The front cover of a recent TIME magazine caught my eye: LOCKED & LOADED - The Secret World of Extreme Militias.
Understanding the Constitutional nature of militias and the often negative press that they have received ever since the days of Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols, I picked it up and began to read; noting certain key words and phrases, my mind was rife with commentary and rebuttal to the use of such language (although understandably justified in some select cases, thus included in the article extreme militias).
So without further ado, here is my take on this article, and my own thoughts relating to this resurgence of militias here in America (quotes from the TIME article by Barton Gellman will be in blue)
This August weekend of grueling mock combat, which left some of the men prostrate and bloody-booted, capped a yearlong training regimen of the Ohio Defense Force, a private militia that claims 300 active members statewide. The fighters shot blanks, the better to learn to maneuver in squads, but they buy live ammunition in bulk. Their training — no game, they stress — expends thousands of rounds a year from a bring-your-own armory of deer rifles, assault weapons and, when the owner turns up, a belt-fed M-60 machine gun. The militia trains for ambushes, sniper missions, close-quarters battle and other infantry staples.
What distinguishes groups like this one from a shooting club or re-enactment society is the prospect of actual bloodshed, which many Ohio Defense Force members see as real. Their unit seal depicts a man with a musket and tricorn hat, over the motto "Today's Minutemen." The symbol invites a question, Who are today's redcoats? On that point, the group takes no official position, but many of those interviewed over two days of recent training in and around the abandoned Roseville State Prison near Zanesville voiced grim suspicions about President Obama and the federal government in general.
MASS MEDIA's MESSAGE ON MILITIASThe notion of 'militias' thanks to our mass media creates in the minds of many people images of wild-eyed, fanatic and paranoid trigger-happy (neo-Nazi) sorts that are eager for confrontation with the Federal government or any other perceived enemy. Yet this is an entirely Constitutional entity based firmly in Constitutionally sanctioned State law. For an excellent explanation of this, I refer you to the following site (be advised, this writer does not necessarily subscribe to all the views of this article and its author):
http://drkatesview.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/the-militia-a-constitutional-defense-force/
"I don't know who the redcoats are," says Brian Vandersall, 37, who designed the exercise and tried to tamp down talk of politics among the men. "It could be U.N. troops. It could be federal troops. It could be Blackwater, which was used in Katrina. It could be Mexican troops who are crossing the border."
Or it could be, as it was for this year's exercise, an Islamic army marauding unchecked because a hypothetical pro-Muslim President has ordered U.S. forces to leave them alone. But as the drill played out, the designated opponents bore little resemblance to terrorists.
IN-ROADS INTO AMERICA
It is no statement born of paranoia to say that Islam is making strong and discernible in-roads here in America, just as its done in Europe today. We have covered much of this on our primary site The TRUTH Under FIRE in the article ENGAGING ISLAM; as far as a hypothetically pro-Islam President goes, we need no such hypothesis because we got one in the White House! This has also been addressed in that article (www.thetruthunderfire.com).
Mexican Nationalists who are loyal to the tenets of socialism, empowered by the massive drug cartels in Mexico have likewise been crossing our borders; their vision is of Aztlan reborn, the entire Southwestern United States being reclaimed by Mexico -
http://superstore.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=1836 By Glen Spencer. Exaggerated or not, this idea of retaking the Southwest by Mexican nationalists is real. There is talk on both sides of this issue:
http://www.mnforsustain.org/aztlan_aztlan_dream_to_retake_the_south_us.htm
Blackwater (now referred to as 'Xe') is mentioned in the TIME article, and the reader may not be familiar with this organization, but essentially it's owned by the Prince Group and is available as a private army for hire in purposes of training military and law enforcement and security. This agency, as far as I've seen, has no allegiance to any particular government and as a powerful freelance force it makes me a bit nervous and brings to mind Adolf Hitler's own private storm trooper forces.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Xe
Islam in the north, in the State of Michigan and elsewhere; in the south Mexican Nationalists, and in the East, the United States capital, Washington D.C. has a Federal government that is bulging at the seams with bureaucratic power that strains at, if not defies the Constitutional boundaries that were created to contain it.
Needless to say, there are many threats that surround us, all of them, lurking just under the veneer of every day life; how are we to protect ourselves as American citizens? Good question.
As militias go, the Ohio Defense Force is on the moderate side. Scores of armed antigovernment groups, some of them far more radical, have formed or been revived during the Obama years, according to law-enforcement agencies and outside watchdogs. A six-month TIME investigation reveals that recruiting, planning, training and explicit calls for a shooting war are on the rise, as are criminal investigations by the FBI and state authorities. Readier for bloodshed than at any time since at least the confrontations in the 1990s in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the radical right has raised the threat level against the President and other government targets. With violence already up on a modest scale, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and state agencies point to two main dangers of a mass-casualty attack: that a group of armed radicals will strike out in perceived self-defense, or that a lone wolf, trained and indoctrinated for war, will grow tired of waiting.
WHOM DO YOU SERVE? Why would loyal and patriotic citizens of America want to threaten the President of the United States of America, who when he took office, swore to defend and uphold the very same Constitution that these patriots themselves hold dear? Aren't we all on the same side? What is it about the President's actions and attitudes that have these groups all worked up? Are they justified in their indignation? Worked up they are, and it appears that these groups by and large protest what is seen as a deterioration of the Constitution, and bringing about such laws and policies that are in line with various shades and degrees of socialism.
http://theredpillconsortium.blogspot.com/2010/04/southern-poverty-law-center-publishes.html
as well as the above article, read this:
http://theredpillconsortium.blogspot.com/2010/06/crimson-caplet-american-terrorists.html
MORE LONE GUN MEN LORE?
These government agencies, according to TIME, foresee a future in which radical organizations or 'lone wolfs' may engage in violence. If a lone wolf is caught (either before or after their mission is carried out) would they mirror the likes of Lee Harvey Oswald (who assasinated J.F.K.) or John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln assasin), or even John Hinkely (would be assasin of Ronald Reagan); in each of the cases above, these supposed 'lone-wolf' assasins had an infrastructure supporting them with some rather interesting ties back to the government (?!).
If that is the case, then the tried and true motto of 'the Goblins' would indeed leave fingerprints all over such an event: Ordo Ab Chao, that is, Order Through Chaos, or in other words, "create a crisis, then solve the crisis, and in solving it, gain more power of control".
In the popularized folk-lore of the main media, Ruby Ridge and Waco are names of infamy in which nefarious forces inimicable to the good of the American people were downed by the heroic agencies of the United States government. Whatever notions of messianic delusion may (or may not) have been in evidence in the case of Waco and David Koresh; what ever infractions or broken laws in Ruby Ridge, its disheartening to understand that the actions taken which ended the lives of human beings were not only unnecessary, but were (apparently willingly) negligent in taking precautions against such loss of life.
Twisted Patriots
Within a complex web of ideologies, most of today's armed radicals are linked by self-described Patriot beliefs, which emphasize resistance to tyranny by force of arms and reject the idea that elections can fix what ails the country. Among the most common convictions is that the Second Amendment — the right to keep and bear arms — is the Constitution's cornerstone, because only a well-armed populace can enforce its rights. Any form of gun regulation, therefore, is a sure sign of intent to crush other freedoms. The federal government is often said in militia circles to have made wholesale seizures of power, at times by subterfuge. A leading grievance holds that the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the federal income tax, was ratified through fraud.
. . . 'TWISTED Patriots'?? As seen previously in RED PILL the defintion a patriot according to Merriam-Webster is, "one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests"
WHOS THE BOSS? The highest authority of the United States is not the President (sorry Obama)... its the Constitution. How can such allegiance to this document be considered 'twisted'? and yet talk to the members of any militia and ask them why they bear arms, and who are they defending. The vast majority will tell you, The citizens of my State, and the Constitution (there are some involved in other ideals and objectives that are by far more notorious in the extreme, but these are actually relatively few - more on this in just a minute).
Mr. Gellman stated that these people are "self-described" and its their own "common conviction" that the Second Amendment is in place to support militias and the right to bear arms to defend against tyranny. This is more than just mere common conviction, its Constitutional protocol to be used in such an event or events that threatens America. Hardly requiring a 'self description' a patriot is a patriot and is one that has been aptly defined above.
By the way, regarding the 16th amendment? Do your homework and learn about this amendment, how it was established, who put it in place and why, and you may become as alarmed as I was! Here's a pointer - G. Edward Griffins book, Creature From Jekyll Island. Sounds like a horror story doesn't it? It is indeed, of a different sort!
In a reversal of casting, the armed antigovernment movement describes itself as heir to the founders. As they see it, the union that the founders created is now a foreign tyrant. "It's like waking up behind enemy lines," says Terrell.
PROS and ANTI'S - - - -
When you seek the well being of the unborn, and someone calls you an anti-abortionist, how do you respond? If you're like me, you say, 'I am pro-life'. The same tactic is used here by Mr. Gellman, when he calls such patriots anti-government. Were our government to confine itself to the powers Constitutionally allocated to each of its branches, and held no higher allegiance than to this document and to WE THE PEOPLE, these militias would certainly be pro-government, yet they are not because it seems with greater intensity the Federal government is becoming anti-Constitutional (and this began long before Obama was even born! Its only that under his administration that much of the infrastructure of all of this is rising to the surface).
Some groups, though not many overtly (insinuating that others, possibly many others do embrace but covertly so?) , embrace the white-supremacist legacy of the Posse Comitatus, which invented the modern militia movement in the 1970s. Some are fueled by a violent stream of millennial Christianity. Some believe Washington is a secondary foe, the agent of a dystopian new world order.
Hillary Clinton herself admitted that the United States is ready for the New World Order. Others have mentioned this phrase, among them George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon, Mikhail Gorbachev, and interestingly enough, various occult and esoteric leaders including Alice Bailey of the Theosophical Society. Yet the main media stubbornly persists in the illusion that such talk of a 'new world order' are the sad, misunderstanding, delusional thinking of a fringe, radical element that's somehow out of touch with reality.
MIGHT BY WHITE? - - -
Such White Supremist organizations and radical groups like KKK and Christian Identity Movement are those fringe elements of militias here in America. Unfortunately our own media is propagating a broad stroke myth and painting all militia or at least a significant percentage, are of this ilk.
There is a movement, consisting of some forty to fifty thousand members called Christian Identity Movement; these are hardly Christian, any more than KKK members are followers of Jesus Christ and His Word. Many of these C.I.M. members will seek out militias and desire to join forces with them. For information on C.I.M. visit this page on the C.A.R.M. web site (we also have a link to their site on TTUF):
http://carm.org/christian-identity-movement
Mark Potok of the S P L C observes that "there are huge numbers of people who say, 'We're going to have to go to war to defend the Constitution or defend the white race,' but 'That will be next week, boys.' "
And yet there are exceptions, and law-enforcement officials say domestic terrorists are equally the products of their movements. Those most inclined toward violence sometimes call themselves three percenters, a small vanguard that dares to match deeds to words. Brian Banning, who led local and interagency intelligence units that tracked radical-right-wing violence in Sacramento County, California, says, "The person who's interested in violent revolution may be attracted to a racist group or to a militia or to the Tea Party because he's antigovernment and so are they, but he's looking on the fringe of the crowd for the people who want to take action."
The Supremacist
One such man was James Von Brunn. On June 10, 2009, he pulled up to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, raised a .22-caliber rifle and shot security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns in the chest. Part of Von Brunn's story is now well known, but police, FBI and Secret Service investigators held back a startling epilogue.
Von Brunn was an avowed white supremacist with a history of violence that reached back decades. He had spent six years in prison after an attempt to take hostages at the Federal Reserve (???Why would a White Supremacist take hostages at the Fed Reserve???) in 1981. After finding only disappointment in organized groups, Von Brunn retreated to his website and railed against passive comrades. "The American Right-wing with few exceptions ... does NOTHING BUT TALK," he wrote. At 88 and hospitalized with a gunshot wound he suffered at the museum, Von Brunn did not loom large in the public eye as a figure of menace. He was profiled as a shrunken old man, broke and friendless, who ended another man's life in an empty act of despair. He died seven months later in prison before he could be tried.
The Obama Factor
None of these movements are entirely new, but most were in sharp decline by the late 1990s. Their resurgence now is widely seen among government and academic experts as a reaction to the tectonic shifts in American politics that allowed a black man with a foreign-sounding name and a Muslim-born father to reach the White House.Obama's ascendancy unhinged (oh really??) the radical right, offering a unified target to competing camps of racial, nativist and religious animus. Even Patriots who had no truck with white supremacy found that they could amplify their antigovernment message by "constructing Obama as an alien, not of this country, insufficiently American," according to Michael Waltman, an authority on hate speech at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Perennial features of extreme-right scare lore — including imagined schemes (such powerful imaginations to actually materialize such incredible notions into manifest reality!) to declare martial law, abolish private ownership of guns and force dissidents into FEMA concentration camps — became more potent with Obama as the Commander in Chief.
"Constructing Obama as an alien, not of this country"?? "imagined schemes to declare martial law, abolish private ownership of guns, force dissidents into FEMA concentration camps"??
What sort of propagandized non-sense is this??
-Within seconds Obama could end the controversy concerning his birth place and prove he is an American citizen by simply producing his (legitimate) birth certificate.
-Perhaps Mr. Gellman would do well to read The Patriot Act (several hundred pages in total) and learn what sort of powers are granted to the Commander and Chief of the United States of America, among them, with but a stroke of a pen, he can declare martial law on a national scale.
-Abolition of private ownership of guns - this is an act that the UN continuously demands that the U.S. government performs on her people, and with the mounting pressure from various senators and government officials within our borders, such an act will be forthcoming. It is not mere fantasy (would to God that it was!).
-Deternment camps: Mr. Gellman are you suggesting that such things are the products of the overly imaginative paranoids that populate today's militias?
http://theredpillconsortium.blogspot.com/2009/08/in-bad-news-today.html
Interesting that an expert on 'hate speech' was used in this TIME article to comment on these so-called inflammatory, hateful remarks that are somehow unjustifiable and unproveable, but merely "lore" -
Michael Waltman, an authority on hate speech at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Perennial features of extreme-right scare lore —
Members of militias around the country say, like [Kenneth] Goldsmith, [a militia officer and leader], that they resent comparison with white supremacists like Cummings and Von Brunn. They complain of being tarred as members of hate groups by watchdogs at the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. "I can't tell you how much I enjoy being lumped in with sociopathic organizations like neo-Nazis, antiabortion extremists and Holocaust-denial groups," says Darren Wilburn, a private detective in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., who trains with a hard-core militia he preferred not to name. He cites his motto, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of anyone who threatens it," as evidence that he is not looking for trouble as long as trouble keeps clear of him.
MORE THAN MEETS THE BULLS EYE - -
These militia men are not just about guns and clips, they are also about court battles and congresses, of the Constitutional sort -
Bob Schulz, a leading exponent of the view that the IRS and much of the government it funds are operating illegally, has reached the brink of calling for war. The moment is significant because he is an influential voice among militia groups.
After more than a decade of conventional legal battles, Schulz and a network of allies organized by the We the People Foundation began filing hundreds of petitions for redress of grievances. Schulz had come to believe that the First Amendment's petition clause required governors, legislatures and federal agencies to provide specific and satisfactory answers to accusations of wrongdoing. He filled government dockets with thousands of questions — one petition, for instance, asked the IRS to "admit or deny" 116 allegations of fraud in the 1913 debate that ratified the 16th Amendment.
When his petitions went ignored and the Supreme Court declined to hear his case in 2007, he wrote a formal brief accusing the court of "committing treason to the Constitution." The IRS, meanwhile, revoked his foundation's tax-exempt status, alleging that he used it to promote an illegal "tax termination plan" and bringing tax-evasion charges against some of the people who followed Schulz's advice.
Last year Schulz convened hundreds of delegates to a second Continental Congress in St. Charles, Ill., drafting Articles of Freedom with "instructions" that state and federal governments halt unlawful operations. Refusal to comply would be "an act of WAR," the delegates wrote, and "the People and their Militias have the Right and Duty to repel it." Several militia leaders are among the authors.
There are other militia men that are giving constitutional seminars to county Sheriffs nation wide such as Richard Mack -
. . . [he's] urging them to resist what he describes as federal tyranny by force. Citing a long list of antecedents, beginning in 11th century England, Mack asserts that each of the nation's county sheriffs is the supreme constitutional authority in his or her jurisdiction. A sheriff has the power to arrest and, if necessary, use lethal force against federal officers who come uninvited, and he may "call out the militia to support his efforts to keep the peace in the county."
In his term as sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, Mack became famous for fighting and winning a legal battle against a provision of the Brady Bill that required him to enforce federal gun-control laws. He now says he wishes he had stayed out of court and simply drawn a line in the sand with the ATF. "I pray for the day when the first county sheriff has the guts to arrest the real enemy," he says. Among the enemy, he numbers "America's gestapo," the IRS. Steve Kendley, a Lake County, Montana, deputy sheriff who is running for the top office there on Mack's platform, says he expects federal agents to back off when threatened with arrest, but he is prepared for "a violent conflict" if "they are doing something I believe is unconstitutional."
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To read the TIME magazine article in its entirety, please go to the following site:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2022516-1,00.html
BOTTOM LINE FOR THE CHURCH -
Because of sin, oppression became a fact of life on this wayward planet. Satan as the ruler of this present age oppresses the entire human race (within Divinely established parameters) and in following suit, governments and their leaders throughout history have felt privileged as a matter of noble right to diminish their fellow man to servitude, even bondage, viewed them as lesser beings, even as property.
In the last days, we know that anti-Christ will likewise hold the entire world is a death-grip of oppressive rule, and will brook no rebellion against his power. Eventually every one will be branded (in some sense) with his mark and swear undying allegiance to him, yet those who do will be forever damned.
In between time, a rather unique occurance happened; a shining moment of freedom when individuals, not governments were declared sovereign, and this freedom was ratified in a document by the founding fathers of America which boldly declared that the place of government was not to rule over people, but was for, by, and of the people.
Americans who realize this also understand how tenuous, how fragile and costly is that freedom; freedom indeed, is not free! It must be paid for to obtain, and it must be paid for to maintain. Yet because of prosperity and easy times, we Americans have become lazy, apathetic and careless about securing these freedoms and keeping our government accountable.
More to the point, there are forces at work beyond the infrastructure of our own government, the 'old world powers' of nobility and 'old money families of aristocracy' working behind the scenes to confiscate our freedoms and lure America into subjugation (and their job is pretty much completed)!
I believe it was George Washington that stated that "government is like a fire: it makes a fine servant when under control and confined in the hearth; but it becomes a devouring monster when unleashed, and burns the house down."
These people in the main, who are dedicated to these militias simply want to hold onto the freedom that is America - for this freedom is not merely an ideal, but a way of life for those willing to fight for it. Because these freedoms are endangered, they are well within their constitutional rights under the Bill of Rights to bear arms, to defend the citizens and their State.
Yet what of the Christian and the actions we're to take as representatives of Jesus Christ, ambassadors to the fallen sinners who have yet to truly become free? Where do we stand in this great struggle?
This is a question I've pondered for some time, and I struggle for answers, both in mind and in prayer. Each of us must seek God and understand what His calling is for us.
For myself, I know this much for certain. I am a pilgrim, a foreigner of sorts. This world truly is not my home. I'm passing through this fallen world on my way home. Yet while I am here, I will do what I can to secure freedom for America, but I dare not step beyond the line that God has drawn, and that line I believe forbids me, personally, to take the life of another.
What we as the church must realize is that while we may look around and perceive enemies of all kinds and persuasions, these are merely superficial. The real enemy is not seen, but governs from beyond those forces that are against God and His Word. With this great enemy and his principalities and powers are we, the church, to be engaged with in battle.
While we saints are still on this planet, and though every day passes by and the LORD still has not returned for us in the rapture, we must be involved in this spiritual battle and praying for this nation, and petitioning the LORD to stave off the evil forces that are even now dominating this world, and even (or especially) our corner of it.
The militia and the Christian are seeing the same thing: evil encroaching on the landscape; yet the former sees it in the physical only and there is where he seeks his solution - by physical, worldly means. The latter sees it in the spiritual as well as the physical, but he seeks his solution - by spiritual means.
May we therefore as the church of the LORD Jesus Christ become resolute in our decision and conduct ourselves valiantly in this warfare, not growing weary and fainting, but persevering in the power of His might, and seeking a spiritual victory. Even after all is said and done, we may not get our country back, but by remaining faithful to God, His Word and the Gospel, we shall still have our victory!
