At Sun, 10 Mar 1996 Timothy C. May wrote:

At 7:06 AM 3/10/96, JonWienke@aol.com wrote:

...

Who says they were going to blow anything up? It is perfectly legit for farms to have large quantities of fertilizer around--they use it all the time. Same with diesel fuel--what are they supposed to run the tractors and combines with? Dog piss? DUHHHH! As far as having the instructions for mixing them to go boom, who the hell made that a crime? You could bust most of the farmers in this country if you criminalize simultaneous posession of fertilizer and diesel fuel. Did these people ever actually mix any of the fert. and fuel together? Did they threaten to blow up anything?

My personal belief, from the news reports I've read (which may be incorrect, of course), is that the ingredients were for use in a bomb, whether or not they'd ever have gone through with it or not. The ancillary items found (dozens of assault rifles, weapons manuals, patriot literature, crank, meth, etc.), and the stockpiling of ANFO precursors, suggests an Oklahoma City-type scenario.

Hey!, if I lived on a farm I would no doubt possess similar amounts of fertilizer and diesel. I would also possess a few dozen assault rifles if I could afford to (not that I'm a gun nut [I do happen to enjoy shooting, and would doubtless own a few if I lived on a farm] but would have "stocked up" before Klintons assault rifle bill.) I also possess weapons manuals (ranging from bullwhips to blowguns to 66mm anti tank weapons) and what you would call patriot literature (ranging from books on Jefferson, on the civil war ("The South was Right"), to The Turner Diaries.) I am also an ocaissional drug user, so you may find varying amounts of coke/crack, meth, horse, LSD, peyote, and ecstasy in my abode. In addition to this you would find books on lockpicking, hacking, drug manuafacture, holocaust revisionism, credit card fraud, false ID, smuggling, gun-running and tax evasion. You would also find some very violent movies in my collection. But, despite all of these circumstances, I assure you that I have not (and would, ney, could not) commit any non-victimless crime. I am an out and out pacifist Libertarian.

This is what I think was objective reality.

I think this is what I call circumstancial evidence.