Simcox Speaks at Boise State University

Obviously, this was something that the College Republicans organized; BSU, like nearly all universities, is far too PC to do something like this. From the December 3, 2007 Boise State Arbiter:

He came. He spoke. He nearly started a riot.

Approximately 200 hundred people filled the Lookout Room at the Boise State Student Union Building Tuesday evening to hear Minute Men Civil Defense Corps founder Chris Simcox speak.

Simcox was invited by the Boise State College Republicans to speak about his organization and its view on securing our borders. More than half of the audience wore red shirts symbolizing their protest to Simcox' message.

"We want to let him know that his hate speech is not welcome," Lucia Venegas said. Venegas, a Boise State graduate student in counseling said she feels his presence made some students feel unwelcome at BSU.

The animosity began before the speech even started. Faculty, students and community members gathered in the Cultural Center beforehand, where Student Union Director Jack Rahmann spoke to the protestors about rules concerning conduct at events held in the SUB.

Despite disagreements interpreting these rules, the protestors quietly made their way to the Lookout Room. The protestors purposefully filled every other seat to accentuate their presence.

Simcox began by thanking the College Republicans for inviting him to tackle this controversial issue.

"There seems to be growing friction and ethnic strife," Simcox said.

He claims this is the result of government inaction. Simcox expressed that both Northern and Southern borders have security problems and that this is the fault of the U.S. government.

"We challenge federal authorities to do their job," Simcox said. "We are leading a reform movement."

The Minute Men were founded in October 2002 to address the issue of illegal entry to the United States. There are 117 chapters across the nation and 10,000 volunteers.

Simcox emphasized that some groups of the Minute Men split from the original organization; he apologized for their extreme rhetoric and stressed this is not what he represents.

"I admire the messages on your shirts," Simcox said to the protestors. "No human is illegal, no oppression should be tolerated in our country."

The shirts worn by the protestors were purchased by the Associated Students of BSU for the event "No Oppression Tolerated," held last spring. Many of the protestors added additional messages to their shirts such as, "BSU is too great for hate," and "Take your hate and get off our campus."

It sounds like a more accurate description of that first paragraph is, "He came. He spoke. Hotheads who object to immigration laws nearly started a riot."

I could understand if Simcox was promoting racial hatred why there might be some upset. But he is quite careful to emphasize that this is problem of border security--that we are unable to keep OTMs (Other Than Mexican) illegals from crossing our Southern border--some of whom are Middle Easterners. There are similar problems (although on a smaller scale) across our border with Canada. Remember that the Millennium bomber was arrested coming in from Canada.