Anonymous wrote:

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz 'The fight's over. There's no one left to fight'

On June 4, 1997 the trial of the only Viper Militia defendant to face a jury -- after months in jail, 10 have pleaded guilty to one charge or another, while one still awaits trial -- got underway before Judge Earl H. Carroll in the federal district courthouse in downtown Phoenix.

# # # I asked Knight what he believes the government's real goal is, in pressing such prosecutions. "Their goal is to disarm the public. This is to make sure everyone knows that if they can put me in prison for five years for going out to two field exercises in six months, after 15 years in business in this town, meeting the public all day every day, a church-going guy, a good father ... if we can throw this guy in prison, think what we can do to you. ... "When the jury came back hung, and he asked them if there was any chance of reaching a verdict if he sent them back and they said no, (the judge) was bound by law to declare a mistrial, but he did not. ... Instead he sent them back. And I have a feeling the jury thought they were going to be there forever if they didn't come back with a unanimous verdict. ... # # # "Aren't they just speeding up Darwinism?" I asked attorney Abrams of the government's prosecutions of these highly-visible, "public" militia units. By shutting down the goofier militias, the guys who parade around in public in camouflage fatigues, aren't they just teaching those who profoundly fear and distrust the government how to be more secretive, more serious, more professional ... and simultaneously walling them off from the influence of more moderate voices? "But that's what they want to do," the self-described liberal Democrat replied. "Look at the War on Drugs, which is dependent on evil men with evil-sounding Hispanic names: Marcos Fernando Guzman. And the more of them we can create, we have our enemy and our target and then we can create our government agency. It is to the government's advantage to make more and badder militias, because the worse they are, the more agencies like the ATF can come out and say, 'We are the first line of defense, we are saving the nation from ruin, we need money from Congress.' ... "You put these guys from New York out here where the real disaffection is, and they'll be shocked first of all at the depth of it. I'm shocked at the depth of the disaffection, but also at the way it permeates all layers of society. I don't know anyone who trusts the government, including my father who has a PhD law degree, but you get him out here for a breath of fresh air, and he starts to talk like one of them. ... Contributions to help fund Chuck Knight's appeal may be sent to the Charles Knight Legal Defense Fund, Account No. 14928432, Bank One, 4922 E. Bell Road, Scottsdale Ariz. 85251 Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com. The web site for the Suprynowicz column is at http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/. The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127. This essay originally appeared in the September, 1997 edition of "The Rothbard-Rockwell Report." ***