couple of current possibilities come to mind – the raging dispute about undocumented aliens, and a controversy over tactics for saving the cross on San Diego's Mount Soledad. Either could soon see people getting hurt.
Our border area is patrolled and protected by some 1,600 U.S. personnel, augmented recently by the California National Guard. No lawful person will likely resent these guys, all engaged by government. It is the periodic presence of a third element that invites concern – those aging volunteers who imagine themselves heir to the Minutemen of Revolutionary days.
Very little that surrounds San Ysidro's border crossing reminds us of the historic bridge at Concord. And while I do not begrudge them their lawn chairs and lager, one hardly mistakes these Minutemen for the Green Mountain Boys at Ticonderoga. Indeed, we must hope that today's bunch will limit their future service to those lawn chairs. In mid-May, alas, a handful of Minutemen took it upon themselves to check conditions in migrant worker encampments near several hiring sites in North County.
It should occasion scant surprise that these canyon hideaways lack the neatness and sanitary standards of a Motel 6. Nor that such premises are quickly vacated whenever word spreads that uninvited guests may be headed their way. Thus the visiting Minutemen found a Los Peñasquitos Canyon site uninhabited. Hoping not to disappoint accompanying media, the guys carried on as if a part of some authorized inspection team.
Seldom certain who is official or who not, most migrant workers try to avoid confrontations. But even in the wilds, a man's home is his castle. Let one or two of them stand his ground against intrusion by armed strangers, and there's a tragedy in the making.
A second such situation is the fight to keep a cross at its highly contentious location on city land atop Mount Soledad. As matters stand, a federal court order will sock San Diego taxpayers at a rate of $5,000 a day if the cross has not been moved by Aug 1.
Informally heading a campaign to save the familiar marker is San Diego's onetime mayor, now a successful radio talk host. Roger Hedgecock not only dominates the airwaves in his home town, but is Rush Limbaugh's favorite replacement whenever the great man is indisposed or must make a court appearance. The Soledad issue thus has had a wider national exposure than was otherwise likely.
Much as the late Howard Cosell morphed himself into Muhammad Ali's life story, Hedgecock gradually has become a lead player in the 17-year saga of the cross. Indeed, he's fathered an ever-swelling group of like-minded cross-bearers (from all over the United States, he insists) who intend chaining themselves to the immense Soledad symbol. This is to occur if and when the heavy tractors and related equipment move into place, come midsummer, in fulfillment of the court's order.
For Hedgecock, that's when the rubber meets the road – Via Capri, to be precise. On several occasions when taking the oath of local office, the ex-mayor has sworn to uphold our state and federal constitutions. Determined now to defy a series of court orders with which he disagrees, Hedgecock must decide whether the oft-repeated oaths covered only his terms in public office, or whether it committed him to a lifetime of respect for the law.
He'll find the president's recent rant about “activist” judges no help in this instance. His Honor Gordon Thompson, who ordered the cross gone, was an appointee of President Nixon, is solidly Republican and a lifelong Presbyterian.
A countless number apparently intend chaining themselves to the cross in whatever manner Hedgecock prescribes. One would suppose that our ex-mayor, no one's fool, will then be content to stand quietly while some hapless city maintenance man with torch or metalcutter frees him from the self-imposed restraint.
But what of the many others who will have chained themselves to the cross, or to Roger? From numerous utterances enlivening the public debate to this point, might we not find an excited few contriving some ultimate and highly dramatic display of their faith?
In which case, yes, people could be hurt.
Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in Congress for 18 years.
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