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From: gardner@convex.com (Steve Gardner)
Subject: Re: BATF & FBI Do Right Thing in Waco
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Message-ID: <1993Apr24.185427.544@news.eng.convex.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1993 18:54:27 GMT
References: <1993Apr21.223541.2353@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu>
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In article <1993Apr21.223541.2353@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu> jrm@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu writes:
>If the BATF and FBI have become latter-day Gestapo, then they have
>become that way because WE have desired them to be so. We get to
>vote on laws, and on the lawmakers. 
	I keep hearing people say this.  It assumes that we, at some point,
	had a choice at the ballot box: "Vote yes or no I want the FBI
	and BATF to become latter-day Gestapos".  That just isn't so.
	The process is far more complex.  We do not have direct control over
	the bureaucracy.  When we evaluate our representatives we don't often
	know what their contribution is to the wayward direction of the
	federal law enforcement bureacracy.  To assert that we got what
	we wanted is absurd.  

>Waco was an encapsulation of the All-American experience - religious
>fanaticism, militaristic thinking and overwhelming violence. Don't
>blame it on 'them', the FBI and BATF. They were just acting within
>the parameters we have set over the years. We made 'them'. We ARE 'them'.
	Oh, good I feel much better now. ;-)  

	By the way do you have a plan for getting us out of this mess we
	are in?
