Ruby Ridge re-opened

Great Debates
101

Please, please, please… for the 999th time, you cannot entrap someone that isn’t willing to participate. Besides that type of law enforcement tactic is used all the time, especially in our insane quest to stamp out drugs. Why don’t you get outraged about the woman who breaks up with her drug addicted boyfriend because he won’t go into rehab but finds herself indited 18 months later for conspiracy. Convicted to 15 years mandatory incarceration simply because the boyfriend gets a reduced sentence for bringing in as many “accomplices” as possible.

Someone comes to me for a sawed off shot gun. I say, carry your ass down to the Dollar General, buy yourself a hacksaw and the cut the damned thing down yourself asshole, that’s illegal. Whether he was entrapped or not is not really the issue, the issue is that he thought he could simply decide not to show up for court. Not a very good idea. It’s been my understanding that when you don’t they usually issue a capius for your arrest and that would even be for misdemeanor issues. So while they might just show up with hand cuffs brandishing their MagLights to pick me up for failure to appear when it’s a weapons charge I’m sure they are a little more cautious.

BTW…a few weeks ago I was sitting on my front porch on a Friday evening around 6 drinking my first beer when a cop rode by the house. Less than a minute later he and his partner were pulled up in front. They had gone down the street and turned around. They get out the car, MagLights in hand, it’s broad daylight mind you, and walk up to the porch. They realize that the stereo is on and tell me that they’ve recieved a complaint, I need to turn it down. I freaked. I must have tipped my beer up just a he was going past. None of my neighbors were home to complain and even when they are they don’t. But what really got me was how they climbed out the car with their damned flashlights in their hands. What did they think I was going to do attack them? Would they have clocked me with one of those things if I’d have handed them a ration? Lot of good a couple of flashlights would have done them if I’d had an uzi hidden under my Adirondack chair. Jerks.

Needs2know

102

?authority wrote:

Well, of course it isn’t. The only “capitol” offense I can think of off-hand would be spray-painting graffiti on the Congress building.

(Sorry, capitol/capital is one of my pet spelling peeves.)

103

I should proof read better, I have no excuse.
But if you come to my house in camo with your guns blazen to enforce your grammer laws on me…that would be a different thread, sorry.

104

Needs2Know: Your arguments are getting more and more preposterous all the time. Now you’re saying that entrapment is no big deal? You can’t be entrapped unless you agree to do it, so that makes it right? I take it then that you are for the right of police to entrap people? Or are you only making an exception for Randy Weaver?

Anyway, it’s not just entrapment. Basically, they issued the charges against Weaver based on the say-so of an informant who had something to gain by getting Weaver. The police didn’t have control over the evidence, and didn’t even know if Weaver cut down the barrel like the informant said he did, or whether the informant couldn’t get him to do what he wanted and cut it down himself later.

And I should remind you that Weaver was acquitted on all weapons charges, so in fact this all started over something of which Weaver was found not guilty.

You’re making a big mistake if you think anyone here is trying to make any claims about Weaver’s character. We’re talking about the actions of the government, and in this case that means that we have to examine Weaver’s actions in this specific set of circumstances to determine if the government acted appropriately. For all I know, he could be the meanest SOB on Earth and have bodies stacked in his basement like cordwood. What we are focusing on here are the actions of both parties as they relate to the events surrounding Ruby Ridge, and in THAT particular case alone some of us believe that Weaver was railroaded, set up to take a fall so the government could use him as a pawn in a larger game, and when he refused to play ball they went after him with excessive force and wound up killing his family.

And it would seem that the courts agree, because Weaver was acquitted on all charges other than failing to appear in court. And apparently he got 16 months for that, which seems like a lot, so they probably gave him the maximum possible sentence.

And what is the point of bringing up the war on drugs and the civil rights violations going on there? It has nothing to do with this case. Unless, of course, your aim is to try and attack the character of the posters here. Implicit in this argument is that you think because we defend Weaver in this case but not suspected drug dealers, that we must be symapthetic to his political viewpoint. This is called an ‘ad-hominem’ argument, and has no place in this discussion. I doubt that you’ll find a single person in this thread who doesn’t think Weaver’s views on race are despicable, so let’s just lay that to rest, shall we? And BTW, most everyone here that I’ve seen posting in Weaver’s defense have also posted strong messages in other threads about civil rights abuses due to the War on Drugs. I’ve been carrying that flag for a long time now.

And I hope I’m not the only one who noticed the hypocrisy in your little tirade about the cops coming up your sidewalk with flashlights. You think this is scary and excessive, and tell us all about it no more than a paragraph after you tried to justify other police officers surrounding a man and his family with 11 snipers and shooting them at will. But hey, watch out for those flashlights!

As an aside, there is a good reason why cops carry those big flashlights. They make an excellent defensive weapon, and the cops are trained in using them to subdue violent people. And I hate to tell you this, but you were a high risk call for them. Domestic disputes are extremely hazardous for cops. They got a complaint about noise, they pull up and see someone consuming alcohol, who may in fact be drunk. So they approached with caution. As they should.

105

“If he hadn’t broken the law, it would have been legal!” :rolleyes::smiley:

(Sorry, just had to say that :wink: )

And not showing up for the court date (EITHER of the court dates) certainly didn’t help any. Plus the local law enforcement got notification that he might be dangerous, due to various factors which, while they may or may not be true, have to be considered by law enforcement officials that may not have any knowledge to the contrary, especially on short notice. Hence, it was a high-risk warrant, and they had to be prepared for a worst-case scenario, which included moving agents into possition before serving the warrant.

But really, we don’t know what exactly happened, do we? We can get a -fairly- close description, but a lot is left unknown. We can only speculate as to the sharpshooter’s intention and actions, but we really don’t know.

As such, I think it is appropriate to charge the sharpshooter. However, I sincearly doubt that probably cause can be established, for the same reasons that have been shown here.

Personally, I doubt he fired with the intention of (In his mind) killing an unarmed mother. He could have missed Randy, he could have shot at what he -thought- was an armed suspect, or a number of other things. I think he likely excercised poor judgement, but to what extent, I don’t know…

106

Sawing down a shotgun is not illegal. Weaver was charged because he sawed it down an eighth of an inch too much.

107

I’d like to know why every time I don’t agree with someone here I’m being ridiculous? Is Minty just some goofty guy too? I don’t think so. What’s ridiculous is for you people to continue to absolve Randy Weaver of any wrong doing simply because it fits into your “I hate the the big bad gubberment” theme. If Randy had been just some black crack dealer in Chicago would you guys be suggesting that he bare no responsibility for anything!? I’m beginning to wonder now. Because the hard fact is that what you call “entrapment” is a tactic that is used all the time, probably everyday, by law enforcement. Of course law enforcement has no right to invade our privacy, brutalize us or even kill us before a fair trail, but it happens. It is incidents like this that start riots similar to the one in Cincinatti this year. Funny too isn’t it, at the same time this so called “riot” was going on in Cincinatti a “protest” was going on in Quebec City. What’s the difference between a protest and a riot? Could it be the color of the protesters skin?

I’ve always agreed that law enforcement should be held accountable for their actions, no one should be above the law. But Randy Weaver does not deserve for us to debate him as though he were some kind of victim of total police corruption. To do so is ridiculous and pretty obviously dangerous too since some people do not seem able to look at this issue with an objective eye.

Needs2know

108

Thank you for confirming my suspicions that your motive here is simply to slam us as racists. The answer to your question is, “Yes, if he was black I would be still be fighting for his rights.” It makes no difference.

The general theme here is that U.S. Federal Agencies are starting to go out of control. The CIA helps shoot down an unarmed plane, killing a mother and her child. The War on Drugs becomes a war against black people, due to things like Crack Cocaine carrying much stiffer sentences than regular cocaine, even though the only real difference is that blacks tend to smoke crack while whites snort powder.

A young girl legally bought her boyfriend some chemicals at a chemical supply house. She claims she didn’t know what they were for. Anyway, her boyfriend gets busted for manufacturing methamphetamines, and she is convicted of conspiracy. And because she had a lousy pot bust when she was 15, she gets a mandatory sentence of 19 years in jail without parole, while her scumbag boyfriend gets something like 5 years. And to add insult to this, Clinton refuses to commute her sentence (she’s already served over 10 years), because she’s not rich enough to grab his attention.

Civil forfeiture laws cause people to lose their businesses, homes, vehicles, and other assets to the police, even though no charges are ever even filed against them.

The police in New Jersey believe there is a violent criminal inside a hotel room, so they shoot THROUGH the door without warning, killing a travelling salesman in his bed.

A black man in New York is cut down in a hail of police gunfire on his doorstep because he makes a ‘threatening’ move. Never mind that he was only fingered as a suspect in the first place because he was black.

Dozens of men, women, and children are killed in a standoff in Waco Texas after the government botches a media-staged, heavily armed raid on the compound when they could have simply arrested David Koresh on the street while he was out shopping. The government claims that the fires were not started by them, but later investigations discover pyrotechnic tear gas canisters that the government claimed it didn’t use. The same teargas carries a warning that it may be fatal to children and adults if released in confined spaces, but this doesn’t stop the government from flooding the inside of a compound full of children with the stuff.

I hope you can see that we’re not JUST defending Randy Weaver. And I wish the person had been someone other than Weaver, because he’s disgusting racial beliefs cause people like YOU to dismiss the killing of his wife and son. But Weaver’s case is exceptionally troubling in that it appears to have started with the government attempting to coerce a citizen by entrapping him, and then hunting him like a dog and killing anything that moved.

And by the way, you apparently aren’t aware that entrapment is illegal, and that many, many cases have been thrown out when the defendent could show that the police entrapped him. So it’s not a ‘regular police procedure’. It’s a violation of the defendent’s civil rights.

109

I did not say you were a racist but if the shoe does fit then baby why don’t you wear it instead of trying to blow smoke up everyone else’s ass. If this issue is so near and dear to you why didn’t you start one about Cincinatti? Or this insane drug war that incarcerates hundreds of thousands of Americans and also causes undue hardship on poor people in other countries. Naw, that thread might be productive. Instead you’d rather rail on about the government, the same government that so many were in agreement with just Monday morning when they executed Tim McVeigh. We made this mess. The government doesn’t get this way without our help or consent. Making a poster boy out of Randy Weaver will not help. It’s a turn off for anyone with half a brain. Just as it wouldn’t do much good to defend a high profile drug dealer, or Mumia Abu Jamal or anyone else that is “extreme” in their practices. Those people are no better than the forces they are against.

Needs2know

110

I did not say you were a racist but if the shoe does fit then baby why don’t you wear it instead of trying to blow smoke up everyone else’s ass. If this issue is so near and dear to you why didn’t you start one about Cincinatti? Or this insane drug war that incarcerates hundreds of thousands of Americans and also causes undue hardship on poor people in other countries. Naw, that thread might be productive. Instead you’d rather rail on about the government, the same government that so many were in agreement with just Monday morning when they executed Tim McVeigh. We made this mess. The government doesn’t get this way without our help or consent. Making a poster boy out of Randy Weaver will not help. It’s a turn off for anyone with half a brain. Just as it wouldn’t do much good to defend a high profile drug dealer, or Mumia Abu Jamal or anyone else that is “extreme” in their practices. Those people are no better than the forces they are against.

Needs2know

111

Needs:

Good; the less-than-intelligent will not be needed in the cause, unless it’s as mine detectors. Sorry; touch of gallows humor.

No one here is arguing that Weaver and his wife share some burden of blame for what happened; if they had been less extremist about their opposition, less apocalyptic in their letters to the courts and various police agencies, then the US Marshall Service may not have been out there loaded for bear.

But this in no way mitigates the fact that, in clear contravention to established procedures, an FBI Sniper, alone among several, opened fire upon either:

1. a dubious target (one not clearly presenting an imminent threat), or;

2. an unarmed woman holding a babe in her arms

And usually, law enforcement snipers are told that, when in doubt, do not shoot.

Yet Agent Horiuchi fired anyway. The only one to do so. And there’s evidence that the rules of engagement were changed from their usual “when in doubt, don’t” to what is essentially “open season, boys!”, due largely to the death of Dep. Marshall William Degan. But the death of a cop, even in the line of duty, is NOT just cause for abandoning civilized principles in the pursuit of vengeance.

Your point about this sort of thing happening everyday in most cities of America is indeed valid; one that I’d like to see you address in another thread. Whether it would suprise you or not, I am in general agreement with you that, in the pursuit of “justice”, police powers are being egregiously abused, and that the joint “War(s) on Crime/Drugs” will just as gladly feast upon the bones of the innocent as the guilty.

And that both states of affair are counterproductive to the process of justice, and ultimately destructive to the cause of general liberty.

But these are topics for another thread.

112

And you just did it again. I won’t even bother to ask for an apology on that. Instead, I’ll just write you off as a small mind that has to resort to personal attacks when losing an argument.

My bona fides as a civil libertarian are on record on this very board. Do some searches through different threads if you’d like. But I’m not going to let you sit here and call me a racist for discussing Randy Weaver instead of Blacks in a thread devoted to the Randy Weaver incident.

113

I’ll simply go back to Minty’s post…last time I looked this is not a “Let’s demonize the government thread”, it is a discussion about the incident at Ruby Ridge. How can we discuss Ruby Ridge without discussing Randy and Vicki Weaver and the events that lead up to the stand off? Perhaps Sam you did not defend Weaver and his actions, but others in this thread have done so repeatedly. There also appears to be slightly conflicting evidence as to Randy’s inital actions. Oh well, that is almost always the case. It just happens to be my not so humble opinion that it does not serve the cause of civil liberty or justice to in any way minimize this man’s extremist or illegal activities. If he had truely just been “minding his own business” then he never would have called attention to himself. Now, you can all go back to your “big bad establishment bashing”.

Needs2know

114

Sam Stone – I want you know that I share your opinion of Needs2know.

One reason I changed my politics is that many of today’s liberals feel free to exclude whole classes of people from what they consider human beings. (It’s particularly irritating, because they simultaneously claim to be totally accepting.)

Randy Weaver was an ignorant racist and anti-Semite, who wasn’t causing any trouble. This description would fit millions of Americans, (including my late father-in-law, who had a cow when I married his daughter.)

The thrust of Needs2know’s posts is that because Randy Weaver was a bigot, he, his wife, his son, and his friend were less than human. It was OK for them to be shot on sight.

And, when Needs2know reponded to reasonable debate by racial McCarthyism… I just don’t have the words to describe how this hits me.

115

Shouldn’t bother you at all. If a rational, intelligent poster were to call a racist, it’s time to start rexamining your views. If Kneeds2know does it, shrug your shoulders, consider the source and have a good chuckle.

Her ilk, who thinks the word “racist” means “those who disagree with me” devalue the word and enable true racists to continue to commit evil by obscuring them with false accusations.

Seriously, ignore her. Maybe she’ll go away.

Fenris

116

No I did not mention the fact that Weaver was a bigot until it was brought up. In my very first post I suggested that he should have worked within the frame work of the law to clear himself of the charges. I did suggest that he associated with people that would bring attention to law enforcement through their illegal activities. I did not mention anything about their ideology. I did suggest that they were probably doing something illegal. I don’t remember once saying that it was illegal to be a bigot.

I do however find it quite telling that you would bring up the fact that you find me to be a “liberal”. I don’t think anything that I have have said in this thread pertains to my politics. I was simply trying to make a point that extremism in any form, particularily the kind that is backed up by violence does nothing more than perpetrate violence.

I’m having a nice little chuckle on this one now because it is so obvious that if you are saying that only a “non-liberal” would understand this issue. I think I do. I think I understand your attitude and those like you perfectly well. You think everyone should agree with you regardless of the facts. And if I don’t then I’m a stupid liberal, an uninformed liberal, or worse yet an unethical liberal.

Needs2know

117

I haven’t been part of this one, but noticed this news update Charges have been dropped by the prosecutor. (a new one was elected since the charges were brought originally)