Extreme Prejudice

How the media misrepresent the militia movement

Mack Tanner from the July 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 7)

* The armed, but legitimate, political activists. This is a new phenomenon, at least in this century. These are socially successful people who respect and obey the law, but who are organizing and arming themselves because they fear they may be attacked by agencies of their own government. It was this new phenomenon, the citizen militias, that drew my interest. Just who are these people?

One thing we definitely are not are haters of government or haters of law enforcement," Bob Clarke, a member of the Michigan Militia told me a few days after the Oklahoma tragedy. "I have a driver's license, license plates, and I pay my taxes." Like many militia members, Clarke is a devout Christian who educates his children at home. He sees his participation in the militia movement as a continuing part of the Christian life. His reaction to the Oklahoma bombing is no different from any other American's: "Let's get them, find out who did it. Whoever did it is despicable. Any human being has to be appalled."

Clarke, who owns a computer service company, is a fairly typical militia member in both his background and motivations. Contrary to what some left-leaning analysts have claimed, militia members aren't drawn primarily from the ranks of the unemployed and economically disenfranchised. Like Clarke, they are solidly middle class. And, like Clarke, they are driven not by hatred--of blacks, Jews, or even the government--but by fear. They worry that the federal government does not respect the liberties guaranteed in the Constitution and may eventually pose a direct threat to them, their families, and their neighbors.

Although they have a host of popular grievances with the federal government--from land-use policies to gun control to just about everything the Department of Education does--militia members are clearly worried most about armed federal attacks. Most of the groups were organized sometime after the events at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where, in 1992, U.S. Marshals and FBI agents killed Randy Weaver's son and wife, and the deadly 1993 standoff between the feds and Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas.

"First the feds put that Reverend Moon character in jail for tax evasion," Clarke told me in February when I asked why he thinks the federal government is dangerous. "I thought that was a great idea. Then they went after that guy from India with all those limousines in Oregon, which was OK with me too. But I started getting worried when I learned about what happened to Randy Weaver. When the FBI killed all those people in Waco, I asked myself who they were going to come for next, the Baptists?"

"Everybody is afraid of the government," the training officer for a local Michigan unit told me in February. A military veteran and one of several sources who asked that they not be quoted by name, he continued, "Our members see how the press is attacking those who dare to object to what the government is doing. First they demonize you, then they kill you like they did in Waco."

But, he said, "It's not just Waco and Ruby Ridge. We worry about RICO prosecutions, new restrictions on Fourth Amendment rights, tax seizures, property takings, you name it. But I think the assault weapon ban was more important in getting people interested in the militia movement than anything else. If they take our weapons away, then we have no way to fight to keep all our other rights."

Like ACLU lawyers who rely on the courts or intellectuals and journalists who rely on the press, militia members have a theory of how best to protect American liberties. They believe that maintaining freedom depends, ultimately, on the deterrent of an armed populace.

Nonetheless, says the training officer, "We don't wear our camo all of the time. We are not looking for an armed confrontation if we can avoid it. Every week, we pick a political issue based on what the media is reporting, and we crank out a letter on that issue which each member sends to his congressman or senator." Militia members are fond of saying that Americans' freedom rests on five boxes: the soapbox, the ballot box, the jury box, the witness box, and the cartridge box.

But, as Idaho leader Samuel Sherwood told a March 2 meeting of militia commanders, most militia members believe that "now is the time for ink, not powder." In perhaps the most outrageous example of irresponsible coverage of the militia movement, a local reporter wrote--and The Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt repeated--that Sherwood told his audience to look legislators in the face today because "you may have to be shooting them in the face" tomorrow. In fact, he said just the opposite. In the closing minutes of the meeting, Sherwood made an impassioned plea for using political action rather than violence in correcting the wrongs that the members of the United States Militia Association see in government. He suggested that if his listeners wanted to grab a gun to shoot their legislators, they should first go look them in the face and recognize that legislators are also American citizens who are fathers, mothers, husbands, and wives. The audience not only understood that he was arguing against violence, they applauded his remarks. UnlikeJournal columnist Hunt, I was actually at the meeting.

Sherwood, who leads the U.S. Militia Association from his home in Blackfoot, Idaho, argues that militia groups should not muster and train as military units except in the 17 states which legalize such activity under the supervision of civilian authority. In Idaho, where law and the state constitution make no provisions for the mustering of the unorganized militia, Sherwood's units meet as political action groups lobbying to allow such mustering.

Sherwood envisions the militia movement developing into a well-trained, self-financed, volunteer force ready to respond to the command of civilian officials in the event of a natural disaster, riot, or armed attack. Like most militia activists, Sherwood favors self-reliance and prefers local to national government. Instead of calling for federal troops (or National Guard units under federal command), he argues that governors, sheriffs, or local county commissioners would be better served if they could call up a volunteer militia unit equipped with personally owned weapons. Ultimately, Sherwood would like to see the United States organize its national defense on the Swiss model, with an armed and trained populace rather than a standing army (except for a few specialized forces to handle, for instance, nuclear weapons). Although units of the U.S. Militia Association do not muster and train in military tactics, at least not in Idaho, every person joining the association agrees to buy a legal semi-automatic assault weapon if he or she doesn't already own one, lots of ammunition, and the field equipment and supplies necessary to respond to a call to arms.

At Sherwood's invitation, I attended the March 2 meeting of commanders of U.S. Militia Association units located in and near Boise. Eighty people showed up at the Boise City and County building, about 30 of them wearing the military-green, mufti-style uniform of the U.S. Militia Association. A number brought their wives and a few, their children. The members ranged from teenagers to an old rancher in his late 70s, who slowly walked on badly bowed legs with the help of a wooden cane.

Idaho Deputy Governor Butch Otter talked for a few moments about how the new Republican government in Idaho was pushing hard to reduce federal interference in state affairs. Unimpressed, the militia members engaged Otter in a vigorous, sometimes angry, 90-minute debate. They did not believe the new state administration was moving fast enough to change federal land-use policies, environmental limitations on the logging industry and private land use, federal regulations on business, and so on. Sounding much like a meeting of Ross Perot's United We Stand America, the militia members stood up to shout out their anger over NAFTA and GATT, Forest Service fire-fighting policies, the "insane" enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, the public education system, the idea that U.N. treaties could override the Constitution, high taxes, and their fears of being singled out by federal law-enforcement agents.

"All they have to do is find certain kinds of chemicals on my land, and they can take everything I own by claiming I'm about to start making illegal drugs," said a man in his mid-60s.