They had read about civil border patrols, as told with unflinching fairness by the LA Times. Vicious, impossibly hairy men in pick-up trucks were chasing helpless Mexican migrants back over the border, thrusting their shotguns into the air, occasionally pausing to admire the Snap-on Tool pin-up girl duct-taped to the dashboard. Names like The Minuteman Project and Friends of the Border Patrol seethed with Nazi undertones. After a quick stop at the organic food co-op and another bong, our border-deleting heroes synchronized their cell phone clocks and took to the road.

In San Diego, they held fast and stood proud (though some of them wore scarves over their faces, but that was a tactical maneuver, not cowardice). They confronted the hostile enemy (all two dozen of them, mostly middle-aged, a few of them veterans, and all of them unarmed). They did not resort to violence, but used wit as their mighty weapons (shouting in ears and hollering “Racist!” as often as humanly possible). The Deleters know that migrants deserve a shot at the American dream too and, with any luck, a few would make the trip back to Berkley and tend to mother’s garden.

Without fail, the term “Delete the Border” makes the bile surge up my gullet. People who believe in ripping down fences are usually the same ones who have been living behind them their whole lives--big, iron gates with security codes. They’re also the ones driving the latest cars with GPS and high-tech alarm systems. Strangely enough, they also come from some of the whitest cities in the country.

The Deleters dream of a Utopia where everyone lives together in total harmony. Aldous Huxley dreamed of Utopia too and everyone in his Brave New World needed uppers to maintain. If we lived in a world where such ideals were attainable, protesters would be out of business. They’d have to cash in their philosophy degrees and get a job at Wienerschnitzel. Luckily, there are still plenty of disputes in the world to keep the circle of life spinning.

And here’s just one little disagreement between the volunteers of Friends of the Border Patrol and the Delete the Border protesters. First, you have your patriots who love this country, make their lives here and work hard to protect it. They carry their flags with reverence and pride. They have a vested interest in this country.

Then you have the protesters who curse the country where they enjoy privileged lives, attend university, get their teeth cleaned and buy birth control pills. Their only true interest is in their next effort to be countercultural. The patriots stand patiently by the borders watching for the sake of our future. The protesters sit over their espressos discussing the digestive significance of whole grain.

Calling these patriots “racist vigilantes” is puerile and ignorant. What they do is only deemed racist because those who enter this country illegally are of another race. The San Diego-based Human Rights Coalition of California makes the point that these civilian groups can’t prove that there are no racists in their midst because “there is no standardized test for racism.

There is also no such test to determine whether the migrant strolling over the border will be mowing your lawn, selling you drugs or hijacking your plane. But, we can all rest easy knowing that the San Diego Legal Observer Coalition will be recruiting observers to watch the watchers. Suffice it to say, there will be plenty of coffee-drinking going on at the border these days.