Imagine what your reaction would be if a group of heavily armed Muslim terrorists took over a building in downtown LA, barricaded themselves inside and threatened to kill anyone who came to arrest them? What if these same terrorists took things a step further and sent out supporters of their jihad to shoot police officers in nearby Santa Barbara and cover their dead bodies with ISIS flags and copies of the Koran. We can pretty much assume that every American citizen would demand that the FBI, swat teams, and the Marines storm the building immediately. Politicians, particularly conservatives ones, would insist on nothing less than a complete annihilation of these extremist who were threatening our country and they would blame Obama for letting this attack happen in the first place.
Well, guess what? It did happen. Only the terrorists weren't Muslims - they were Americans.
The incidents I'm describing are the murder of two police officer in Vegas by Jerad and Amanda Miller, two individuals from Cliven Bundy's "militia" camp in Nevada and the more recent take over of the Oregon wildlife sanctuary by his son Ammon Bundy and his rag-tag group of supporters.
Although, the terrorist standoff defused slightly since the dramatic arrest of Bundy and death of his cohort, LaVoy Finicum. In fact, his last supporters are still holed up in the refugee and the "martyrdom" of Finicum, who died trying to escape a police road block, will resonate forever in the hearts and minds of those who support the radical movement. There will be further violence as a result of these incidents, I assure you.
Why aren't more people calling these people out for what they really are: radical terrorists. And more importantly, why aren't people taking this threat more seriously? It's truly amazing given the bluster of politicians like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz who rail endlessly about the treats of Muslims, and yet, are mostly mute on the subject of domestic terrorism - even though it poses just as big a threat. To be fair, there were a few murmurs of "that's not cool" from Republican candidates when Ammon Bundy took over the refuge and started threatening to shoot people. But least we forget, how they championed his father's cause just last year. It was Ted Cruz who said:
"the unfortunate and tragic culmination of the path that President Obama has set the federal government on.” He added that the reason he believed the story was "resonating" was that the Obama administration has put American liberty "under assault...we have seen our constitutional liberties eroded under the Obama administration."
Ron Paul even paid good old Cliven Bundy a visit to offer support. Sure, everyone loved Bundy standing up to Obama and "big government" until Cliven opened his big, fat, racist mouth a little too wide and went off about how "The Negros" actually enjoyed slavery.
I get why so many conservatives are laying low on the issue these days, supporting an open bigot isn't good presidential politics after all. Still, no one is exactly waving their righteous fist in anger about it either. Why should they? These anti-government terrorists are part of their conservative political base. Guys like Trump and Cruz need anti-government zealots to get elected. That's why there's still a great reluctance to make much noise about it. But silence cannot make a problem go away. Especially not a problem this big and deadly.
Make no mistake about it: Domestic terrorists are just as lethal as foreign jihadists. In many ways, they're even more dangerous. Timothy McVeigh killed well over a hundred men, women and children in a single bombing. The Unabomber maimed and killed a dozen victims in a terror campaign that lasted a decade. Followers of the so-called sovereign citizen anti-government movement have killed scores of police officers and other innocent people in states across the country and their attacks are becoming more frequent. Terry Nicols, co-conspirator in the Oklahoma city bombing has claimed allegiance to this movement, by the way. He even tried to use his status as a self proclaimed "state-less citizen" as part of his legal defense. It should be noted that the very definition of a terrorist includes delineating them as "stateless combatants."
To say there's no connection between these strangers and their widespread attacks is also missing the obvious. Just like the agents of ISIS and al-Qaeda, there's an underlying theme, motive and ideology behind all these acts of terror.
The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, actually became pals with fellow mass murderer Timothy McVeigh when they met for the first time in federal prison before his execution. Kaczynski continues to speak warmly of his fellow serial killer as "a really thoughtful guy." In other words, they "got" each other - big time.
Like members of al-Qaeda and ISIS, there's an unspoken bond and shared agenda with the domestic terrorist crowd. They all want the same thing and are perfectly willing to spill innocent blood to get it. They don't have to follow the same orders or leaders, or even belong to the same group. It doesn't matter; they're still all on the same page.
What's even scarier about these people is that unlike ISIS and other Muslim extremists, these people don't have to try to penetrate our borders in order to operate. There's no ban that will keep them out, no wall across Mexico that will protect us - they're already here. Not only are they here, but they have support from many friends, if not entire communities willing to abed them. Furthermore they have a conservative political leadership that's passively tolerant of their activities and/or willing to divert resources and attention to other targets oceans away.
It's a recipe for disaster.
As you may already know, LaVoy Finicum, who died in the Oregon take over, even wrote a book in anticipation of his coming martyrdom, titled "Blood and Suffering" in which he calls for violent revolution.
But this tome isn't the real Mein Kampf of the movement. Not yet, anyway. No, that dubious distinction belongs to "The Turner Diaries" - a racist underground book that has been exciting the fantasy of angry white supremacists for generations.
Written in 1978 under the pen name "Andrew Macdonald" by William Luther Price (founder of the white nationalist organization National Alliance), "The Turner Diaries" depicts a violent overthrow of the federal government, which leads to an all out race war. In this disgusting novel, all the Jews, gays and non-whites are exterminated by white patriots. The book was described as "explicitly racist and anti-Semitic" by The New York Times and has been labeled a "bible of the racist right" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Here are just a few of the crimes directly inspired by this awful book (which has sold a reported 500,000 copies):
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The Order, a white supremacist terrorist group that was inspired to name itself after a group in the book, murdered three people (including controversial radio host Alan Berg) and engaged in other acts of violence, claiming to seek a race war.
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Timothy McVeigh, convicted for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, was found after the attack with pages from the book in his possession. His attack closely resembled the bombing of the FBI headquarters in the novel.
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John William King convicted of dragging African American James Byrd to his death in 1998. As King shackled Byrd's legs to his truck, he was reported to have said, "We're going to start The Turner Diaries early."
- A copy of The Turner Diaries was found in the home of Jacob D. Robida, who attacked three men at a gay bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
That's the real soul of the extremist anti-government movement. It isn't about lower taxes, or less federal regulation, or water rights, or whatever phony flag of "freedom" these fanatics want to wrap themselves up in to disguise their true nature. The ugly truth of the matter is that their agenda is to reestablish white power and oppress people of color. The government is their enemy because the rule of law and enforcement of anti-discrimination laws inhibit their racist aspirations. By eliminating the government, they hope to create a lawless "free" state where they can be the masters.
When these people speak about their views on race, you typically get responses like Cliven Bundy's infamous quote about "The Negros" longing for the good old days of slavery. It's not an accident that Charleston shooter, Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a black South Carolina church, stated clearly he was trying to start a race war. Can we really say there's no racial component to domestic terrorism when the two murderers who wandered off Bundy's Nevada compound killed two police officers in cold blood and placed a manifesto with a Nazi Swastika on it's cover on top of their dead bodies?
It should surprise no one that when it was pointed out to Ammon Bundy that if he really wanted to return the federal land to the real original "owners" he should give it back to the local Native American tribes, he balked at the idea. He claimed that the Native Americans had "forfeited their rights to it." The thought of providing justice or freedom to non-white people is the antithesis of the racist movement.
It's also worth noting that Bundy's claim of leading a freedom loving "militia" is a complete perversion of the very concept. Militias were created to protect the nascent American nation - not attack it (for more on the real history of militias you can read this excellent article on the subject). At no time in American history, with the notable exception of the rebels in the Civil War, has there been armed militias created to oppose the government.
They say that evil is allowed to flourish because good people stand aside and say nothing. It's time for us to stand up and call these people out for what they are: terrorists. Bundy and his ilk are not "freedom" loving patriots, or even circus clowns on a misguided crusade. They're very, very dangerous, racist thugs who need to be treated with the same seriousness as any detainee in Guantanamo Bay.
Roof, McVeigh, Kaczynski and all the other sick devotees of "The Turner Diaries" are threats to the peace and security of each and every one of us. It's only a matter of time before some one, some where, tries to kill innocent people in the name of LaVoy Finicum.
It's time for us to wake up to the very reality that all the Muslim bans in the world won't protect us, because the next Oklahoma City bombing won't come from someone screaming "Allah Akbar." No, my friends, it will come from someone who claims to be defending freedom; it will come from someone we call our "neighbor."