From: Anonymous <anon@anon.efga.org>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 00:03:51 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: The Rest of the Story / Re: I've got a Volvo (and I'm not afraid to use it!)
Message-ID: <40b9f17aeb2a63e431203ac0de012e20@anon.efga.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Anonymous wrote: 
> FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
>    THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
>     'The fight's over. There's no one left to fight'

>   On June 4, 1997 the trial of the only Viper Militia defendant to face
> a jury -- after months in jail, 10 have pleaded guilty to one charge or
> another, while one still awaits trial -- got underway before Judge Earl
> H. Carroll in the federal district courthouse in downtown Phoenix.

   #  #  #

  I asked Knight what he believes the government's real goal is, in
pressing such prosecutions.

  "Their goal is to disarm the public. This is to make sure everyone 
knows that if they can put me in prison for five years for going out
to two field exercises in six months, after 15 years in business in 
this town, meeting the public all day every day, a church-going guy,
a good father ... if we can throw this guy in prison, think what we 
can do to you.
...
  "When the jury came back hung, and he asked them if there was any 
chance of reaching a verdict if he sent them back and they said no, 
(the judge) was bound by law to declare a mistrial, but he did not.
 ... Instead he sent them back. And I have a feeling the jury thought
they were going to be there forever if they didn't come back with a
unanimous verdict. 
...
    #  #  #

  "Aren't they just speeding up Darwinism?" I asked attorney Abrams of
the government's prosecutions of these highly-visible, "public" militia
units.
By shutting down the goofier militias, the guys who parade around in
public in camouflage fatigues, aren't they just teaching those who 
profoundly fear and distrust the government how to be more secretive,
more serious, more professional ... and simultaneously walling them 
off from the influence of more moderate voices?

  "But that's what they want to do," the self-described liberal Democrat
replied. "Look at the War on Drugs, which is dependent on evil men with
evil-sounding Hispanic names: Marcos Fernando Guzman. And the more of 
them we can create, we have our enemy and our target and then we can 
create our government agency. It is to the government's advantage to 
make more and badder militias, because the worse they are, the more 
agencies like the ATF can come out and say, 'We are the first line of 
defense, we are saving the nation from ruin, we need money from 
Congress.'
...
  "You put these guys from New York out here where the real disaffection
is, and they'll be shocked first of all at the depth of it. I'm shocked
at the depth of the disaffection, but also at the way it permeates all 
layers of society. I don't know anyone who trusts the government, 
including my father who has a PhD law degree, but you get him out here 
for a breath of fresh air, and he starts to talk like one of them.
...
  Contributions to help fund Chuck Knight's appeal may be sent to the
Charles Knight Legal Defense Fund, Account No. 14928432, Bank One, 
4922 E. Bell Road, Scottsdale Ariz. 85251

Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com. The 
web site for the Suprynowicz column is at 
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/. 
The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain 
Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127. This essay 
originally appeared in the September, 1997 edition of "The 
Rothbard-Rockwell Report."

***