Ruby Ridge: When Officials Realized That We Scare Them

[Dave70968]

Twenty years since the Ruby Ridge siege, the event is usually remembered as a major motivator to the militia movement and the anti-government fervor of the '90s. It was cited, together with the following year's bloody fiasco in Waco, Texas, as an outrage to be avenged, by Timothy McVeigh. And, sure enough, the Associated Press story on the legacy of Ruby Ridge specifies that the incident "helped spark an anti-government patriot movement that grew to include the Oklahoma City bombing." But if the siege and killings in Idaho helped make many Americans fear the government, a strong case can be made that it also pushed the federal government to fear many of the people over whom it rules.

...

When the Patriot Act was introduced in 2001, then-Senator Joseph Biden boasted, "I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill." True enough, the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995 bears strong enough similarities to the Patriot Act that we could be forgiven for thinking it was dusted off, polished and reintroduced when the moment arose. That 1995 bill was explicitly targeted at Americans in a decade full of fears about the "antigovernment movement."

And the growing phenomena of "fusion centers" combining federal, state and local talent to combat the dread threat of "terrorism" are designed to focus on the domestic landscape, where they have scrutinized a hodge-podge of political groups and activists who have nothing more in common than that they worry some bureaucrat. The feds have taken a closer look at the people they rule, and they don't like what they see.

Yes, twenty years on, Ruby Ridge continues to fan fears — among government officials, of the people over whom they exercise their power.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/22/ruby-ridge-when-many-officials-realized

Go read the whole thing. It's worth it.

 

[furlong222]

after these last 20 years...things are beginning to escalate....

 

[Dave70968]

No. Things are beginning to escalate more visibly. The escalation has been constant.

 

[Wheel Gun]

Reading that makes my stomach hurt.

 

[ez bake]

Always quickly swept under the rug, one of the greatest multi-government agency clusterF@#!$ in history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge

 

[cjjtulsa]

Love this paragraph; it's by this community mindset that the United States - as in us, not our government - has any chance of survival:

Even before Waco and Oklahoma City, the federal government had stuck its fingers out into flyover country - and yanked them back after a good scorching. These weren't just fringe groups exchanging newsletters and camping in the forest. There are so many of them that they own the businesses that service agents in the field, vote on juries and even hold local office!

 

[CHenry]

Go read Unintended Consequences now.
The plan is in the book.

 

[Lurker66]

I like the "you folks dont really like us" comment.

Ruby Ridge, Waco, OKC, Janet Reno, Bill Clinton, seems like yesterday, cant believe its already been 20 yrs. 911 was a little over 10 yrs.

We're due for something else.

 

[AKguy1985]

Always quickly swept under the rug, one of the greatest multi-government agency clusterF@#!$ in history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge

X2 i agree.

 

[JB Books]

Gerry Spence kicked some serious ass for Randy Weaver. He's never lost a case.