The Threat from the Patriot Movement

AMERICA'S PATRIOTS HAVE A TOUGH LIST OF DEMANDS: KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY LAND, MY WALLET -- AND MY GUNS

By Jill Smolowe Monday, May 08, 1995

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    Unfortunately, newcomers to the movement will find few guideposts that signal, This way the true believers, that way the dangerous zealots. The ranks of the antifederalist insurgency include plenty of the former: tax protesters, home schoolers, Christian fundamentalists and well-versed Constitutionalists. But the groups also contain an insidious sprinkling of the latter, including neo-Nazis and white supremacists. What binds these diverse elements is a fervent paranoia. The most fearful patriots believe that Soviet fighter jets are on standby in Biloxi, Mississippi, that frequent flyovers by "black helicopters'' signal an imminent occupation by the armies of a one-world government, and that stickers on some interstate highways are coded to direct the invading armies. They also regard such federal agencies as the fbi, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and particularly the Federal Emergency Management Agency as the shock troops for an all-out war on personal liberties.

    While fear is a common denominator, not everyone worries about the same things. Tom Metzger, who founded White Aryan Resistance in 1980 after breaking with the Ku Klux Klan, ridicules talk of a military invasion. "Ninety percent of that stuff is nonsense," he says. "We've got 10 million Mexicans flooding into this country, and the militias are worried about repainted helicopters." For their part, many militia groups aggressively weed out racists, and a few even have minority members. According to its leader, Fitzhugh MacCrae, New Hampshire's Hillsborough County Dragoons includes blacks, Latinos and Asians, and favors good works like shoveling snow for the elderly. "I'm pro-choice and I donate money to PBS," he says. "How subversive is that? But I also support the Second Amendment [guaranteeing the right to bear arms]. It is the only amendment that empowers the rest of them."

    Indeed, the right to bear arms seems to be the one altar where moderate Constitutionalists and armed zealots can worship comfortably side by side. "There's a real fear that once the Second Amendment is abridged, the First [guaranteeing free speech] will be the next to go," says Scott Wheeler, a writer for the U.S. Patriot Network. Despite the reverence for guns, however, "the vast majority of people in the militias are not violent or dangerous," says James Aho, a sociologist at Idaho State University who has interviewed 368 members of the radical right.

    They do, however, have an unusually vigorous commitment to self-defense. "Within two years, I expect to see the Constitution suspended. We will be prepared to defend it," says Norman Olson, an independent Baptist minister who together with real estate salesman Ray Southwell founded the Michigan Militia. Toward that end, Olson has led army-style maneuvers on an 32-hectare tract of scrub pine and meadow dotted with obstacle courses and bunkers. Most of those who come for the training sessions are middle-aged, white, family men who must struggle to support their loved ones and struggle even harder to catch their breath during Olson's exercises, which require them to traverse rugged terrain shouldering semiautomatic rifles.

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