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petermarcusI'm conflicted.
This week, Tim McVeigh asked a judge that his appeals process be stopped. He could be executed 120 days after his final deadline on the 11th of January. I followed his trial in the same way people a generation before followed the Manson trials. Or the Lindbergh trials a generation before that. I read the transcripts online every day, I examined the photos of the evidence, and I looked up legal precedents that were mentioned in the case. I had an interest in this case that seemed almost obsessive, like I knew the guy. I didn't, but I probably knew people who did.
In a sense, if one might have given my brains a good stir with a paint-stick in college, I could have been McVeigh in the late-80s. He was my age, fighting a war I almost did (I came close to enlisting for the Gulf War, even with my misgivings...another story).
Waco. Now there's nothing calming about the idea of a bunch of brain-washed cultists toting military weapons, following the delusions of a child-molesting paranoid. But, truth be told, the government fucked up big time. The Davidians were obviously nutcases, so it made a good place for the new administration, inspired by too many bad Rambo movies, to smooth over some basic constitutional rights in the quest to make a simple statement -- guns are bad. The BATF had the chance to enforce the law well before it got as bad as it did, in court, or a dozen other constitutional ways. Even after the ATF and FBI got their asses handed to them, they could have waited things out patiently until things simmered down. But, no, they were humiliated in front of America by a bunch of religious fanatics. I don't believe the FBI or ATF killed the Davidians, I think they did it themselves. They may have been trying to be martyrs, or they may have just realized that the gig was up, or maybe they just screwed up on their own part and annihilated themselves by accident. In a myopic act of image self-preservation, so many things have been lied and covered up by both sides in the controversy, Justice Department included, that we may not know for a long time what really happened.
So here's McVeigh, blowing his Special Forces test (his 20s-something ambition) due to war exhaustion. Discharged and disillusioned. A Libertarian, not a Right-Winger as the press portrays, though undeniably as extremist as Newt Gingrich or John Lennon. Waco is on the news, the new government obviously trying to make a statement about citizens with guns.
In extremist libertarianism, there's something almost biblical about the Constitution: The Bible says "The meek shall inherit the Earth", and the Constitution protects the meek citizens. The 1st Amendment is there specifically to protect the sorry assholes like the KKK--if we start making free speech decisions based on idiocy and motivation, then everything becomes a gray area and speech can never be protected. The 2nd Amendment is there specifically to allow individual citizens to shoot up agents of government in self-protection. If the government is the only weapon holder, then there is no balance, no matter how puny, against tyranny -- the first thing Hitler did was confiscate all the guns.
So, McVeigh hits back in fiery idealism -- if the government attacks the meekest amongst its citizens (the fanatical nutcases), then maybe it needs some of its own medicine. Except that there is no government in the tangible sense, unless you count towering stacks of paperwork. McVeigh didn't kill the government, he killed citizens. He killed children, adults, senior citizens, Midwesterners, East and West Coasters, government drones, civilians, and maybe a couple of actual agents that thought the way he hated. McVeigh killed a cross-section of America, almost a perfect statistical match, becoming the mirror image of his hatred...equal in intensity with the same end-result.
There's no question in my mind that he did it, and that he chose to do so -- the evidence is just too overwhelming, and too straightforward to be occluded by the tampering committed by both the government and the extremists. He planned it for months and could have backed out at any time. He recruited two unwilling assistants, who would have been much happier daydreaming and trading what-if fantasies about it than actually doing it. One assistant came to his senses just barely too late for his own good, though he could still have been a hero and prevented everything. The other assistant went along the whole way, too afraid of his fantasy of McVeigh to stop, though he was more of a bumbling hindrance than a Cisco Kid.
Do we kill McVeigh? The one thing every individual comes into this Earth with is his life. Can a government take away the individual itself? He'll never hurt anyone in prison. But, he made his choice, fully knowing the consequences. He'll never be free, society is protected from him. But, he affects society, though his existence--he's already published articles from prison. Does a person have any rights after an atrocity like this? Does any entity, individual or government, have the authority to make that decision about another individual?
I say kill him -- stick the needle in and be done with it. It wasn't one entity that sentenced him on a whim in an hour...it was many people working together, citizen and government, carefully considering the consequences over a long period of time. There were times to pull back at any time, there are still times to pull back, but McVeigh himself is waiving them. I say kill him...but I wonder if, by protection, we damn ourselves just a little?
This week, Tim McVeigh asked a judge that his appeals process be stopped. He could be executed 120 days after his final deadline on the 11th of January. I followed his trial in the same way people a generation before followed the Manson trials. Or the Lindbergh trials a generation before that. I read the transcripts online every day, I examined the photos of the evidence, and I looked up legal precedents that were mentioned in the case. I had an interest in this case that seemed almost obsessive, like I knew the guy. I didn't, but I probably knew people who did.
In a sense, if one might have given my brains a good stir with a paint-stick in college, I could have been McVeigh in the late-80s. He was my age, fighting a war I almost did (I came close to enlisting for the Gulf War, even with my misgivings...another story).
Waco. Now there's nothing calming about the idea of a bunch of brain-washed cultists toting military weapons, following the delusions of a child-molesting paranoid. But, truth be told, the government fucked up big time. The Davidians were obviously nutcases, so it made a good place for the new administration, inspired by too many bad Rambo movies, to smooth over some basic constitutional rights in the quest to make a simple statement -- guns are bad. The BATF had the chance to enforce the law well before it got as bad as it did, in court, or a dozen other constitutional ways. Even after the ATF and FBI got their asses handed to them, they could have waited things out patiently until things simmered down. But, no, they were humiliated in front of America by a bunch of religious fanatics. I don't believe the FBI or ATF killed the Davidians, I think they did it themselves. They may have been trying to be martyrs, or they may have just realized that the gig was up, or maybe they just screwed up on their own part and annihilated themselves by accident. In a myopic act of image self-preservation, so many things have been lied and covered up by both sides in the controversy, Justice Department included, that we may not know for a long time what really happened.
So here's McVeigh, blowing his Special Forces test (his 20s-something ambition) due to war exhaustion. Discharged and disillusioned. A Libertarian, not a Right-Winger as the press portrays, though undeniably as extremist as Newt Gingrich or John Lennon. Waco is on the news, the new government obviously trying to make a statement about citizens with guns.
In extremist libertarianism, there's something almost biblical about the Constitution: The Bible says "The meek shall inherit the Earth", and the Constitution protects the meek citizens. The 1st Amendment is there specifically to protect the sorry assholes like the KKK--if we start making free speech decisions based on idiocy and motivation, then everything becomes a gray area and speech can never be protected. The 2nd Amendment is there specifically to allow individual citizens to shoot up agents of government in self-protection. If the government is the only weapon holder, then there is no balance, no matter how puny, against tyranny -- the first thing Hitler did was confiscate all the guns.
So, McVeigh hits back in fiery idealism -- if the government attacks the meekest amongst its citizens (the fanatical nutcases), then maybe it needs some of its own medicine. Except that there is no government in the tangible sense, unless you count towering stacks of paperwork. McVeigh didn't kill the government, he killed citizens. He killed children, adults, senior citizens, Midwesterners, East and West Coasters, government drones, civilians, and maybe a couple of actual agents that thought the way he hated. McVeigh killed a cross-section of America, almost a perfect statistical match, becoming the mirror image of his hatred...equal in intensity with the same end-result.
There's no question in my mind that he did it, and that he chose to do so -- the evidence is just too overwhelming, and too straightforward to be occluded by the tampering committed by both the government and the extremists. He planned it for months and could have backed out at any time. He recruited two unwilling assistants, who would have been much happier daydreaming and trading what-if fantasies about it than actually doing it. One assistant came to his senses just barely too late for his own good, though he could still have been a hero and prevented everything. The other assistant went along the whole way, too afraid of his fantasy of McVeigh to stop, though he was more of a bumbling hindrance than a Cisco Kid.
Do we kill McVeigh? The one thing every individual comes into this Earth with is his life. Can a government take away the individual itself? He'll never hurt anyone in prison. But, he made his choice, fully knowing the consequences. He'll never be free, society is protected from him. But, he affects society, though his existence--he's already published articles from prison. Does a person have any rights after an atrocity like this? Does any entity, individual or government, have the authority to make that decision about another individual?
I say kill him -- stick the needle in and be done with it. It wasn't one entity that sentenced him on a whim in an hour...it was many people working together, citizen and government, carefully considering the consequences over a long period of time. There were times to pull back at any time, there are still times to pull back, but McVeigh himself is waiving them. I say kill him...but I wonder if, by protection, we damn ourselves just a little?
