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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGathering of Eagles: Extremists Look to Montana
For two years in the mid-1990s, Judge Greg Mohr carried a gun and wore a bulletproof vest while presiding over his tiny courtroom east of Kalispell. Members of the Montana Freemen, an armed group of racist extremists, were regularly appearing before him, and they didnt mince words. Some of them later sentenced Mohr to death in their own pseudo-legal common-law courts.
Nearly two decades later, similar types of antigovernment stirrings are frequently being felt again across Montana, especially in this nearly all-white city in the northwest corner of the state. Far-right extremists are vowing that if a war with the federal government comes, their base will be in the mountains here.
Chuck Baldwin, a Baptist preacher who ran for president under the Constitution Party banner in 2008, moved 18 members of his family to Montanas Flathead Valley last fall after receiving what he called a divine message telling him the state was the tip of the spear in the fight for liberty. Stewart Rhodes, a Yale-educated lawyer, former Army paratrooper and head of the conspiracy-minded Oath Keepers, also moved here. Rhodes is laying the groundwork for a new militia and is calling for citizens to adopt a barter economy to escape the bondage of U.S. currency. Neo-Nazi April Gaede, also a transplant to the state, has issued a call for white nationalists to come home to the Northwest.
These extremists and others came for different reasons, but they are having a cumulative effect. Law enforcement officers and courts have seen a surge of antigovernment activity by sovereign citizens, radicals who believe that most laws do not apply to them. Rooms at the Kalispell Public Library host regular screenings of racist films. Christian Identity adherents are papering neighborhoods with their message that whites are the true chosen people of the Bible and Jews are directly descended from Satan. And, once again, so-called Preparedness Expos are being held so shoppers can get ready for the imminent collapse of government.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/winter/extremists-are-coming-together-in-mon
These nuts just never seem to go away
gopiscrap
(23,725 posts)that right wing radio is encouraging this sort of behaviour...if not always overtly, but at the very least by "code".
Hugabear
(10,340 posts)If it ever came to war, they'd be toast.
Or maybe they've forgotten that the US military now has 10+ years experience dealing with mountain-based insurgents? And the Taliban forces in Afghanistan had waaaaaay more training, experience, and weaponry than these yahoos.
Bonhomme Richard
(8,997 posts)ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)They would first face local and state cops, some of whom sympathize with them. If armed fighting continued, then the National Guard...again, all locals. Its not like they would be going up against the 1st Armored Division.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)Erose999
(5,624 posts)piedmont
(3,462 posts)onethatcares
(16,161 posts)"hey,I'll trade you some beaver pelts for some gasoline"
"ahhh, I don't know, Exxon Mobil just sent me a fax saying they were full up of beaver pelts"
or they're gonna go full out and trade snow and windswept plains for
Ecumenist
(6,086 posts)Blue, have left her and no longer believe in her philosophy. Sick, sick, sick!