<<Message #88 from dave_s at Aug 28 1999 9:19PM
What do you think of the Randy Weaver episode in UTAH? >>
I believe if you check back it was ID, but regardless, Weever was wronged by Reno/ Clinton..
Yes, many of Weever's beliefs were ugly stupid racist tripe, but he was doing nothing "wrong" until the government decided they had to begin a war against thought.
"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Nov. 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, see Jefferson On Democracy, 20 (S. Padover ed. 1939).
schober.org |
