10/9/13 EDIT: I have since modified my position on this post quite substantially. I do not delete the post solely in the interest of remaining accountable for my statements. My favorite work of pen to paper has been Emerson’s Self Reliance. I’m reminded of a specific paragraph:
Do not try to be consistent. Trying to be consistent blocks the new creation that is constantly attempting to flow out of you. “Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannonballs, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today.” Yes, you will be misunderstood. All great souls have suffered this indignity. You’ll be in excellent company. You will be a cause, a creator, an architect of a new world, as all great souls have been who had the guts to see the world with honest eyes.
The original post follows:
Former Latah GOP chair Barrett Schroeder has filed for the Idaho State Senate in District 5. Having been acquainted with the man I can say first that he is a good, considerate man. However, I would never be able to offer my support to his candidacy.
Something caught my eye from yesterday’s post. In announcing his candidacy, Schroeder said:
“In 10 years of recruiting Republicans to run for office, the best candidates were those who felt so strongly about an issue that they absolutely had to run. For me that issue today is the emergence of Militia groups. As I’ve watched the Tea Party cause be warped into a Militia movement, I feel that I could not live with myself if another Ruby Ridge-type event happened and I didn’t do everything in my power to stop it.”
Well, the one good thing I can say about that is that he is coming into the running with a mission, exactly what I was saying yesterday was generally lacking amongst office seekers. That mission however…I don’t know where to begin.
Ruby Ridge did not happen because of the militia movement. Ruby Ridge, like Waco, invigorated the militia movement. It was the idea of government run amok that caused people to form militias. It is the big government conservative and the liberal alike that grow the militia. It is dismissing and mocking their views as “conspiracy theories” that cause a legitimate NEED for a militia. It is the idea that “conservatives” are backing the Southern Poverty Law Center that causes people to become worried and form militias.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, whom Schroeder defends and cites on his website is a joke of an organization that exerts its energies in tying legitimate militia and conservative movements into neo-nazi and other hate groups. It is generally trudged out by lazy reporters or left-wing interests to discredit right wing movements such as the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and one of the early exposers of the ATF’s “gunwalker scandal” Mike Vanderbough. Vanderbough, who has regularly out-ed and embarrassed Neo-Nazi members and groups is regularly libeled by the organization.
Some examples of the SPLC in action:
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/04/southern-poverty-law-centers-enemies.html
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/the-social-contract-exposes-southern-poverty-law-center
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=735_1296493748
http://www.wnd.com/2009/09/111078/
Schroeder points to Jeff Williams as the leader of the local militia. Like any good feud however, there is no good guy here. I first met Jeff Williams when he organized a meeting at a local bowling alley for Glenn Beck’s first 9/12 project. Since then, the publicly humble Jeff Williams has sought office and has helped expand, if not found the local chapter of the lightfoot militia. While I’d love to publicly applaud the man for doing a good turn, it is insincere to say that the local militia is apolitical. There is a strong religious bent to the militia, and if you don’t think politics and religion mix, I recommend asking yourself exactly what platform Rick Santorum is running on. Having a militia is a good thing, keeping local law enforcement in check is a good thing. I don’t need to be worried about the militia violating my rights when I have experienced it firsthand by Moscow PD. But I’d never trust Williams with any actual power, lest I wished to live in a theocracy.
I should also add that the reason militia members don’t want their identities known isn’t out of anything nefarious. Rather, if the militia exists to protect the citizen and the state from tyrannical government (which one can easily argue exists now), then why would the armed citizen want that same government knowing who he is, even if he has no intention of anything but last ditch defensive action when we’re hiding muslims/homosexuals/athiests/republicans or whomever the next political undesireable is in our attics to keep them from being carted off by government agents.
Now for a kickass new Marine Corps commercial!
