Making some sense of the Oregon standoff: (Read this - it is VERY informative!)

From Political prof on Tumblr...

So as I mentioned in another post, I have actually published a book about the kind of right wing militia group that took over the federal building in Oregon. While it took me a book to try to explain why such groups rose, why their members want what they want and why these groups eventually declined, a few thoughts from my way of looking at this question:

1. The group in Oregon is a branch of the militia movement known as the Constitutionalists. The Constitutionalists, among other things, have concocted a theory of liberty and the Constitution that creates two classes of citizens: people who could have been citizens of the United States when the Constitution was written, referred to as “Sovereign Citizens,” and everyone else.

People who could have been citizens of the United States at the time of the writing of the Constitution include people like, well, me: white, male, property-holding, etc. Such people, according to the Constitutionalists, have special rights under the Constitution. The theory is that such people (me!) are Sovereign Citizens: we are the people who made the social contract that the Constitution represents, and by definition we cannot agree to any transgressions of our rights on the part of the State we created to PROTECT our rights. This, in turn, empower us – again, I mean people like me, whose ancestors could have been citizens of the US when the Constitution was written – to nullify or otherwise refuse to follow federal and state laws that we find inimical to our rights. We are the Sovereigns since we made the contract. The State is our servant.

2. This is the source of such group’s claims that the federal government has no authority over them; that only duly representative legal agencies in force BEFORE the Constitution was written can have legal authority about Soveriegn Citizens. And since the federal government cannot have, by definition, existed before the Constitution was written, its agents (Law enforcement or the IRS!) cannot have power over the Sovereign Citizen.

3. Everyone else – women, minorities, immigrants, etc. – are 14th Amendment citizens. They were guaranteed their rights by the 14th Amendment. This allegedly means that they are NOT Sovereign Citizens since they were made citizens BY the Constitution, rather than MAKING the Constitution as such. Hence women, minorities, etc., have no rights beyond those granted – or taken away – by federal action (court orders, laws, etc.).

4. All of this is crazy. All of this is BS. After all, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t even AT the Constitutional Convention, much less signed a social contract about it. But it’s what they believe, and it informs their action.

5. Similar to the Cliven Bundy standoff, the worst thing the government could do is rush in with guns and try aggressive law enforcement. This just feeds the militia narrative of an abusive State. Besides, the underlying crime(s), whether trespassing or illegal ranching, are NOT DEATH PENALTY OFFENSES. There is no reason to storm in and fire away to remove trespassers, even armed ones, likely causing the deaths of both the militia and many law enforcement officers. In any case, these guys will eventually give up, and can always be arrested in a grocery store or something when there’s no group of armed reactionaries defending them. (I was surprised Cliven Bundy did not meet such a fate.) Or, if they stay, they effectively imprison themselves. We do NOT need another Ruby Ridge or Waco, two colossal government fuck ups that did not in any way justify the militia movement, but undoubtedly empowered it.

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