Kowabunga

last night was the once-a-month gathering of the Townhall meetup group, where a bunch of people throughout the Twin Cities Metro Area gathered for an evening of food, drink and lively political dialogue. This group continues to attract new faces, and attendance is now solidly about twenty on a regular basis. Tracy, our fearless leader, and blogger over at Anti-Strib continues to hope for a coup d'tat, and I have no doubt that I misspelled that, still no takers. Actually, he has been doing an outstanding job of running these monthly get togethers and keeping the group on topic. I also have to thank Darrel for continuing to book the meeting room where we gather. Both are swell guys and without there willingness to lead, it is doubtful this group would be thriving as well as it is.

This week, we talked briefly about the terrorist attacks that took place in London earlier that day, and the reaction around the world. Personally, I was surprised by the attacks, even though I wasn't surprised when similar attacks took place in Madrid. My reasoning: Arab terrorists blew up a favorite restaurant of mine back in 1985, targeting American military personnel. That attack (April 12, 1985) killed 18 Spaniards, and injured some 80 people, a few Americans, including a couple of guys from my unit, were amongst those injured. So, Arab terrorists operating in Spain is no surprise to me. Why was I taken by surprise by the London attack? I can't tell you, there is no logical reason for my being surprised. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families of this heinous attack. Message to Blair: Stand firm against terrorism and the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The next topic was eminent domain, which we touched on briefly, and one of the group brought up the plan to condemn one of the Court's Justice's home to make room for a new hotel, "Lost Liberty Hotel." Once they start accepting reservations, there will be a lot of us in line to stay there. Book early.

The hot button issue, however, was immigration. There was one hot head who seemed to be unable (or unwilling) to differentiate between legal immigration and those who enter our country illegally. Although some of the group supports sealing the border, others are adamantly against it. The general consensus, however, is that changing our immigration laws so that it is easier to enter legally is pointless unless we defend our borders. The hot-head seems to miss the point that one of the legitimate roles of government is to protect our borders, not just from military invasion, but to also control who enters the country and where they enter it from (I don't mean what country, but whether they are entering through legitimate border checkpoints). Having a hot-head in the group may make for heated discussions, however, it would have been helpful if he good back up his arguments with something other than empty rhetoric.

A final note for this chapter of Townhall meetup: The group is very welcoming of all points of view. We have conservatives and libertarians and the occasional left-wing nut. Anybody is welcome to join in the dialogue. Part of the purpose of this group is to get a handle on the issues of the day and learn how to enter into the public debate. It's a real hoot, and if you haven't been to one of these meetings, you should come on down and check it out. Also, if we keep growing, and it looks like we will, we should set attendance records in the 30s fairly soon.