8-inch-thick concrete walls

Who has a house like that?

No one deserves to be shot for such civil disobedience.

They are already in prison. Just leave them there. No harm, no foul.

They're right and they got cojones to go with their principles; is that what bugs you, OJ? The rest of us just wuss out @square one and pay the income tax. I know I do; it's called protection money. And just like with the mob, I'm scared even when I do pay them off.

Psychos do.

No, it's their "principles" that are the problem. Like all libertarians they only want the benefits of society without paying their fair share of its costs.

Civil disobedience is honorable only to the extent that the disobedient accept the consequences. The great practitioners have won because the consequences were seen to be unjust. Tax cheats lose because justice is on the other side.

Bruno has the more conservative approach here. And "8-inch-thick concrete walls"? Dollars to donuts that means "cinder blocks."

Who knows? They may have rebar in them thar' walls, ready for the day when the revenooers come for 'em.

These people aren't even libertarians - they're loons. It doesn't mean they should be assaulted (not without good reason), but it does mean they have to expect that they will be isolated and squeezed, and ultimately confronted by the law. OJ is right - justice is not on their side.

But let them try to get through a hard winter first.

John: For most of us the protection money was confiscated from our pay checks.

Tax cheats lose because justice is on the other side.
Justice or the law? They are not the same.

They have a very nice carbon footprint.

A common error, mistaking doing nothing for conservatism.

I went back and read the link again, and noticed that Brown and his wife aren't entirely cut off - fellow travelers are bringing them groceries. Seems like an oversight by the sheriff (or the US Marshals).

We have all groused about "paying taxes", so we can understand a bit of their complaint, but we also cringe at their insanity. The tired old bromides and the By God! language doesn't really mean anything - these two are just ticked because they don't want to pay the piper (and they got caught).

What is the purpose of taxation? To enrich the king? No, not anymore. Sometimes it is difficult to tell, with the antics of the tax and spend, government-enabling politicians (from Byrd to Bloomberg), but that isn't it. Is it to put everyone's name in a database? No, we're already there (from the phone book to LL Bean to Amazon to the Post Office). Is it to oppress the free people of America? No - if someone feels oppressed in America today, that is a sign of an internal problem. Is it to pay for wars or to conquer the world? Ha! - in the dreams of the Left only.

We pay taxes for the privilege of living in the nation where principle matters. Real, historical, inalienable principle. We can argue whether 20% is too much, or 35%, or 70%. We can argue whether corporations should pay. We can argue whether dividends should be taxed, or whether churches should pay. We can argue whether income should be taxed, or consumption.

But we live here, with all the gravity that the past 250 years have given. We enjoy liberty, mobility, health, wealth, and so much more. Taxes don't buy us these things, and they are no guarantor of them, but they represent our way of making things work. Not well (as we all know), but it has worked better than anywhere else for a long, long time.

That's the 'justice' part of this story - and why these two are on the wrong side.

Jim, that was an excellent post.

I didn't argue that they were "right" nor that they are doing the right thing. I merely argued that they ought not be shot (as in Ruby Ridge).

As excellent as Jim's post is, it lends too much credence to the "we are the government" dogma that is used to rubberstamp abuses that are eroding our freedom.

The pickets are being put in place (Hate Crime laws connected to Gay marriage laws connected to Fairness Doctrine laws connected to 24-7 monitoring....). Soon, OJ will be able to be prosecuted for putting up posts like the "Born Gay, No Way" post above.

We lose site of the the fact that no "majority" voted for the numerous abuses of the Government at the state, federal and local levels (other than by default). That may be the way the system works, but once the checks and balances break down, there won't be any righting the ship quickly.

As good as things are, the fact remains that day-by-day, more and more people, if asked whether they wouldn't rather be jacked into a fake universe while providing power for all knowing machines (Matrix, Government, their collective) than to live in a "real" world, would take the blue pill.

Take the Red Pill

Waco was a nightmare all the way around, which the locals probably ignored for years (like the MOVE situation in Philadelphia, where the city was afraid of the group for 7 or 8 years, and the police let the group 'patrol' the rooftops carrying shotguns and did nothing).

Ruby Ridge was the FBI beating its mighty chest, where the (supposedly best) sharpshooters killed a woman and shot a boy. As I remember, the agents involved were prosecuted later, and rightly so.

Bruno is right about the bureaucracy - they aren't elected, aren't accountable, and the 'hiveness' of the government does have its own inertia. But it is the responsibility of the citizens to keep control. Despite the Left, they usually do.

The FBI shot racist idiots who failed to comply with the law. We can't shoot enough more.

The FBI shot a young teenage boy, and a woman holding a baby. And she wasn't at all like the cokehead from "Hannibal". Randy Weaver was a nutcase, but he wasn't really threatening anyone at that moment.

Waco was different, but the ATF screwed it up just the same - they should have gone in at night.

The Browns are dangerous only because they seem to believe their own nonsense, and because they are deep in the hole - they probably feel they have nothing to lose. Let them freeze through March.....and they probably won't last that long.

Or the Marshals could commandeer the PA State Police to build a firebomb for them - at least in this situation, no other houses are attached so that the whole neighborhood won't burn up.

If she wasn't a nut she'd have surrendered and been alive today. Armed resistance of democratic authority warrants death.

She wasn't armed - she was standing in a doorway, holding her baby. She was nuts for being there, of course, but that isn't reason enough to get ventilated by a sniper.

Randy Weaver's survival that day shows how messed up the whole operation was - if the black helicopters and jackboots were really in charge, nobody would have lived.

"I was just following orders..."

That was the defense the FBI used - for shooting a 14 year-old in the back. It didn't work.

And both the Justice Dept. and Congress determined that the FBI orders were unconstitutional. Larry Potts (Deputy Director) should have gone to jail for violating his office.

You will note that Randy Weaver, as crazy as he was, was acquitted of all charges except for failing to show up in court for his sentencing, no matter that a federal agent was killed by one of his friends.

People who deny the authority of legitimate government are wrong and they are angry at having "lost" something (usually a big judgment or a petty criminal case). You can argue that they should be made examples - but at least come out and say it.

It worked. She's still dead.