Bainbridge Backpedals, Digs Heels on “V” Word
I suppose I should be thanking Professor Bainbridge for stepping away from the “apartheid” rhetoric and conceding that at least some people who support border security are neither racists nor nativists. I won’t, however, until he gives up his silly defense of his own (and President Bush’s) irresponsible use of the word “vigilante.”
The charge that the Minutemen are “vigilantes” is, of course, ludicrous. Webster defines a vigilante as either of the following:
- One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one’s own hands.
- A member of a vigilance committee.
A vigilance community, in turn, is defined as:
A volunteer group of citizens that without authority assumes powers such as pursuing and punishing those suspected of being criminals or offenders.
Bainbridge knows damned well that none of the Minutemen did any such things. Rather than admit he was wrong, take his lumps and move on, however, he ignores established dictionaries and instead cites some random Googlecrap that defines vigilantism broadly enough to include every neighborhood watch program in the country. Sorry, not buying it.
Almost as silly is Bainbridge’s continuing defense of his use of the word “nuts” to describe the Minutemen. He nonexplains his use of the word thusly:
(Update: And, no, I’m not backing off my view that the Minutemen have to be more than a little bit nuts to get so worked up about illegal border crossings that they act out in this way. But then I’ve said the same thing about left-wing anti-war protesters. I just don’t get the mentality of protesters, whether right or left.)
Either that, or he just doesn’t get the mentality protesters whose causes he doesn’t support in the first place.
May 5th, 2005 at 9:51 pm
Even good men can be wrong….
….Professor Bainbridge certainly is when it comes to illegal immigration. But reading his post today, I was stunned by his reasoning.In my view, Pet…
May 5th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Not to cast aspersions, but the site the good Prof. takes the definition from appears to fit my definition of a scraper site. That said, it looks like they scraped the defintion from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary which claims to be from the famous university of the same name.
Regarding Bainbridge’s claim that Arnold is reaching out to extremists, apparently the good Prof. didn’t listen to the radio interview like I did. Arnold at times sounded almost like Sally Struthers in his “let’s all get along” etc. rhetoric.
The OC Register has a transcript for those who want to see what the MSM (but not me in my reportage) left out of Arnold’s remarks.
As for his wider claim, Bainbridge has it backwards. We should let the law-abiding “Latinos” come to us and marginalize those “Latinos” who put ethnicity before this nation’s laws.
May 6th, 2005 at 4:28 am
[...] ll be opposed to illegal immigration and understand fully what a pox it is on our nation? Xrlq: Rather than admit he was wrong, take his lumps and move on, howev [...]
May 6th, 2005 at 4:29 am
…Professor Bainbridge backpedals a bit…
May 6th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
I seem to remember that one of the early origins of “vigilante” is “Committee of Vigilance” (1850s to 1900s), which sprang up to fill a void not filled by established law and order. Some history here:
http://www.bcvc.net/history.htm
Another thought about vigilance: “The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
May 9th, 2005 at 12:20 am
an exercise in sophistry
He chooses a compound definition that actually includes two meanings for the word: one that is deserving of bad connotations and one that is not.
May 12th, 2005 at 1:50 pm
Are the minutemen still on the border? maybe a compromise term could be ‘publicity stunt’