My level of trust in the government has reached such a low point that I am seriously doubtful that the militia people recently arrested actually did anything criminal. I’m inclined to believe that they’re nothing but political scapegoats to further the White House meme that white, Christian, right-wing protesters are dangerous extremists.
I know, that sounds nutty, but I still remember the murders committed by our government at Waco and Ruby Ridge the last time a Democrat administration went on this sort of witch hunt.
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Maybe, like Waco, the feds can protect some children by burning them to death. Or, like Ruby Ridge, they can shoot women wielding babies as dangerous weapons.
Maybe the tinfoil is chaffing my bald spot but I have to admit to having the same initial thought about this arrest as Daphne.
From what I’ve heard online, the hutaree are/were pretty far out there and have been provocative for a while. On the other hand, the amount of manpower and logistical support used by the feds seems way out of proportion just to arrest a few nuts supposedly selling pipe bombs.
Another Waco or Ruby Ridge scenario might really set things off, and this may be just what the feds intend. I think it not unlikely that the current administration would like an excuse to disarm the American people – that 2nd amendment really slows them down.
Considering the level of “transparency” and corruption of the entire federal government?
Be afraid.
The federal government has become too powerful. The States need to claw back that usurped power from the feds.
[...] at Jaded Haven echoes my feelings about our government: My level of trust in the government has reached such a low [...]
My trust in the Federal government has actually increased. I now fully trust that they are doing the exact OPPOSITE of what they claim to be doing!
I know, that sounds nutty,
This would be the same government that dosed people with LSD, experimented on it’s citizens with lethal disease, etc etc?
Not so nutty.
I used to think this kind of stuff was extraordinary, outliers, not SOP. And given that it was all hush-hush and covered up I think I’m right. But we’ll see more and more, by and by.
When the English executive power got out of hand, they had to whack a monarch’s head off to put an end to it. And they got a decade of dreary rule by heavily armed religious extremists.
I wonder if we’ve got a modern-day Cromwell in our midst, starting to wonder where it’s gone wrong and what he can do about it.
Gotta remember that the government comes down to just plain folks at this level, and I don’t think that the FBI (traditionally conservative folks) would make things up to appease the boss without sending out some leaks about it. That’s why I don’t buy into any conspiracy theories out there.
However, it is consistent with Napolitano’s proclivities towards white christian groups and efforts may have been stepped up to rein them in without having crossed the line of absurdity.
The arrested folks may be authentic nut jobs and may be authentic terrorist wannabes and they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I think I’m just more concerned that while we are watching the militias we are ignoring an enemy far more dangerous than these guys.
You may recall some months past that Napolitano was busted for a leaked memo at Fatherland Security (thanks for that also, W) in which she identified Christian militia as the number one terror threat; and Obama’s desire to have a civilian volunteer group (Brownshirts) “at least the size of the military”. The left are terrified of armed white citizens, most of whom are Christian, but the people in this newly arrested group are about as Christian as the Reverend Wright, and as sophisticated as failing middle-school students. Way too much credit is given to ossified federal law enforcement, but the FIB can handle a case like this and pump it up for their new masters.
Forgive me if I extend a bit more credit to the government than a bunch of trailer park yahoos who think that killing cops is part of the End of Days.
There’s the problem, Mahons. I don’t know if I believe what the government is telling us about these weirdos.
Daphne – No problem with being a skeptic, but the Hutaree nuts will have their day in Court, if the charges don’t stick then they’ll walk.
I read the indictment. While nutcases have rights, too, these guys were fruitcakes. The planned and trained to the plan – to kill people. If the indictment is true, then hats off to the FBI.
The indictment is here.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/29130653/Hutaree-indictment
I credit the FBI for how they did the arrest – when the suspects were out and about, not holed up.
Having followed the culture of the F.B.I. all my life as a close friend of a career agent I can assure you that the disgustingly stupid and counterproductive raid on Waco would have happened no matter who was in charge of the White house. When I saw what was happening on T.V. I went ballistic.
I’m with you…. with all that this regime has done in the last year I can no longer believe anything they say. I guess I’m at the point, probably like a lot of you, to take what they say and just turn it around 180 degrees do determine the truth.
Meh.
No, no…look. The game is far more convoluted. You – and most decent people – cannot imagine the depths and lengths that The Minds run to in the hallowed halls. This is far more likely the way of it…
“The Hutaree, apparently useful idiots to a man, may indeed not be guilty of what they are charged. It does not matter. Even if all the charges are later expoosed to be the fevered imaginings of snitches and provocateurs (and I don’t think they will be), the Feds have reaped an incalculable benefit from the exercise.
They have, in the minds of every cop in America, equated the word “militia” with the word “cop killer.”
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/03/hutaree-raid-extremely-well-executed.html
You may believe that the LEOs who are new, or are schooled to think as they are told, will take this and swallow it whole. It will be a battle to get them to even consider that they’ve been set up.
But I believe this is exactly what has happened. And those morons in camo are to blame. Suckered them, They did. And set us up to fall alongside.
Fucking morons.
I know a lot of LEOs and my FIL is one. They no more equate any person with the Hutarees than they equate a Democratic voter with the Black Panthers.
Everyone needs to get a grip. Just because the Hutarees lived in a trailer does not mean they will round up everyone living in a trailer!!
Daniel has it right that at best, this raid may have been necessary but pulled scarce resources away from worse threats. That is reason enough to stay skeptical at least until the accused have their day in court.
At the other and not-so-unlikely end of possibilities, it’s just damned strange that the same week he desperately needs to discredit the Tea Partiers, Obama blasts this raid onto America’s front pages. Even if the Hutaree are guilty of everything the lamestream media wants them to be, people will forever question the timing. And that is yet more toxins working in the walking corpse of “the most ethical administration ever.”
I too routinely distrust/disbelieve everything this administration says; they have rigorously earned and richly deserve our mocking and scorn.
I’m calm, Austin. I have no reason to believe my door’s about to be kicked in or my guns confiscated.
I’m just exercising some healthy skepticism.
I don’t like feeling this way about our government.
Count me as initially skeptical, too. In fact, I’m still on the fence. From what I’ve read, it was timely and necessary, but that’s only based on the affidavits and indictments.
It is worth remembering that sometimes there are whacko groups with enough brain cells to accomplish something bad.
Perhaps the government did learn something from Ruby Ridge and Waco. I hope so.
Lance!
Si, Mi Diosa! Qu’est-ce que c’est?
That gun!
Gun? What gun? Is there a gun? You don’t perchance mean, gub?
You try my patience, Caliban. The gub…. I mean guuunnnn, in your hand!!
http://www.xdpistols.com/item/66571_Springfield_Armory_Hand_Guns_Pistols_SPRGFLD_XD45_CMP_45ACP_5.aspx
Oh, thththaaat gun.
Explain yourself.
Well, I ALways get swollen when I’m near you. Must be hormones. Or your webbed feet. Perhaps both.
http://th03.deviantart.net/fs15/300W/f/2007/024/1/6/Evil_Queen_by_Nailmeister.jpg
No, idiot. Why did you get yet aNUTHer gun?
Ah, well, there you have me.
What?
Exactly!
I give up!
Not nearly often enough, Mi Reina.
[Sometimes idiocy is the better part of valor.]
Have we all misplaced Ockham’s Razor?
I’m not 100% sure I believe or disbelieve… much like Gordon, on the fence. The media takes things and runs with it… often twisting and scewing information and facts for the gain of (insert whomever it serves at the moment).
I do echo Gordon’s sentiments on the situation. I really do.
Janet Reno must have been advised the Branch Davidians were willing to give their lives, (children included),
in order to keep government out of their religion….
Of course the massacre was about ‘gun violations’.
Today why would anyone doubt that our Chicago trained government thugs would hesitate to do anything, to further their agenda of intimidation and control.
Horny Slick Willie was an amateur, the pros are in charge now.
Even the MSM has reported that the Hutaree had been infiltrated by an agent provocateur for some time. Like Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, whose chargeable offense was to shorten a shotgun barrel after repeated requests by an undercover federal agent, the Hutaree may have been set up. If so, the ploy was a cunning propaganda move.
Weaver, a white separatist wanting to be left alone, was falsely and successfully portrayed as a neo-nazi white supremacist, and most Americans still view him as such. So too the Hutaree, who evidently numbered little more than an infantry squad target shooting on their own property and tramping through the woods in camos, will be successfully vilified as seditious cop-killers, though no actual crime, near as I can tell at this point, was ever committed. The use of the word “sedition” in the charge is telling.
In any case, to say that country trailer park residents like the Hutaree, for whom most Americans will have little if any sympathy, will have their day in court means absolutely nothing. They haven’t a chance in hell. They were too easy a target, taken down with theatric bravado primarily, I believe, to turn public opinion against the more articulate, well-armed, Conservative/Libertarian/Constitutionalist militia movement whom the collectivist feds rightly fear and against whom future raids are planned, to ratchet up the civilian disarmament agenda, and to distract our attention from goings-on that actually threaten us.
My two bits.
I’m not sure it’s even possible to apply Occam’s Razor to the government’s activities anymore, Webb.
Sure it’s possible. The current regime (yes, regime) is led by a wanna-be dictator. They ahve been laying the groundwork for criminalizing dissent since this time last year (Thanks, Janet Incompetano).
At an opportune time, they ramp up therhetoric about violence and start wetting their panties about minor threats, then they uncork this cooked-up scheme about killing cops to provoke reactions. Doesn’t even make sense.
As a former specops guy, I advise you to always look for the whiplash-inducing statement of absurdity. Thatis the key that you are seeing a cover story – i.e, disinformation. Mladic ran a rogue army and performed ethnic cleansing for 20 years but turned himself in because he was worried when all of a sudden spec ops troops were after him? Yeah, right. Hutaree had WMDs and wanted to kill cops at funerals, but failed to even resist wehen the cops showed up? Couple that witht eh presence of an FBI provocateur and you have your whiplash. Proper response: “Yeah, right.”
You cannot trust this government anymore – their FBI is now a political police agency.
They will lie, doctor evidence, set people up, whatever it takes – all to slience dissent among the Hutaree. And then you.
IF Repubs win the House in 2010, it will be time to impeach.
I would like y’all’s opinion on whether you think we could become (1) a police state, or merely (2) a nation of citizens cowed by what appears to be overwhelming threat of force.
If so (either one), by what sequence?
Or is there–or could there develop—enough push back—in numbers, organization, and most important, will?
Double-spaced. 1-inch margins. No need for APA format. Screw the APA.
I hope I don’t live long enough for some historian (VDH for ex) to describe the death of our nation.
Dealing with Lance’s #2 first, there are some problems with cowing the citizens with force. First, it would have to be police forces doing the cowing. The military in this country takes its oaths pretty seriously, and would actively resist any politician trying to deploy them against the citizens. The national guard units are under the control of the governors, but I see that as even less likely; they’re too close to the people they would be trying to control.
The thing about the police is, they can only control and intimidate as long as we allow them to. They’re outnumbered. Very outnumbered. The moment every cop fears is when a hostile crowd clicks to the idea that there’s only one of him, and a lot of them.
I need to think more about the first proposition.
Given Barry Hussein’s statements regarding a “civilian force” as large and as well equipped as the military, it is hard not to see it leading to Lance’s #1 conjecture. Whether he can get there without #2 brought about by violent suppression of the gun owners, which may well lead to civil war, is another question entirely. There are other factors in play as well such as the “Oath Keepers”and their supporters. Scary times.
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/
Laura B. has a good handle on it.
Lance,
To become a police state, we must first become the police.
In a democratic society such as ours, I am not worried about the actual LEOs (local, state or federal) becoming the police that bind us in chains. Instead, it will be through the laws that our elected representatives make, and the popularization of restricted freedoms by which we will become enslaved by our own citizenry. Just as with Hitler’s Germany, we will one day look around for someone or something to blame, only to discover that we were the ones who done ourselves in.
Barry Obama may be a Marxist revolutionary, a fellow traveler; he is certainly a narcissist, possibly a malignant narcissist; but he is not a fool. When he ran for President, he was being prepared for ’12 or ’16, as is commonly done. No one was more surprised than his handlers when Hillary collapsed, so although they have a rhetorical playbook going back eighty years, some of this is on the fly.
They are vulnerable, and know it. They keep telegraphing exactly what their vulnerability is–police, military, and an armed citizenry. Aging bureaucratic organizations like FBI and CIA do not concern them, much less Justice, which they entirely own, as with all permanent government.
The real question is, rather, what exactly is left of the people that made America exceptional. I believe we shall see the answer to that in the Republican primaries. If men like McCain are re-nominated, Obama will survive and the Republic will not. There seems to be reason for hope.
I think we’re already at number one, Lance and I’d say we’re already cowed by the power of the state via regulations and taxation that can put us in jail, seize our property or children and bankrupt our purses.
I’ve got to pull weeds, the side yard has been overrun since the rains came, but I’ll be back in a little while. I think you’ve posed two excellent questions.
By the way, what about that well timed drilling bone Obama just tossed out to pacify the right? Smells to me like: “Shut up you right wingers! See, See, I am not a socialist, you mouth breathing morons!”
Add Romney in there too, James.
The Commander gave us Occam’s explanation, right in between the two “Yeah, right”s. Lance, to #1 I say, “But we’re already there in large part,” and to #2 I say, “That ain’t no appearance!”
I believe Rally James has the facts straight about the Weaver tragedy, the key word being “repeated.” That, plus a false affadavit filed under oath IIRC. In Waco, I thought the ostensive charges were child abuse, in spite of the fact that a State investigation had already been done and the Davidians cleared of any charges. Either way, we’d be hard-pressed to find any militias of any sort who caused the sort of carnage that was done there, let alone the style…at least not since the 1860s.
For my money, Daphne’s got the highest wisdom…”Stay calm.” If you think this is about a country, you’re mistaken. It’s about people because there’s really nothing else involved…how could there be? Everything else is a distraction, caused by those who want you distracted.
The duly elected President is enacting some laws and promoting some policies most of you folks here don’t agree with. Why not try voting him out instead of pretending this is a casting call for Red Dawn.
Mahons, The folks commenting on this blog are not the problem, and I don’t think any of us are looking for trouble.
Most of us fully intend to peacefully vote the rascals out in November.
Unfortunately, it appears that some parts of the government may be looking to misbehave. The Hutaree are idiots to all appearances, but I didn’t know that idiocy was a federal crime yet. It also has been noted that there was an f.b.i. “informant” involved.
Back in Billie Ayer’s day, f.b.i. informants also often acted as provocateurs, and as Laura B. pointed out, the hutaree are useful idiots in this regard. I guess “crimethink” is now a federal offense as well.
Sometimes even paranoids have real enemies. Aloha
You may be missing the entire point, Mahons. It is not about one election, or about Obama, who is the proper representative for a government of this size and scope. The weaker we become, the more we are in need of such masters. We derive consolation from being supervised by thinking we have chosen our supervisors.
It is being made to embrace our own degradation that especially bothers some, and the left has never accepted less.
Hunt – Refresh my recollection as to how many of the people who’ve written here on this blog have been arrested by the government for their thoughts.
James – What degradation about yourself are you being forced to embrace?
In the name of fair play on this topic, there is currently a case in NYC where three Muslim men are standing trial for conspiring to commit terrorists acts, it seems they were induced to move beyond general discontent and idle talk to the planning stages by an FBI plant who pushed the issue over a long period of time. The evidence is looking pretty shaky that these men were ever terrorists or even serious about committing any crime.
I don’t want the Feds out encouraging people to commit “crimes” they otherwise wouldn’t. Entrapment lies in the realm of a police state and I’m not sympathetic towards the tactic.
Mahons, I thought it was clear that I was referring to the hutaree fools, who apparently were talking about attacking police rather than actually acting.
As far as I know, none of Daphne’s commenters have been arrested for bad thoughts, though I could be mistaken, being a newbie.
Mahons, nobody here is suggesting armed rebellion. This isn’t exactly right wing central, you know. I could probably get a lively thread going on the sins of GWB with plenty of pissed off folks chiming in with sharp jabs.
We are concerned with the direction the country is taking and, as James mentioned, the mindset of government and the citizenry that’s rapidly moving us towards that future.
I think Obama focusses and encapsulates our concern because apparently half of the country are in sync with his vision of FDR governance. Which was a disaster.
I am more concerned with congress, they are capable of doing a hell of a lot of unchecked damage, as they’ve proven over the past nine years.
Hunt, as far as I know, nobody here has been arrested for vicious thoughts, I believe we might have a few misdemeanor pot offenses scattered around the room, though.
And a warm welcome to the fray.
Beautiful boats, Hunt!
Daphne,
Thank you! My beautiful wife Judy is largely responsible as she is the quality control department, color coordinator, (she thinks I am color blind) and CEO (the brains in the outfit). We also have a few misdemeanors in the crime-think department as well, along with lots we’ve gotten away with.
I’m kind of partial your woodies, Hunt. ;-)
And I’m not surprised to find that you have a talented, capable woman at your side. Most of the men here do.
Thanks, Hunt, for the kind mentions.
Anyone can be made to look guilty of nearly anything. The old, “Still beat your wife?” sort of thing – proving a negative.
The work is already being done – banks and industry being turned over to gov’t overseers, military personnel being wasted in far away places so they come home nice and tired – if at all, the “fairness” BS will soon close up shop on much dissent, and the media which is already in the bag will take it over from there.
I grew up in Chgo. I have walked in that alley and he is no different from those gutter rats with sharp knives. He just learned how to dress nicely (unlike his wife – ahem) and refrain from cursing in public. But you get that glimpse now and then, the cigarette dangling from his lips and that annoyed look in his eye…
Is it too late? Look at any high school and tell me how many of those you would arm and put at your back. But then…I look to that other flank, the homeschooled, and my mouth curves in wry delight.
Eh…we may yet see daylight in this storm. But I hope it isn’t after a war. As I’ve noted elsewhere – a line in a book wherein Arthur asks Lance to sum up the “ethnic cleansing”…”Half a baby in a ditch…” he offers. That, dear hearts, is your Revolution in short. Let us not hasten that day.
A more instructive example might be the behavior of the various police agencies, military and reserve units in Louisiana during the post-Katrina chaos.
The military was excruciatingly careful to mind their Ps and Qs, even to the point of not bunking in unoccupied houses so as to not inadvertently violate the Third Amendment (and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of Number Three being mentioned in Recent Times.)
The PLA in China garrisons their troops clear across the country from their homelands so as to remove any reticence that the troops might have to applying harsh measures to their families and neighbors.
The disarming of law-abiding citizens in violation of the Second Amendment was, as I recall, mostly done by out-of-state police personnel (I recall the California Highway Patrol as being one of the prime actors, but I could be mistaken.)
And then there’s the matter of the Oath Keepers, who have vowed explicitly to disobey any unconstitutional orders from above.
If the government or the Obama administration and the Congress can produce ‘evidence’ that the religious right is running the Tea Parties, and that they’re dangerous, they will do it by hook or by crook. Arresting people who are nuts to begin with only bolsters their arguments that all of the rest of us are the same. This is classic divide and conquer. We should anticipate this sort of thing and not be surprised.
“I still remember the murders committed by our government at Waco and Ruby Ridge the last time a Democrat administration went on this sort of witch hunt.”
Don’t trust unchecked power of any flavor.
Ruby Ridge occurred under a Republican watch.
After twenty miserable years as a lawyer, I had to laugh when a previous poster said this: ‘…but the Hutaree nuts will have their day in Court, if the charges don’t stick then they’ll walk.’
Right.
I notice the big MSM hasn’t picked this local Austin story of three men who actually did shoot at police.
But then they weren’t white, Christian militia members, just run of the mill Mexican, gang banger illegal aliens, so no big deal.
http://www.590klbj.com/News/Story.aspx?ID=1212889
@Daphne: That’s because it wasn’t congruent with any of their memes.
That is because the Austin story is a run of the mill crime story.
I’m quite surprised that my March 31, 2010/10:14 pm post didn’t inspire discussion, as I brought another real-life scenario onto the table.
Ah, Web darlin’, sometimes the threads die and our hopes for discussion on the best of topics fail to ignite. It’s a crying shame, but that’s how it goes.
No, Mahons, it’s because the media see a bunch of white crackers holding a weird Christian bent, a vocal anti-view of government and a few guns as more of a threat than the men who are actually committing some real damage.
It’s all in how we frame it, isn’t it?