Militias Reflect Public's Mistrust

Jack Levin
Northeastern University

Just prior to the opening days of Timothy McVeigh's trial for his role in the deadly 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, militia groups were back in the news. McVeigh apparently had been associated with a civilian militia in Kingman, Arizona. His "bible" was the infamous Turner Diaries, a fictionalized account of a coming civil war, in which revolutionaries bring down the federal government by bombing federal buildings and disrupting public utilities.

I recently attended a "Patriot Potluck" attended by militia members, survivalists, and assorted right-wing political discontents. We met on a Saturday in an obscure dinner-theater just north of Boston. I brought an apple pie and an open mind.

For the entire morning and much of the afternoon, I joined with members of the Patriot Movement as they swapped ideas, listened attentively to a parade of speakers, and lunched on pasta salad, sandwiches, and my apple pie. Along the sides of the room, vendors hawked their anti-New World Order t-shirts and conspiratorial literature. In unison, we sang patriotic songs and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

I confess feeling just a little nervous to be among people who are totally convinced that our federal government has been taken over by communists. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any militia group, the John Birch Society, or the Pat Buchanan fan club. I decided to attend this gathering of political extremists in order to learn more about the militia movement, its members and its causes. It never occurred to me, however, that I would learn even more about what is wrong with mainstream American institutions.

Civilian militias have long been linked, at least in the public mind, with violence and bigotry--with tragedies and near-tragedies at Ruby Ridge; Jordan, Montana; the Atlanta Olympics; and Oklahoma City. According to the stereotyped image, all militia members are nothing more than a collection of gun-loving, bomb-throwing hatemongers and terrorists.

That is why I was so surprised when the 75 men, women, and children who attended this meeting seemed so hospitable and friendly, even innocuous. From a distance, they could easily have been mistaken for a group of bridge players or a convention of social workers. Admittedly, I did hear a racist comment from a speaker and an anti-Jewish remark from one member of the audience. But, then, I also met a few dedicated members of the movement who were themselves Black or Jewish.

I was also impressed by the utter boredom of their speeches. Through a five hour procession of speakers, I heard much less about guns and bombs than about economic survival. Speaker after speaker talked about money--about how to defeat the IRS through Common Law Courts, how to withdraw from the social security system, the impact of free trade on the unemployment rate, and how to avoid going into debt. I got the strong impression that these were Americans--many from rural backgrounds--who had suffered through hard economic times and were looking for some way to explain their shared predicament. Their response was to blame the federal government, communists, the UN, and international bankers.

Any group of Americans who believes that the enemy has surreptitiously taken over the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court is potentially dangerous. These so-called patriots are no exception. But to treat the entire militia movement as consisting merely of a collection of crazies who deserve to be carted off to an asylum is just as dangerous. Many of the issues addressed at the Patriot Potluck I attended were every bit as much the concerns of conventional, middle-of-the-road Americans who struggle daily to survive in the face of global competition and growing income inequality. They may not join a militia or stockpile weapons in anticipation of a revolution--they might not even attend a potluck meeting to voice their anxieties--but they are nevertheless convinced that the government is no longer working on behalf of ordinary citizens.

There is a natural tendency for government to respond to extremism with repressive measures which give even more power to law enforcement agencies in their effort to investigate and infiltrate marginal groups. In the short run, such measures might prevent a violent episode or two. In the longer run, however, they reduce the individual freedoms of all Americans and only push potentially dangerous groups underground. In the end, members of fringe organizations, already convinced that the government is out to get them, will be even more paranoid and delusional. As a result, they may actually become the menace they are perceived to be.

Of course, Americans of good will should be vigilant in response to a growing threat of terrorism perpetrated by our own citizens. But if we are careful to look past the stereotyped images of the Patriot movement that frequently pass for reality, we might learn something about our country that needs to be repaired and is within our power to change: the need to work together as a nation in order to create a sense of trust and social responsibility that transcends the differences that divide us. If we are successful in this regard, the Patriot movement will probably wither and die of its own irrelevancy. But if we are not, then, today's extremism could easily become tomorrow's version of moderation.

Prepared for USA Today March 31, 1997.