American Terrorists

Montana has emerged as a hotbed of extremist ideology. The state is home to Ted Kaczynski, the Freemen, and the Militia of Montana, known as the "Mother of all militias." But Montana's dubious distinction as the "Paraguay of the United States" reflects the woes that a handful of other Western states are experiencing. Montana is undergoing gentrification that is creating hardship for long-term, less affluent residents. As one Montana native describes the invading rich, "They come bearing money, buy up prime real estate and decorate the hills with trophy houses" (Kittredge, 1996, p. 43). In a state where good blue-collar jobs are increasingly hard to come by, economically disadvantaged Montanans must settle for low-paying tourist jobs (considered the "servant trade"), inflated land values, and an erosion of established social bonds. Many towns, such as Lincoln (near Ted Kaczynski's home), have gone bankrupt in the process. Radical locals bent on revenge for det

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oups such as the Freemen, We the People, and People for Constitutional Courts use doctrine from the Magna Carta, the Bible, and the Constitution to argue that the federal government has no legal authority over the common law power of localities (Lacayo, 1996, p. 27). In addition, the influence of the inflammatory rhetoric of mainstream right-wing paranoids (e.g., Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and Pat Buchanan) cannot be overlooked: "Of course, the difference is that the militia right comes armed with ideas and guns, whereas the mainstream far right comes armed only with ideas" (Gopnik, 1995, p. 8). Although anti-government sentiment is not a recent development in the United States, it has reached a fever pitch in recent years because of two incidents which served as rallying cries for the separatist movement. The first was the shootout at Ruby Ridge, Idaho between white separatist Randy Weaver and law enforcement officials in 1992. The agents' attempt to arrest Weaver on charges of selling illegal weapons resulted in a 11-day standoff that ended in the death of a deputy marshall and Weaver's wife and teen-aged son. Weaver's wife, gunned down by a federal sharpshooter while holding her infant child, became a martyr for the pa
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Approximate Word count = 2235
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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