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During my newspaper days in Grand County, I knew Jack Randall, a realty agent with opinions on many other topics.
One of his best: If you want to have the army
deployed outside your door, ready to destroy you and
everything around you, just announce to the world that
you're going into your own house to mind your own business,
and that you're not leaving. For some reason, that scares
hell out of the American government.
The government always produces an excuse -- unapproved herb garden, illegal weapons, apocalyptic beliefs -- before it protects the public safety with a bombing run in Philadelphia, a sniper siege in northern Idaho, and now near Waco, Texas, a tank assault against people who hadn't caused any trouble until the federal agents arrived.
Perhaps we should feel grateful, but just what are they protecting us from?
Last fall, our governor and attorney general arranged major media coverage for their announcement that they had saved us from the threat of a Black Muslim commune near Buena Vista, which allegedly held an immense stockpile of armaments.
However, it turned out that this dangerous
compound
was no better armed than the usual working
ranch, and that its inhabitants, at least in their local
dealings, were quiet, decent folks who just wanted to
escape modern urban hassles. In short, they were like
everybody else who moves from a city to a rustic locale in
the mountains.
It is our own state government, not any Black Muslim commune, which imports hundreds of violent felons and jams them into an overcrowded prison which dumps raw sewage into the river. Those are greater threats to local health and safety than any dozen cult compounds or survivalist camps.
However, Roy Romer and Gale Norton haven't set a press conference to reveal how they've thwarted that menace. Instead they made Mount Massive out of Huerfano Butte, grabbed the adulation of a gullible public, and moved on to other opportunities for favorable publicity.
Granted, many of us feel quite threatened about a
religious cult,
as opposed to a sect
or
denomination.
It is curious that most churches began as cults: mainstream Methodists were once fanatical followers of stern John Wesley, easy-going Presbyterians go back to the John Calvin who burnt Michael Servetus at the Geneva stake, patriotic Mormons built the isolated empire of Deseret and prepared for war against the United States in 1857, and even Christianity itself was deemed a cult by both the Jewish and Roman establishments during its early years.
But the experts tell that a cult is different because it takes total control over its members' lives; the cult demands that they move away from familiar haunts, then isolates them from the rest of the world and indoctrinates them.
That happened in the 60s, too. I recall one powerful cult which grabbed young men, hauled them to remote spots with huge caches of powerful weapons, and trained them to kill Vietnamese strangers.
Every time you think of a reason why cults could be dangerous, the government is more dangerous, for the same reason.
Our constitution is supposed to protect us from government. The First Amendment guarantees religions freedom, and the Second the right to own guns. But whenever a group of people tries exercise both rights at the same time, they will be attacked by headline-grabbing politicians and bureaucrats who will violate the constitution they swore to enforce.
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