Are these stories credible?
NewsMax.com Story
Diane Alden
September 12, 2000
Do the worrywarts overstate the case? Do the
folks in the bars and cafes in rural America
fret about black helicopters or the U.N.
camping out in national parks merely to
break the monotony? Does this fundamental
mistrust of government and the misuse of
federal power have legitimacy? The answer
may lie in recent events.
No longer does the federal government merely
arm the U.S. Marshals Service, the Secret
Service, the FBI, the Border Patrol, DEA,
BATF and the military. Today the IRS, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA, the Forest
Service and even the Small Business
Administration are carrying firearms.
In the deadly incidents of overreaction at
Ruby Ridge and Waco, hardly a flak-jacketed
bureaucrat paid any meaningful price.
Expanding the power of federal agencies to
use force against U.S. citizens means the
possibilities of another Ruby Ridge or Waco
are increasing. Every state can cite
instances in which bureaucrats armed to the
teeth are conducting military-style
operations.
To the Founding Fathers, a federal police
force was unthinkable, and individual
citizens were advised to keep and bear arms.
Thomas Jefferson said, "No free man shall
ever be debarred the use of arms as a last
resort to protect themselves against tyranny
of government."
Bureaucrats in Ninja Mode
The growing trend toward militarization of
the federal bureaucracy and police forces
does not sit well with civil libertarians,
who see that trend as antithetical to what
America is about. Instances of the use of
violent force against Americans are growing.
Many times this use has nothing to do with
preventing violent or dangerous criminal
activity. These days it may mean raiding
private property and homes in the name of
the environment, or dealing with crimes that
could be handled by an accountant or one or
two investigators. But overreaction seems to
have become the rule.
On Santa Clara Island in California in
January of 1998, using the force of a small
army, the U.S. Park Service conducted a
surprise raid on a nature camp, employing
the excuse that the camp's owner was robbing
Chumash Indian graves.
The commando-style raid included rousting
and handcuffing a 15-year-old girl asleep in
her cabin. The park rangers wore ski masks,
carried machine guns and kept the girl
handcuffed for two hours. In actuality, the
Park Service wasn't after illegally obtained
artifacts. Using forfeiture laws, they were
after the last bit of private property on
Santa Cruz Island.
For years, the National Park Service had
been attempting to obtain a privately owned
6,500-acre ranch, which covers 10 percent of
the island. The federal government's
stalking horse, the Nature Conservancy, owns
the other 90 percent.
Similarly, one month after Ruby Ridge,
Malibu millionaire Donald Scott was gunned
down in his home in an assault that included
14 federal, state and local government
agencies led by the National Park Service.
Scott's alleged crime was growing marijuana
on his property, an assertion made by a paid
drug informant. No marijuana was ever found,
but the government got control of the dead
man's land.
There are also thousands of incidents of
intimidation, terror and confiscation of
property by the IRS. The political use of
the IRS has been standard operating
procedure for quite some time. In recent
memory the organizations on its hit list are
conservative, like the Christian Coalition
and the Western Journalism Center, to name a
few, and this reeks of politicization. You
won't see the left-leaning Sierra Club on
the IRS hit list, or any labor unions, for
that matter.
Countless cases of intimidation by the IRS
against ordinary citizens would fill the
phone book of a small city. Yet even when
Congress responds and asks for
accountability, it is merely to proffer a
slap on the wrist and say, "Now, be good
boys and go play." Apparently Congress
doesn't have a clue, it doesn't care, or it
is impotent.
The Nanny State Is Packing Heat
Under the congressional nose and in the name
of efficiency, in 1994 the Justice
Department began to allow blanket deputizing
of numerous agencies, and that authority has
been extended. NASA, departments of Labor,
State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs,
and Social Security and Small Business
administrations have received permission for
agents to carry weapons.
According to the General Accounting Office,
the number of armed federal bureaucrats is
more than 80,000, but the specific number is
unknown. The Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center produced 848 graduates in
1970. In 1998, the center turned out 25,077.
This number does not include FBI agents
trained at the FBI center in Quantico,
Virginia.
Incredibly, of the federal agencies with at
least 500 armed officers, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has grown the most - 40
percent in 15 years.
Federal agents are trained and authorized to
enforce over 3,000 criminal laws that
Congress has passed. In addition, they must
now deal with hundreds of thousands of
regulations that carry criminal penalties.
Thousands of regulations have been placed on
the books in the last 30 years that relate
to environmental or endangered species
"crimes" or efforts to enforce a federal
"war" on tobacco and drugs.
Military forces have been enlisted in this
"war" and serve in disparate places. They
are being used as a surrogate federal police
agency that includes 10,000 military
personnel stationed on the border between
Mexico and the U.S., as well as in Central
and South America.
Some of them are coming back in body bags.
Some are involved in shooting civilians. But
any way you slice it, the military is being
used as police. This has nothing to do with
their primary function and it sets a
profoundly dangerous precedent for the
Republic.
Speaks with Forked Tongue
Janet Reno recently replaced Defense
Secretary William Cohen as head of a
combination military and government response
team to deal with "national emergencies."
Now, it may be prudent to prepare for
terrorist activities on American soil, but
in recent years we have had more to fear
from the federal agencies headed by Janet
Reno than we have from terrorists.
More and more frequently the Clinton
administration has used these agencies as
SWAT teams against perceived "enemies" -
like the Cuban community in Miami and at
Waco and Ruby Ridge. These agencies are
barely deserving of any trust from Americans
concerned about the political use of their
federal police agencies by any executive of
either political party. Between Ruby Ridge,
Waco and Little Havana, Justice Department
guarantees that they will not trample on the
Bill of Rights ring hollow.
That the Justice Department and agencies
such as FEMA will now have oversight or
input into the use of the military in
emergencies should not persuade a reasonably
intelligent citizen that his government will
do the right thing.
Past experience shows that trusting the
government has cost American citizens their
lives, their fortunes and their honor. Just
ask the various government whistleblowers
such as Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, Bill
Johnston of the Waco debacle, Marine Corps
General Krulack, Major Scott Ritter, and all
the men and women of various government
agencies from the Forest Service to the FBI
who have laid it on the line and paid the
price.
Letters from America's Front Line
I get letters from government agents and the
military sometimes, and some of them should
anger Americans. But Americans are numb,
calloused and accepting of the status quo.
These letters complain of corruption and
malfeasance and paint a picture that America
had better wake up and recognize as
dangerous to our continued good health as a
nation.
These good people have had to put up with
the corruption and inept policies of the
Clinton administration, and since they get
little or no support from Congress and the
American people, they stay silent. The ones
who really get fed up get out of government
service altogether and remain disgusted and
bitter.
Many men and women in the military are
saying that if Al Gore is elected the NCOs
will bolt and leave the U.S. without its
strongest military functionaries. The United
States of America will be stuck with a bunch
of sycophants and tush-kissers better known
as BBs, or Bill's Boys. Only this time they
will be Al's Boys. The rest will be
undereducated, ignorant and undertrained,
willing to obey commands that in a better
time and place and with better men and women
would have been considered unacceptable.
As one 23-year veteran of the Army related,
"They would kick in their momma's door and
haul her off if they were told to do so.
They are being taught urban door-to-door
tactics. Why? So they can fight whom? Don't
count on them not to fire on Americans if it
comes to that." This letter was not unique,
and it was one of many.
Therefore, the people who plan on voting for
Al Gore need to consider what they are
doing. They are setting up their country for
a continuation of destructive policies both
within and without the military and
government agencies.
Congress would do well to find its courage
and stop acting like the poor relation
begging for a crumb. Accepting its oversight
responsibilities by demanding cooperation
from the executive branch would do a great
deal to stop the slide toward a police
state.
Even congressional leaders like Dan Burton
and Christopher Cox say the Clinton Justice
Department is so out of control it does not
respond to Congress except in a perfunctory
fashion. By stonewalling efforts to obtain
information on Chinagate and other incidents
of government corruption, it betrays its
contempt for Congress and the rule of law.
Former Democratic Attorney General Griffin
Bell said that the next president would have
to clean the Justice Department from the top
down. That is a corrupt institution.
The tendency to use commando-style military
raids at all levels of police operations is
not a hopeful sign in a free country. But
the American public has been desensitized to
such activities: one too many cop shows, one
too many movies, and once too often the
thoughtless acceptance of kicking in the
door and rousting of Americans that
glorifies police state tactics. It
desensitizes us and makes us blind, deaf and
dumb to what is happening.
We used to be able to count on the police
and the federal agencies to do a job. But
more and more often that job would be better
suited to a Banana Republic or the Russian
night raids of the '30s.
A thorough housecleaning should be ordered
before any of the alphabet agencies is
anywhere near ready to talk about how to use
the military in an emergency. FEMA, the IRS,
the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife
and other "benign" agencies have obviously
lost their job descriptions.
Part of their training should include a
course on constitutional guarantees and
respect due the citizens of the United
States. Congress should defang, defund,
deregulate, disarm and tame the 8,000-pound
bureaucratic beast.
Additionally, until a couple of feds are
thrown in the slammer, or made accountable
for their abusive and shameful actions,
pathological mistrust of government will
continue. But given the Danforth report in
regard to Waco, that is not likely to
happen. We don't have anyone without ties to
the government-business-academe complex, who
is independent enough to do an honest job.
There are a few people, like former House
counsel David Schippers, whose best-selling
book "Sellout" chronicles just what a
corrupt and inept government we have.
Unfortunately, the mainstream press has
chosen to ignore the book, and it is left to
the Internet news services such as
NewsMax.com and others to promote it.
Unless things change, the average guy in
fly-over country will persist in believing
he sees U.N. troops in the park and a Fed
behind every bush. The powers that be need
to wise up and pay attention to the fears
that haunt Americans. The fear of government
is not baseless. Nor are those who worry
about their government's actions all
deranged wackos.
The Founding Fathers had absolute distrust
of unrestrained governmental power - which
is why they gave us the Bill of Rights.
------------------------------
Diane Alden is a research analyst with a
background in political science and
economics. Her work has appeared in the
Washington Times as well as NewsMax.com,
Etherzone, Enterstageright, American
Partisan and many other online publications.
She also does occasional radio commentaries
for Georgia Radio Inc. Check out her new Web
site, "The Alden Chronicles," at
www.aldenchronicles.com. Her e-mail address
is wulfric8@yahoo.com.
------------------
~USP
"[Even if there would be] few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard, this would simply show that the Founders were right when they feared that some future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may tolerate the abridgement of property rights and the elimination of a right to bear arms; but we should not pretend that these are not reductions of rights." -- Justice Scalia 1998
NewsMax.com Story
Diane Alden
September 12, 2000
Do the worrywarts overstate the case? Do the
folks in the bars and cafes in rural America
fret about black helicopters or the U.N.
camping out in national parks merely to
break the monotony? Does this fundamental
mistrust of government and the misuse of
federal power have legitimacy? The answer
may lie in recent events.
No longer does the federal government merely
arm the U.S. Marshals Service, the Secret
Service, the FBI, the Border Patrol, DEA,
BATF and the military. Today the IRS, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA, the Forest
Service and even the Small Business
Administration are carrying firearms.
In the deadly incidents of overreaction at
Ruby Ridge and Waco, hardly a flak-jacketed
bureaucrat paid any meaningful price.
Expanding the power of federal agencies to
use force against U.S. citizens means the
possibilities of another Ruby Ridge or Waco
are increasing. Every state can cite
instances in which bureaucrats armed to the
teeth are conducting military-style
operations.
To the Founding Fathers, a federal police
force was unthinkable, and individual
citizens were advised to keep and bear arms.
Thomas Jefferson said, "No free man shall
ever be debarred the use of arms as a last
resort to protect themselves against tyranny
of government."
Bureaucrats in Ninja Mode
The growing trend toward militarization of
the federal bureaucracy and police forces
does not sit well with civil libertarians,
who see that trend as antithetical to what
America is about. Instances of the use of
violent force against Americans are growing.
Many times this use has nothing to do with
preventing violent or dangerous criminal
activity. These days it may mean raiding
private property and homes in the name of
the environment, or dealing with crimes that
could be handled by an accountant or one or
two investigators. But overreaction seems to
have become the rule.
On Santa Clara Island in California in
January of 1998, using the force of a small
army, the U.S. Park Service conducted a
surprise raid on a nature camp, employing
the excuse that the camp's owner was robbing
Chumash Indian graves.
The commando-style raid included rousting
and handcuffing a 15-year-old girl asleep in
her cabin. The park rangers wore ski masks,
carried machine guns and kept the girl
handcuffed for two hours. In actuality, the
Park Service wasn't after illegally obtained
artifacts. Using forfeiture laws, they were
after the last bit of private property on
Santa Cruz Island.
For years, the National Park Service had
been attempting to obtain a privately owned
6,500-acre ranch, which covers 10 percent of
the island. The federal government's
stalking horse, the Nature Conservancy, owns
the other 90 percent.
Similarly, one month after Ruby Ridge,
Malibu millionaire Donald Scott was gunned
down in his home in an assault that included
14 federal, state and local government
agencies led by the National Park Service.
Scott's alleged crime was growing marijuana
on his property, an assertion made by a paid
drug informant. No marijuana was ever found,
but the government got control of the dead
man's land.
There are also thousands of incidents of
intimidation, terror and confiscation of
property by the IRS. The political use of
the IRS has been standard operating
procedure for quite some time. In recent
memory the organizations on its hit list are
conservative, like the Christian Coalition
and the Western Journalism Center, to name a
few, and this reeks of politicization. You
won't see the left-leaning Sierra Club on
the IRS hit list, or any labor unions, for
that matter.
Countless cases of intimidation by the IRS
against ordinary citizens would fill the
phone book of a small city. Yet even when
Congress responds and asks for
accountability, it is merely to proffer a
slap on the wrist and say, "Now, be good
boys and go play." Apparently Congress
doesn't have a clue, it doesn't care, or it
is impotent.
The Nanny State Is Packing Heat
Under the congressional nose and in the name
of efficiency, in 1994 the Justice
Department began to allow blanket deputizing
of numerous agencies, and that authority has
been extended. NASA, departments of Labor,
State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs,
and Social Security and Small Business
administrations have received permission for
agents to carry weapons.
According to the General Accounting Office,
the number of armed federal bureaucrats is
more than 80,000, but the specific number is
unknown. The Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center produced 848 graduates in
1970. In 1998, the center turned out 25,077.
This number does not include FBI agents
trained at the FBI center in Quantico,
Virginia.
Incredibly, of the federal agencies with at
least 500 armed officers, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has grown the most - 40
percent in 15 years.
Federal agents are trained and authorized to
enforce over 3,000 criminal laws that
Congress has passed. In addition, they must
now deal with hundreds of thousands of
regulations that carry criminal penalties.
Thousands of regulations have been placed on
the books in the last 30 years that relate
to environmental or endangered species
"crimes" or efforts to enforce a federal
"war" on tobacco and drugs.
Military forces have been enlisted in this
"war" and serve in disparate places. They
are being used as a surrogate federal police
agency that includes 10,000 military
personnel stationed on the border between
Mexico and the U.S., as well as in Central
and South America.
Some of them are coming back in body bags.
Some are involved in shooting civilians. But
any way you slice it, the military is being
used as police. This has nothing to do with
their primary function and it sets a
profoundly dangerous precedent for the
Republic.
Speaks with Forked Tongue
Janet Reno recently replaced Defense
Secretary William Cohen as head of a
combination military and government response
team to deal with "national emergencies."
Now, it may be prudent to prepare for
terrorist activities on American soil, but
in recent years we have had more to fear
from the federal agencies headed by Janet
Reno than we have from terrorists.
More and more frequently the Clinton
administration has used these agencies as
SWAT teams against perceived "enemies" -
like the Cuban community in Miami and at
Waco and Ruby Ridge. These agencies are
barely deserving of any trust from Americans
concerned about the political use of their
federal police agencies by any executive of
either political party. Between Ruby Ridge,
Waco and Little Havana, Justice Department
guarantees that they will not trample on the
Bill of Rights ring hollow.
That the Justice Department and agencies
such as FEMA will now have oversight or
input into the use of the military in
emergencies should not persuade a reasonably
intelligent citizen that his government will
do the right thing.
Past experience shows that trusting the
government has cost American citizens their
lives, their fortunes and their honor. Just
ask the various government whistleblowers
such as Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, Bill
Johnston of the Waco debacle, Marine Corps
General Krulack, Major Scott Ritter, and all
the men and women of various government
agencies from the Forest Service to the FBI
who have laid it on the line and paid the
price.
Letters from America's Front Line
I get letters from government agents and the
military sometimes, and some of them should
anger Americans. But Americans are numb,
calloused and accepting of the status quo.
These letters complain of corruption and
malfeasance and paint a picture that America
had better wake up and recognize as
dangerous to our continued good health as a
nation.
These good people have had to put up with
the corruption and inept policies of the
Clinton administration, and since they get
little or no support from Congress and the
American people, they stay silent. The ones
who really get fed up get out of government
service altogether and remain disgusted and
bitter.
Many men and women in the military are
saying that if Al Gore is elected the NCOs
will bolt and leave the U.S. without its
strongest military functionaries. The United
States of America will be stuck with a bunch
of sycophants and tush-kissers better known
as BBs, or Bill's Boys. Only this time they
will be Al's Boys. The rest will be
undereducated, ignorant and undertrained,
willing to obey commands that in a better
time and place and with better men and women
would have been considered unacceptable.
As one 23-year veteran of the Army related,
"They would kick in their momma's door and
haul her off if they were told to do so.
They are being taught urban door-to-door
tactics. Why? So they can fight whom? Don't
count on them not to fire on Americans if it
comes to that." This letter was not unique,
and it was one of many.
Therefore, the people who plan on voting for
Al Gore need to consider what they are
doing. They are setting up their country for
a continuation of destructive policies both
within and without the military and
government agencies.
Congress would do well to find its courage
and stop acting like the poor relation
begging for a crumb. Accepting its oversight
responsibilities by demanding cooperation
from the executive branch would do a great
deal to stop the slide toward a police
state.
Even congressional leaders like Dan Burton
and Christopher Cox say the Clinton Justice
Department is so out of control it does not
respond to Congress except in a perfunctory
fashion. By stonewalling efforts to obtain
information on Chinagate and other incidents
of government corruption, it betrays its
contempt for Congress and the rule of law.
Former Democratic Attorney General Griffin
Bell said that the next president would have
to clean the Justice Department from the top
down. That is a corrupt institution.
The tendency to use commando-style military
raids at all levels of police operations is
not a hopeful sign in a free country. But
the American public has been desensitized to
such activities: one too many cop shows, one
too many movies, and once too often the
thoughtless acceptance of kicking in the
door and rousting of Americans that
glorifies police state tactics. It
desensitizes us and makes us blind, deaf and
dumb to what is happening.
We used to be able to count on the police
and the federal agencies to do a job. But
more and more often that job would be better
suited to a Banana Republic or the Russian
night raids of the '30s.
A thorough housecleaning should be ordered
before any of the alphabet agencies is
anywhere near ready to talk about how to use
the military in an emergency. FEMA, the IRS,
the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife
and other "benign" agencies have obviously
lost their job descriptions.
Part of their training should include a
course on constitutional guarantees and
respect due the citizens of the United
States. Congress should defang, defund,
deregulate, disarm and tame the 8,000-pound
bureaucratic beast.
Additionally, until a couple of feds are
thrown in the slammer, or made accountable
for their abusive and shameful actions,
pathological mistrust of government will
continue. But given the Danforth report in
regard to Waco, that is not likely to
happen. We don't have anyone without ties to
the government-business-academe complex, who
is independent enough to do an honest job.
There are a few people, like former House
counsel David Schippers, whose best-selling
book "Sellout" chronicles just what a
corrupt and inept government we have.
Unfortunately, the mainstream press has
chosen to ignore the book, and it is left to
the Internet news services such as
NewsMax.com and others to promote it.
Unless things change, the average guy in
fly-over country will persist in believing
he sees U.N. troops in the park and a Fed
behind every bush. The powers that be need
to wise up and pay attention to the fears
that haunt Americans. The fear of government
is not baseless. Nor are those who worry
about their government's actions all
deranged wackos.
The Founding Fathers had absolute distrust
of unrestrained governmental power - which
is why they gave us the Bill of Rights.
------------------------------
Diane Alden is a research analyst with a
background in political science and
economics. Her work has appeared in the
Washington Times as well as NewsMax.com,
Etherzone, Enterstageright, American
Partisan and many other online publications.
She also does occasional radio commentaries
for Georgia Radio Inc. Check out her new Web
site, "The Alden Chronicles," at
www.aldenchronicles.com. Her e-mail address
is wulfric8@yahoo.com.
------------------
~USP
"[Even if there would be] few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard, this would simply show that the Founders were right when they feared that some future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may tolerate the abridgement of property rights and the elimination of a right to bear arms; but we should not pretend that these are not reductions of rights." -- Justice Scalia 1998