Just when I thought Facebook was completely useless, along comes somebody sending me some worthwhile information. I’d never heard of Jim Broussard before I saw a link on Facebook earlier this week. Now that I know who Broussard is, he’s the front-runner for my “Real American Award.” Three years ago, Broussard did something way too many of what I refer to as “so-called Americans” would find revolting, even racist. Broussard noticed a flagpole hovering over a Mexican-American restaurant in downtown Reno, Nev. There’s nothing wrong with Mexican-Americans who’ve either been born here or have immigrated to the country
legally owning a restaurant and having a flagpole on it. But there is something terribly wrong when that flagpole has the American flag flying under the Mexican flag. In fact, it’d be wrong to have the American flag flying under the flag of any foreign country, and it’s also
illegal. The so-called Americans of this land may not have noticed the disrespect, and probably didn’t even mind it, but it bugged the heck out of Broussard, so much so that he marched up to the restaurant and undid the rope holding both flags.
Then he whipped out a U.S. Army knife, cut the rope and removed the American flag. A television news crew from a Reno station covered the scene.
“I’m Jim Broussard,” Broussard said into the camera. “And I took this flag down in honor of my country, with a knife from the United States Army. I’m a veteran. I’m not gonna see this done to my country. If they wanna fly this, then they need to be men and come and fight us. They’re gonna have to fight me for this flag. They’re not gonna get it back.”
With that Broussard stormed off into the distance. The clearly puzzled restaurant owner meekly walked over to the Mexican flag lying on the ground, picked it up and walked back into his establishment.
What’s Spanish for “discretion is the better part of valor”?
A short time later, Broussard appeared on a morning news show and debated Doug Burns, who is a former federal prosecutor. Burns chided Broussard for violating the law, telling the veteran that he should have contacted local authorities.
“We are a nation of laws,” Burns piously intoned.
It was at that point that Broussard should have asked Burns, “Oh yeah? And exactly how many illegal immigrants did
you prosecute for entering our country illegally, sir?” But, to bring this story up to date, if we are indeed a “nation of laws,” then why all the controversy about Chipotle restaurants in Minnesota firing, en masse, illegal immigrants working there?
Since Burns believes we are “a nation of laws,” perhaps he can explain that concept to the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, whose members have their panties in a bunch because of firings that sound perfectly legal.
According to a story on a local Minnesota CBS affiliate Web site, Brad Sigal is a MIRAC member who said he “suspects” the firings resulted from “a federal immigration audit.”
“It is an I-9 audit,” Sigal said in the story. “They check the paperwork and fire anyone who can’t immediately prove they have the right to work.”
Sigal and MIRAC members clearly have a problem with the law requiring immigrants to have legally obtained work permits. Of course, those immigrants would find that difficult to do if they’ve entered the country illegally to being with. But MIRAC members, like many other so-called Americans, have a problem with our immigration laws too.
Thank heavens we still have real Americans like Jim Broussard.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
