April 27, 2005

The Minutemen Diet Plan—Vigil The Weight Off!!

So I’m a bit ornery in today’s column but this story hit me when I was feeling exceptionally irritated about the whole border fiasco.

You’ve been warned…

After a long period of serious contemplation, I have decided that I don’t like people. I’m all for humanity—just not the vessel, if you know what I mean.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but in case you haven’t heard, our nation is fit to burst with the most insufferable species to ever inhabit the earth: Protesters

I say they are the worst and I’m grading on a curve. This conclusion excludes the top three species from my list: snake handlers, people who dress like Neo from the Matrix and hairless cats. (Well, all cats.)

Then I read Diana Ponce’s story and a new curve was established. Here’s her picture:

Ok, the caption for this photo could be anything—limitless joke potential.

But truth is stranger than fiction. This woman is actually fasting.

Uh-huh—poodle here is on a hunger strike. Read on…

“Diana Ponce talks on a phone in the yard of her San Pablo home Wednesday, the fifth day of a hunger strike to protest the gathering of armed volunteers, the Minuteman Project, at the Arizona-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States.” Hunger strike protests anti-immigrant vigilantes, San Francisco Chronicle 4/21/05, Chronicle photo by John O'Hara

Just like Gandhi, Ms. Ponce is squatting in her front yard—with a television, no less—and refusing to eat as a mark of protest against the Minuteman Project in Arizona.

(Toss in the gaggle of ACLU volunteers busted on film doping up their self-righteous minds and the Arizona border must look like a three-ring circus…or a Woodstock revival).

According to the CC Times’ Shirley Dang

“Earlier this month, Ponce read a newspaper account of the Minuteman Project, a loose band of armed volunteers gathered in Arizona this month to catch illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican border.”

And then,

“President Bush has called them vigilantes, but the administration has taken no action.”

The Contra Costa Times described Ms. Ponce’s condition as “delirious” by the fourth night of fasting.

She was “fighting off the chill under a fuzzy blanket emblazoned with the Mexican flag.” [San Pablo woman protests border vigilantes, Apr. 20, 2005] Additionally, note the fence-strung banners that read "Tenemos Que Unirnos" or “we have to unite.”

Diana isn’t alone—her husband visits in the morning and after work.

During the long days, she grips a pink teddy bear and plays with her pit bull. (A pit bull!…didn’t see that one coming!)

Interestingly enough, she is also a diabetic. So engaging in a form of protest that excludes food was an interesting pick.

Ponce also offered the Contra Costa Times this explanation for the hunger strike:

“‘How can the government in 2005 allow this, let people take the law into their own hands?’ said Ponce, whose father came from Michoacan. ‘Why do they need to be armed?’”

Ponce was also asked about her choice of locale.

“…Ponce said she wanted news cameras to show the world her neighborhood—a tight knit Mexican-American enclave of families with children, all of them with inalienable rights.”

Ooh, inalienable rights say she. Would that include the right to avoid a hostile take-over by illegal aliens who hail from places like Michoacan?

Explaining the front yard setting, she said something that sounded unbelievably close to rational.

"And I figured the government can't get involved if it's my own property," she said.

Goodness gracious, the lady is on to something. Ponce is of the opinion that government interference should be limited by private property rights.

But she wants the government to interfere in Arizona…

So does her opinion extend as far as to cover the Minutemen in Arizona and their private property rights?

Would it extend far enough to cover the private property rights of an entire nation?

If so, I just happen to have one in mind.

The behavior of Ms. Ponce emphasizes the fine line between crazy for the cause and just plain crazy.

More to the point, she is guided by the same system of beliefs shared by most pro-immigration enthusiasts:

Most people are endowed with certain inalienable rights—illegal immigrants are endowed with theirs and yours.

Bryanna Bevens [email her] is a political consultant and former chief of staff for a member of the California State Assembly.