Ranch Rescue: A paler face of domestic terrorism

May 21, 2003 2:46 PM

Ranch Rescueis a organization dedicated to the notion of preserving "Private property first, foremost, and always." Darlings of the far right-wing press, they are not anti-tax or anti-regulation of business, they are a group that exploits laws allowing landowners to apprehend or shoot trespassers by organizing armed expeditions of "concerned citizens" to hunt down undocumented border crossers. Begun in Arizona and Texas, they have recently expanded to all Mexican/American border states. Check out the different state pages to learn of their upcoming "operations". This site requires a lot of perusal to ascertain the reality of what these people are doing, but they do give you some insight as to what the hell they are thinking.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly (30 comments total)

I learned about these armed monkeys a couple of years ago from La Jornada, and I had all but forgotten about them until today. If we had one paper like that in El Gabacho, the world would be a better place.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 2:51 PM on May 21, 2003

From the book reviews section:

Big Sister Is Watching You - by Texe Marrs

Hillary Klinton is a psychopath. That pretty much explains how and why and how she and her assemblage of acolytes, ruthless, shrewd, and calculating Lesbian FemiNazis all, are working steadily toward controlling everyone else's lives.
posted by cell divide at 3:09 PM on May 21, 2003

Simply put: No illegals from South of Texas would bother coming into U.S. unless there were Americans willing to hire them, no matter what the wages. They come for work and get hired on the cheap. If they can get in with such ease, so too can potential terrorists. Thugh I dislike vigilante groups, they seem to be doing what the govt is supposed to be doing but is not doing, perhaps in part out of respect for the great friendship between Bush and Fox.
posted by Postroad at 3:21 PM on May 21, 2003

Two other groups like them is the American Border Patrol and Civil Homeland Defense.

There truly is no justice quite like angry mob justice.
posted by cmonkey at 3:25 PM on May 21, 2003

I had no idea this group existed. It's interesting to see how they use rhetoric, calling the local police that arrested two of their members the "Texas Taliban". They seem to support President Bush and seem in favor of invasive measures such as citizen IDs, but they're big on personal liberty, and those two things don't seem to work together.

It's amazing how they go about explaining what is essentially a vigillante group and that somehow all the worlds ills are related to socialism and environmentalism.
posted by mathowie at 3:26 PM on May 21, 2003

It's amazing how they go about explaining what is essentially a vigillante group and that somehow all the worlds ills are related to socialism and environmentalism.

You forgot that great unspoken ill -- brown people.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 3:32 PM on May 21, 2003

stunning.
posted by moz at 3:32 PM on May 21, 2003

Note to all Mexicans crossing the border: bring a gun, it's not like they're hard to get. You're already labelled as an 'illegal', so might as well go full-bore.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:35 PM on May 21, 2003

FWIW, both Glenn Spencer of ABP and Chris Simcox of CHD are transplants from California.
posted by liam at 4:01 PM on May 21, 2003

This is an owners land we are talking about, what is there to argue: the ethics at which he protects it. This is a mess too because States have to patrol a Federal border.
Killing for simple trespassing is wrong, get a dog.

But the laws in Texas are in the land owners favor, especially at night; Ask the repo-man.
posted by thomcatspike at 4:11 PM on May 21, 2003

But the laws in Texas are in the land owners favor, especially at night; Ask the repo-man.

It appears, that when weighing human rights against property rights, these people are using radically different scales than I am.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 4:15 PM on May 21, 2003

Some of these vigilantes are now using unmanned drone aircraft to try and track the illegal immigrants.
posted by beth at 4:17 PM on May 21, 2003

I promise that I will quit cluttering up this thread after the following (lest I appear to be moderating):

The craziest thing about these people is the fact that they just don't get it. I have known a lot of conservatives in my life that I respected, and whose thinking I respected. In fact, the more abstract you get with it, I really dig on basic libertarian principles. That being said, all of the smart conservatives that I have known that I have known were big "free-market heads" (and that is not meant snidely at all).

This is why these people are nothign mroe than stupid: they are killing people whose actions are straight-up dictated by the market. People come from Mexico because that population perfectly fills a labor niche. They don't come for the fucking scenery, they come to get money for their families. It's like the War on Drugs (TM), or War on Terror (TM) in that it is all about ignoring real causality in favor of simplistic racist violence. It is all one big war on rational thought.

If you hate Mexicans, then work to make the minimum wage more rigidly enforced, and to police the garment and agriculture industries more harshly. Or better yet, look yourself in the mirror, slap yourself in the face as hard as you can, and drown yourself in your toilet, because the world does not need you. Plus, we can get an immigrant to do whatever you do for half as much. Assholes.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 4:28 PM on May 21, 2003

These guys, I'll grant you, are lunatics. However, hunting people and the right to defend your land are two entirely different topics which are being painted with the same brush.

I wouldn't even consider being on the ranch without guns. Mostly for critter control, but I'm fully aware that there are bad people out there.

Now, am I likely to shoot somebody for just being on the land? Not under most circumstances. (Poachers who have been warned, and yet come back anyway, are the exception...and I'd lean more towards a shotgun and rocksalt for those morons.)

But if I'm out at the ranch, am I likely to shoot somebody who breaks into the house? Yeah...probably. Just as fast as I'll shoot a rattlesnake near a horse or a cow. Does it have anything to do with their race or nationality? Nope. You could be the Aryan wet dream, but if you're breaking in, which means you've gotten through alarms, gates, crossfencing, signs, and dogs...then yeah, I'm going to assume you're up to no good...and since the closest cops to the ranch are 30 minutes away...you're probably a dead man.

Has nothing to do with property, has nothing to do with protecing material goods...has everything to do with protecting me, and my family. I'm not so liberal that I'll let myself get raped, or let my child get hurt when I have the legal right and the firepower to stop it from happening.
posted by dejah420 at 4:46 PM on May 21, 2003

My parents crossed illegally; I wonder how these folks would react to know their tax dollars are paying for me to go to college.

In theory, I know crossing the border illegally is wrong. In the real world, the fact that my parents risked life and limb to get over here is the thing I am most grateful for; let's see, pregnant at 16 like my cousin and living in some "quaint" (squalid) pueblo or graduating college and planning on getting my Masters? I'll take door number two please, no matter what laws/patrols/vigilantes are in the way.
posted by lychee at 5:07 PM on May 21, 2003

Prof. Hirsen reveals that in a secret codex to the 1992 UN Biodiversity Treaty (signed by Klinton) there are plans for the set-aside of vast human-free zones within the territory of the US.

All right. Human-free zones!

And how nice of them to use non-sexist language. Considering that they are insane, and all.
posted by jokeefe at 5:07 PM on May 21, 2003

Don't assume a lack of guns on either side of the border. Though strictly prohibited in Mexico, "mules" who are handsomely paid to escort illegals are often armed, indifferent to their human cargo, and generally vicious bastards. Many of the fatalities can be traced to these stupid and greedy swine.

And interspersed with the ordinary people who just want to make a living are nasty and often armed drug smugglers and violent criminals.

Is this unusual? No. Border areas are often very rough places, and the US/Mexico border is a lot tamer then some, for example the historical Scotland/England border, or the Russia/China border. And the people who live in border areas are known for their toughness.

Were the US pressure escape not there, Mexico would have exploded long ago, and the possibility of a life up north is the greatest thing preventing reform in Mexico today.

The bottom line is that Mexicans are good workers and integrate well into the US, but there will be no good end to this problem until Mexico changes its ways.
posted by kablam at 6:51 PM on May 21, 2003

You could be the Aryan wet dream, but if you're breaking in, which means you've gotten through alarms, gates, crossfencing, signs, and dogs...then yeah, I'm going to assume you're up to no good...

Is it really that dangerous out there? I've always imagined crime to be relatively rare in rural areas. The way you paint it, dejah420, it sounds like a war zone.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:12 PM on May 21, 2003

lychee, please paypal me the $0.00003 you got from my taxes.
posted by billsaysthis at 7:35 PM on May 21, 2003

Is it really that dangerous out there? I've always imagined crime to be relatively rare in rural areas. The way you paint it, dejah420, it sounds like a war zone.

No...not really. As a note, we don't live at the ranch...it's a parental property.

In all the years that they've had the property...nigh on to a zillion years now, nobody has ever shot at anybody else. The alarms, crossfencing and gates are to keep the cows where the cows belong.

At most working ranches, you have to go through multiple gates before you get to a house. There are generally doorbell/announcement systems set up at the gates from the road, and the gates between pasture and house. Gates are usually kept locked. In other words, you couldn't just "accidently" wander up to a back door.

As to rural areas being crime-free, that's not really true. There is a much lower incident of random crime, I think...but there's still drugs, and drunks, and people whacking each other with sticks, and all the other mean things that people tend to do to one another.
posted by dejah420 at 8:12 PM on May 21, 2003

Forget about the Mexicans, I can hear those damn Canadians sharpening their skates, coming to steal our cheese!
posted by CrazyJub at 8:28 PM on May 21, 2003

The day someone invents a piece of property that brings me the same joy as a friend's smile or a stranger's kindness, I'll join their ranks. Until then, they can shut the fuck up.

What is it about ruralites that makes them incapable of comprehending that culture is a constant flux and that their "way of life" is going to die someday whether or not they're drowned in a hoard of supposidely inferior immigrants? When the world is this full of crap, change can be a good thing, mm'kay?

Okay, maybe some property rights are important. But somehow I think there's a reason why Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Assembly, and Freedom of Expression are all listed first.
posted by Skwirl at 8:33 PM on May 21, 2003

It is all one big war on rational thought.

Well put, Ignatius - and so we can assume that, given the precedent of the War on Drugs, the War on Terror and so forth... Rational Thought will win?!!

EXcellent!
posted by soyjoy at 9:00 PM on May 21, 2003

whoa! "front-page" article on Salon today about similar violent asshats.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:31 PM on May 21, 2003

Wait, your telling me that there's right-wing fringe groups out here? Heavens to betsy!!

Please. Pull yourself together. A few bands of idiots does not a movement make. Just like these guys seem to see "socialist liberals" under their beds at night, some of you seem to have hang-ups that a buncha nitwits like this are coming to get you. It's the evil far right booogeyman, mommy!


What is it about ruralites that makes them incapable of comprehending that culture is a constant flux and that their "way of life" is going to die someday

Wow. Condescending bigot much, skwirl?



My grandparents live and raised my mom and uncle in a central Vermont town of less than 10,000 and they like it a lot. But I guess they's just not as bright as you fancy city-folk with yer talkin' pitcher boxes and whatnot.

Oh they're also immigrants too. As are lot of people in rural areas. But, that's OK, don't miss a chance to act superior and snobbish. Attitudes like yours are part of the reason "ruralites" might be a little suspicious of "urbanites"(and I type this from Manhattan), they might get the impression that we all think like you.
posted by jonmc at 6:02 AM on May 22, 2003

After purusing their reading list, my biggest wonder is how oblivious they seem to be to the real threats to individual freedom and the Constitution coming from the current administration. How do they not get it? Or do they believe that since the Shrub and Co. are good old Texas boys then they are on the same side? If worse comes to worst, won't they be surprised!? After the Homeland is cleansed of "ragheads", brown skinned folks, monkeywrenchers, Socialist Liberals, UNers, Paul Wellstone, and all the Clintonista Feminazis, guess who is next? Waco-ites and McVeigh-sympathizers and all the far right are equally as dangerous to the current regime.
posted by mooncrow at 6:28 AM on May 22, 2003

Please. Pull yourself together. A few bands of idiots does not a movement make. Just like these guys seem to see "socialist liberals" under their beds at night, some of you seem to have hang-ups that a buncha nitwits like this are coming to get you. It's the evil far right booogeyman, mommy!

No one is freaking out. These people are real, they hurt real people, and they are getting bigger. That is not a bogeyman, it is a threat to the lives and livelihood of a population that I consider to be as "American" as citizens.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 7:29 AM on May 22, 2003

This has gotta be a spoof right?

BTW although the details of xenophobia and racism against illegal immigrants vary across the world, it is amazing how close this anti-mexican rhetoric and terror-mongering is to what one finds in Spain (it's the Morrocans and Africans, swimming across Gibraltar there), Greece (Albanians crossing mountains and Kurds and Pakistanis crossing the Aegean on rafts) and France (Arabs in general, any Lepen brochure illustrates this nicely). I'm sure it's even more widespread as a phenomenon.
In general though, on this side of the Atlantic things are less violent than in the States. Our xenophobes are, at least, not heavily armed.
posted by talos at 8:30 AM on May 22, 2003

nah, these motherfuckers are grade-a real. try setting up a BS internet e-mail account and baiting them with racist and hateful e-mails. when i did this, they responded with a little less discretion than one might expect from a known terrorist organization. it would have been funny if i didn't know that they were cold-blooded killers, detached from reality.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:02 AM on May 22, 2003

Talos> Actually, the Mexican army does cross the border periodically, just as the Marines, US Border Patrol State National Guards and DEA do, and for much the same reasons - pursuing drug dealers, fugitives, etc. It's semi-legal, but nobody important complains. I do find the assertion that they came to arrest Mr. Maupin somewhat dubious, though.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 11:20 AM on May 22, 2003