Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
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From: PA146008@UTKVM1.UTK.EDU (David Veal)
Subject: Re: BATF & FBI Do Right Thing in Waco
Message-ID: <16BB9120D.PA146008@UTKVM1.UTK.EDU>
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References:  <1993Apr21.223541.2353@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1993 06:16:58 GMT
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In article <1993Apr21.223541.2353@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu>
jrm@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu writes:
 
>Everyone is complaining about the debacle in Waco. It is hard to
>understand all this angst. What happend there is nothing less than
>what we wanted to happen. Why all the sour grapes ?
 
       Cute word angst.  Conveys volumes.
 
       I'd be interested in this particular definition of "we."  It's
such a fluid pronoun.
 
>BATF was looking for a propaganda event to counteract their impending
>budget cuts ... the attendance of the press at the initial big
>commando raid is proof. It would have been ever so easier to grab
>Koresh and his central followers as they shopped in Waco. Alas, no
>propaganda value there.
>
>The FBI screwed-up big time, all the time. They should have never allowed
>the situation to drag out like that. A quick second assault, before the
>BDs could decide on a strategy, would have been the better plan.
>
>The BDs themselves were the biggest screw-ups though. They imagined
>that US law and US law-enforcement had no jurisdiction within their
>little 'country'. WRONG !
 
       The BD were a paranoid little cult out in the middle of nowhere,
which all of a sudden had their worst paranoid fears reinforced.
 
       Joy.
 
>They had no right whatsoever to fire on
>the BATF, and if they mistook their identity initially, they should
>have surrendered at once when they did realize who they were.
 
       Yes, they probably should have, although how many paranoid
nuts can say they held off the feds for 51 days?
 
>If the
>BDs had a problem with the warrants, they take it to court, just like
>the rest of us. If they wanted full-auto weapons, they could have
>obtained the proper permits, just like the rest of us would need to
>do. What they may NOT do is decide for themselves what US law applies
>to themselves and which does not. They get their chance like the rest
>of us - at the voting booth.
 
        The voting booth is highly over-rated.  People need to get up
off their lazy butts more than every year or every two years.  Hell,
most don't even do that.
 
>If the BATF and FBI have become latter-day Gestapo, then they have
>become that way because WE have desired them to be so.
 
        No, because "we" have decided that it doesn't make enough
difference to "us" to get up and do something.  That's something,
for instance, a lot of people who go speak against gun control
bills at their local government.  Dozens of "pro-gun" speakers
show up and few if any antis do, but  they often win anyway.
 
        Why?  Because it doesn't matter who shows up, it matters
who's willing to scream afterwards.  And it isn't that most people
give a damn one way of the other, but that they don't.  Nobody
gives a damn about anybody beyond their own little worlds.
 
>We get to
>vote on laws, and on the lawmakers. By our choices over the years,
>we have approved the creation and form of the BATF and FBI. When
>the FBI was out chasing 'pinkos', the general public didn't seem
>to mind a bit of extra-constitutional activity.
 
       The general public's usually not even read the constitution.
And what they have learned is a distorted picture of the whole thing.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal  University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu - "I still remember the way you laughed\
When you pushed me down the elevator shaft\ ... Sometimes I get to
thinking you don't love me anymore." - "Weird Al" Yankovic.
