It's time to send a message

Let's TP the U.S. Capitol - and maybe the White House, too.

No, that's not TP as in toilet paper. The old college prank of festooning a frat house with toilet paper might be appropriate symbolically, but it would also be disrespectful, and that is not the goal in this case.

We need something grander than a sophomoric prank to protest the inattention of Congress and the president to the sovereign powers of the American people. We need to get a message to the politicians in Washington that they do not own the country; they just run it - for us. We the American people are the shareholders, and just as a company's shareholders need to be consulted before a merger is approved, so too must the American people be consulted before a virtual merger with Mexico is approved.

Make no mistake about it. The Kennedy-McCain immigration bill is just that - a merger with Mexico - and while it is easy to see the benefits for Mexico, it is harder to see what the American people gain by having their sovereignty diluted by between 10 million and 100 million new citizens over the next 20 years.

While it is easy to see the benefits for the illegal immigrants, who have put their self-interest ahead of the common good, it is harder to find any benefit at all for the American people, who must defend the common good against all manifestations of self-interest.

I won't try to enumerate all the wrongs of the Kennedy-McCain-Bush approach to immigration, but suffice it to say that among the most egregious offenses are that it rewards illegal behavior with citizenship, makes a mockery of homeland security, formalizes the creation of an underclass of "guest workers" who will multiply in number but never be assimilated into the American culture, and saddles the American taxpayers with billions of dollars in costs for health care and other social services.

In addition, and perhaps most importantly, it rips at the heart of the unity of the American people, which is best summarized in our motto E Pluribus Unum - "Out of many we are One." Immigration is a beautiful thing that has strengthened America by bringing many different strains of thought and belief together, but we must not lose sight of the "together" part. If we lose that, then we may as well change our motto to E Pluribus Chaos - "Out of many, we enter the Abyss."

But yet the Senate tells us that we must accept this "solution" to the illegal immigration problem. We are told that there is no other answer, because the problem is too big for a real solution. We are told that we must be humane to the illegal immigrants because they are just acting for the good of their families.

But let's get one thing straight - we are not treating Mexicans like "second-class citizens" when we tell them they are not welcome here; we are treating them like non-citizens - which is what they are. Anyone who can't tell the difference between a citizen and a non-citizen needs a civics lesson, and probably should not be allowed to serve in the Congress or White House either.

I think most Americans know that, and I think most of us - despite whatever poll you read - believe that citizenship in this country is our greatest earthly asset. It should not be traded lightly, and it should not be given away.

Which is why I say, "Let's TP the U.S. Capitol - and maybe the White House, too."

We need a symbol that reaches to the heart of American freedom and identity. A symbol that tells the powers that be, "We won't take it any more." A symbol of grass-roots resistance to imperious foolishness.

We need, in short, a new Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party is the famous incident in Boston Harbor that was staged by Samuel Adams on Dec. 16, 1773. On that night, dozens of colonists dressed as Indians boarded three ships, seized the tea cargo on board and dumped it into the harbor. This was no mere act of vandalism, but rather a message to Parliament and the crown that they could not take advantage of Americans. The British had concocted several taxes on the colonists, but the Americans were refusing to pay them on the grounds that they had no representation in Parliament and therefore did not recognize its authority.

Thus, the tea went into Boston Harbor, and this simple act of resistance helped to motivate the colonists to stand up for themselves and for self-government.

Today, we see a similar movement that has sprung up, which also takes its name from the Revolutionary War era. The original Minutemen was that ragtag bunch of foot soldiers who responded first to the threat of attack in the 18th century colonies. It is the Minutemen who fought the first battle of the War of Independence at Lexington and Concord in 1775.

That is proper inspiration for the modern Minutemen, who are regular U.S. citizens who have banded together to protect the border with Mexico from the daily onslaught of smugglers and illegals.

It was just over a year ago that I wrote a column about the Minuteman Project. I said then that "the power of an idea can be staggering, even world-changing," and proposed that the idea of a secure border might be just such an idea.

Today, we see that those volunteers who wanted to bring attention to illegal immigration have succeeded admirably, but we must be sure that the politicians do not get their wish to sweep the issue back under the rug.

That is why average citizens such as you and me need to get together and do something. The Boston Tea Party involved only 150 men, but it helped to change the world forever with a symbol of opposition to tyranny.

Today, we need a Tea Party (or TP) of our own, with which we can send the president and Congress a message they can't misunderstand. We need a simple symbol of our opposition to illegal immigration, and of our opposition to a government that is more concerned with expedience than with excellence.

Fortunately, you and I don't have to come up with that symbol ourselves. It already exists. It's called the Send-A-Brick Project (www.send-a-brick.com) and it has as one of its slogans, "Since you have trouble building a wall, here's a start."

Indeed, it's quite a start. All over the country, advocates of real border security are sending bricks - one at a time - to their senators and representatives on Capitol Hill. So far, an estimated 10,000 bricks have been delivered, and each one is earmarked - to use a favorite congressional term - for a fence to be built on the border with Mexico.

This is a real grass-roots rebellion, and only started in April, but it has already had an effect. In fact, last week, the New York Times even took notice of the campaign, quoting a congressional aide as saying, "Given the approval ratings of Congress these days, I guess we should all be grateful the bricks are coming through the mail, not the window."

This may be just one more skirmish in the war on foolishness, but the Boston Tea Party was only a "skirmish," and it continues to inspire us today, more than 230 years later.

So pick up a pen, or send a brick. But do something, for your country's sake.

If our forefathers had not had the temerity to stand up for themselves against the powers that be in England, we would all still be singing "God Save the Queen" today instead of "My County 'Tis of Thee."

If we could tell the king of England what we thought of him 230 years ago, then we should be able to tell the president of the United States the same thing.

Send a brick to send a message. Let the Tea Party begin.