April 19, A Date of Infamy
30 Years Later and We're Worse Off Than Ever
I still remember where I was 30 years ago when I heard the news. I was in my undergrad Political Science “Political Ideologies” class in Wisconsin, taught by a very eccentric former hippie whose Summer of Love 60s locks were long gone but his long frilly beard had well worn gray over his fifty plus years. He was in a rare mood that day, I’ve seldom seen anyone usually so calm and deliberate so worked up and anxious. 1 The professor paced frantically, constantly fumbling paper and pens in his hands and biting his nails, eyes wide open like he had drank seven espressos in a sitting. The class was about various political ideologies (liberal democracy, marxism, totalitarianism, nationalism, etc.) but today we took a deviation from the syllabus to talk at length and debate libertarianism v. authoritarianism; the belief in rights of the individuals vrs. the power of the government.
This was the day the FBI and ATF had decided after a 51 day siege at a Branch Davidian (a religious group split off from Seventh Day Adventists) compound outside Waco that enough was enough and began raiding the compound, first with tear gas and then with an intended assault. That was what had occured before my class started when my professor was watching it unfold in his office. The raid went sideways though when the tinderbox plywood that the compound was built with ignited in flames.2 After class we went to a pub across the street from the college and watched on television as it all played out for millions. More than eighty Davidians died in the fire, including over 20 children, most sired by the group’s leader David Koresh.
This was but one of several events where government officials went too far in raids. A year earlier at Ruby Ridge, MT, while following a federal marshall’s order to bring in Randy Weaver for missing a court appearance, federal authorities had incidentally shot Weaver’s son and wife. The standoff eventually ended peaceably but not before Weaver became a cause celebre for anti-government and militia types standing up to goverment authority.3
The Davidian raid in Waco was another such event. Led by a pedophile and self proclamed Messiah, the Davidians were funding their religious activities by converting semi automatic weapons into automatic weapons and selling them at Texas gun shows. They were also making grenades. Both of those were illegal in themselves, but when the ATF got wind of it, they planned to capture David Koresh and put him in jail. The day before the raid, the local paper had started a series of stories about Koresh, and the numerous children he had fathered by young teen girls, and the ATF realized time was of the essence. The morning of the raid, the media got a tip it was about to occur and a cameraman alerted the Davidians when he was lost on the country road and unknowingly asked one of them for directions. When ATF came, the Davidians fought them off for over two hours with a .50 caliber machine gun, dozens of automatic weapons and over a million rounds stockpiled. Four ATF officers died that day and more than a dozen injured. The subsequent standoff lasted 51 days.
Around this same time, the National Rifle Association began trying to appeal to these anti-government militia groups. They bought tons of weapons and ammunition and it was good for business. They began referring to the government as “jack booted thugs” and turning base Republican voters (already no fans of “big government”) into anti-government libertarians, particularly when it came to firearms. Former President George H.W. Bush was so offended he resigned his NRA lifetime membership.
One of the people who appeared at the Waco standoff selling anti-government bumper stickers was a former marine named Timothy McVeigh. Friendly with the Michigan militia and fed up with the goverment, two years after the day the Mt. Carmel Branch Davidian compound burned to the ground he went to the Federal Building in Oklahoma City with a moving fan full of ammonia nitrate explosive and detonated it. The head of the ATF raid on Waco worked in that building. An entire day care full of children on the first floor was obliterated, along with 2/3 of the entire building.
The anti-government sentiments that led to Ruby Ridge, Waco and Oklahoma City didn’t start with them. However, all of these events were born from criminality, and the attempt of government to enforce laws. Criminals do not get a free pass because they armed themsleves with excessive gunpower. And yet, since 1995, that has been what the NRA has fostered. That is what militia groups, now more expansive than at any time since before the Civil War, truly believe. Since the end of the assault weapons ban in 2004, there are now more guns than there are people in the United States. When MAGA groups talk about trying to “Make America Great” it’s by supporting Proud Boys, Promise Keepers and One Percenters, all violent militia groups. When Cliven Bundy was about to get his ranch seized by the government for not paying grazing fees, militia group members with heavy arms stood in the way of governent enforcement preventing the seizure. The NRA continues to foster it.
What these groups, including Weaver, the Davidians and McVeigh all wanted, is a freedom from accountability. They don’t want to live by laws of society; its a reason most come from very rural areas where government enforcement authority is rare if even existent. In a modern society where they are largely outcasts, unimportant losers, they can break the laws of that society and not have consequences. Before Mcveigh was executed for his crimes, he was at the Federal Supermax Prison with convicted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and would talk often with him.4 He said the only difference between he and Kaczynski was that the Unabomber hated technology, while McVeigh hated the government. Kaczynski lived and was captured in a shed in the middle of nowhere Montana.
That classroom discussion we had that day 30 years ago was one of the deepest conversations I had in college. I learned a lot that day, and there were heated beliefs on both sides. But the thing I’ll never forget was something someone in the class said. He was a member of “Campus Crusade for Christ,” and sympathized with the Davidians, but also recognized the need for government intervention. He just questioned how the government went about it. “If everyone knew they were a doomsday cult, why would the government play into that by raiding the ranch by force? Why not instead of coming with guns blazing, they just knocked on the door and asked politely for him to come out, then arrest him?”5 6
The world, or at least how we look at guns, may be a different place today if they had done just that.
PurpleAmerica’s Recommended Stories
I just finished Jeff Guinn’s excellent book on the raid, “Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians and a Legacy of Rage.” It gets into all of the details prior to the raid that most don’t know about; the first time anyone even heard of David Koresh was the day before when the local Waco paper began running a series about him. This book goes back years and lays out why his followers were so loyal to him, and a consistent thread is that he would always say something (predictable) would happen and it did. He constantly referred to government and the media as “Babylon” and when the raid began his followers took it on faith that Koresh was right all along, only strengthening their resolve.
The book is highly recommended.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
Although the world refers to him as “David Koresh,” that was just the self made moniker he gave himself within the Branch Davidian community. His real name was Vernon Wayne Howell.
When he was younger, he grew close to the previous Branch Davidian leader, Lois Roden. When she died, her son George claimed the leadership of the group as a hereditary right. Koresh left to California, with some of the followers and grew a cult like following there. Roden was an utter failure as a leader. Koresh returned to Mt. Carmel with his group which led to a shootout with Roden. Roden was sent to jail, Koresh paid the tax lien and cleaned up the property and took full over control of the Davidians and the Mt. Carmel ranch.
PurpleAmerica Cultural Criticism Corner
There have been some really awful films on Koresh over the years, usually made for TV movies that over-fixated on his predilictions with wives and young female children of the members. While that no doubt is a huge part of the story, it is a bit of a side story to everything else going on.
A recent Netflix documentary actually does a decent job of laying it all out there and descibing the events of the seige. Waco: American Apocalypse gets interviews with both Davidians and ATF agents and you get a good sense as to what was going through their minds at various points. I found the lead up rather lacking (it largely starts with the day of the raid and doesn’t get into too many details about why) but everything occuring during the raid and the foundations of the groups faith are described pretty well.
Footnotes and Parting Thoughts
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The only times I had seen someone this worked up over an event were on 9/11 (when most of America was) and on the day the U.S. invaded Iraq.
There is discrepency as to who started the fire; ATF has always claimed given that the fire started in several different areas of the building at once that the Davidians lit it, while the Davidians claimed that it started by the actions of the ATF shooting things into the building.
Even though Weaver had committed crimes and was in the process of being apprehended.
One of the more surreal aspects of this is that Ted Kaczynski would often play chess with McVeigh, along with others in the prison, and seldom, if ever, lose. Trying to picture this, I can’t help but think of the film the Seventh Seal where a knight plays chess against Death, but in this case, it feels like Death playing chess against Death.
Something that the ATF never considered at Waco, and the Marshall’s service never did at Ruby Ridge.
And yet, today, in a world where a teen can be shot for knocking on the wrong door, that simple notion seems unacceptable. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ralph-yarl-kansas-city-teen-shooting-wrong-house/