Ambush at Ruby Ridge

How government agents set Randy Weaver up and took his family down

Alan W. Bock from the October 1993 issue

(Page 4 of 4)

But the reasons for what happened in Naples and Waco are probably less sinister and more mundane: In their approach to the Weavers and the Branch Davidians, federal law-enforcement officials displayed a mixture of vanity, arrogance, fear, anger, and frustration. An ironworker hanging around the Naples General Store in early July saw it this way: "All these federal agencies–IRS, DEA, BATF, FBI, FDA–have too many agents trained in paramilitary tatics. They get itchy to see if the training really works, so every so often they have to target some poor sap."

Certainly the BATF, which Reagan and Bush era budget cutters recommended abolishing, seems to be an agency in search of a mission. It began life as the Bureau of Prohibition, but it survived after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. It was reorganized as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms under the Nixon administration.It currently carries out a mix of licensing, regulatory, tax-collection, and law-enforcement functions that could easily be handled by other agencies, if they are necessary at all. It’s doubtful that the republic would be any poorer if the BATF ceased to exist.

But the problem goes beyond the BATF, to a mindset that says people with strange ideas cannot be trusted. The notion that religious nuts with guns are always a threat to public safety becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The attempt to subdue these supposedly dangerous people provokes the very violence it is intended to prevent.

It need not be so. Sociologist Jim Aho, author of The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism, recently told a Coeur d’Alene newspaper that "the big myth about these people is they are essentially evil." Through years of research and interviews, Aho found that members of "patriot" groups weren’t unusually inclined toward violence, nor were they particularly socially isolated. Contrary to stereotypes, they were about as well educated as their neighbors. Aho said his findings surprised him, but "on the whole, I found these people pretty indistinguishable," apart from their "bizarre and unique" beliefs.

This is not to say that you’d want to have members of the Christian Identity movement over for dinner. But people can have odd ideas, even abhorrent and disturbing ideas, and still live peacefully with their neighbors. It’s best that we let them.

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Pingback| 10.31.09 @ 5:54PM

(d)N0t » Blog Archive » Dream Not Of Today – Obama’s Chance to Close Gitmo by Robert links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…alone a fair trial. Our government would never persecute, torture, and even kill innocent people to advance its own agenda, would they? Just look at the rubble the US government left in Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. It is highly likely that faced with this political climate, Obama will cave and try them in military courts, where they probably will be found guilty and locked up indefinitely. I could be wrong, and…