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Those who have studied the Mormons' history in this country shouldn't have been surprised by the militant arrogance of federal bureaucrats last week.
Even though our constitution guarantees freedom of religion and the right to bear arms, those rights apply only to white mainstream Protestants who go deer hunting once a year. Every other sort of citizen threatens the stability of the Republic, and must be ruthlessly suppressed.
It is refreshing that both President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno accepted responsibility, rather than blaming bad advice, inadequate information or inept subordinates. But the reasons given for the Monday attack sound as hollow as a Robert Dole filibuster.
FBI agents were tired? So they were impatient, and the
herds of reporters and correspondents were bored and
persisted in nagging about When's something going to
happen?
A hot Texas summer loomed as they were all
stuck in a backwater, remote from the comforts of
expense-account haute cuisine.
Protection of children in the compound from abuse and deprivation? This is only the most prominent example of how the Bill of Rights has been shredded in the name of preventing child abuse -- not since the Inquisition tried heretics have courts accepted such peculiar testimony.
Further, thousands, perhaps millions, of children are abused and deprived daily. If it is indeed an important federal responsibility, why hasn't the FBI deployed tanks and gas hoses on deadbeat fathers, crack-addled mothers, sadistic teachers, grafting school administrators, sneaker manufacturers and drive-by shooters?
Numbers won't be firm until the ashes are sifted, but assume 90 people died in the 51-day siege. In the same 51 days, about 320 people were murdered in New York City, yet the FBI has patiently kept the tanks out of Manhattan.
Given developments since the inept ATF raid in February, the feds really had no choice but to attack the compound, and why not sooner rather than later? After four agents had been killed (perhaps by friendly fire), there was no way to back off without admitting that the agents had died in vain, which would cause unwanted questions about the competence of their superiors.
Some might even wonder why, when the federal government is $4.1 trillion in debt, we need a separate Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms when we also have the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, postal inspectors, Customs Service and a host of other federal police agencies to keep us in line.
The real question is one nobody bothers to ask. Why were the feds there in the first place?
Were people in and around Waco living in mortal fear of the Branch Davidian compound? Had they vainly petitioned the McClennan County Sheriff's Department and the Texas Rangers to protect them from this terrible threat to their peace and safety? Were they thus left with no choice but to ask for federal protection?
If so, no evidence has appeared in the past week of saturation coverage. Most Waco interviewees sounded perturbed by the souvenir vendors, federal firepower and media invasion. But few, if any, said they had been worried about a bunch of lunatics forted up outside town -- crackpot communes are as much a feature of the rural American landscape as silos, sawmills and toxic waste dumps.
Obviously, the feds weren't there to protect local citizens. The feds also failed to protect misguided cult members from an apocalypse brought on by their would-be messiah. So why were they there?
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