Citizens Want Believable Government
Do militias represent a “clear and present danger” to the U.S. government? That’s what a Senate subcommittee wanted to know last week when it held hearings on the militia movement. After speeches by law enforcement officials and militia leaders, little doubt was left that militias represent a serious threat not only to the U.S. government but also to state and local officials, police, Jews, immigrants, gays, people of color and anyone who happens to disagree with them.
To hear the militia leaders tell it, however, one would think they were misunderstood civic leaders whose organizations are no different from the Boy Scouts or the Urban League. According to Montana militiaman John Trochmann, the movement is just a “giant neighborhood watch.” James Johnson, one of the few black militia leaders, described the groups as “the civil rights movement of the ‘90s.”
Although they tried to present themselves in benign terms, many militia members have long histories of racism, anti-Semitism and violence. Other subcommittee witnesses - elected officials and law enforcement professionals - described how militias have served as magnets for former members of white supremacist and tax-resister organizations.
Rep. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized the hearing, saying the Senate had given the militias a far too uncritical public forum. But Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who presided over the Senate subcommittee conducting the investigation, defended the invitation to militia leaders. He suggested the best way to erode support for the militia movement was to allow the public to see its leaders up close and personal. And they didn’t let Specter down.
Paranoia runs rampant in militia organizations. Despite initial efforts to mute their rhetoric, the militia witnesses lapsed into their standard paranoid fantasies. Michigan militia leader Norman Olson blamed the Japanese for the Oklahoma City bombing, which he said was in retaliation for the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway. Although Japanese authorities have arrested members of a fanatical Japanese cult for the attack, Olson maintained that it was actually carried out by the CIA. Montana militia leader Robert Fletcher went so far as to accuse the U.S. government of weather manipulation, alleging that it was “no coincidence” that 85 tornadoes “took place simultaneously” on a single day last year in America’s heartland.
Despite such delusional thinking, the Oklahoma City bombing has not put an end to the movement. Indeed, Specter estimates that there are 224 active militias in at least 39 states. The militia movement has tapped into long smoldering resentments, harbored by many citizens, against their government. In many respects, this distrust and anger against Washington formed the underpinnings of the GOP victory in last fall’s congressional elections.
While extremist elements were energized by the 1993 Waco, Texas, debacle, the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho involving white supremacist Randy Weaver, and the assault-weapons ban, a great many ordinary citizens increasingly regard Washington as the enemy.
Although strongly opposed to the militia movement, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., testified that he could understand why so many people were susceptible to the conspiracy theories and angry rhetoric of the militia leaders. Government, he said, has failed in many areas, especially in alleviating economic pressures on working families.
At the same time, Baucus continued, Washington bureaucrats have been the source of mindless regulations and policies that often threatened the livelihoods of ordinary citizens. As an example, he cited an order from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that Montana loggers had to purchase steel-toed, chainsaw-resistant boots within two weeks or be laid off. Montana loggers, however, don’t wear steel-toed boots because the steel conducts the cold and their feet go numb during the state’s harsh winters. And a logger with numb feet and a live chainsaw is an accident waiting to happen. It took the direct intervention of the secretary of labor to roll back the fatuous order, which had been promulgated without any direct contact with the affected workers in Montana.
In the final analysis, the best way to undercut the militia movement is for government to be more responsive to the needs and concerns of its citizens. Every dollar wasted, every bonehead regulation, every unnecessarily intrusive federal program and every botched law-enforcement action contributes to the climate of public cynicism and distrust of government that is the lifeblood of those who believe that the “cartridge box is more important than the ballot box.”
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