Nothing you’ve elucidated here is a surprise to me. I was in middle school when Waco went down, but as I got older and began studying recent political history, it was all too clear to me that Waco and Ruby Ridge weren’t as clear cut or simple as described by the media. Much of the impetus for my becoming a gun owner was to protect myself and my family against a government that I understood as becoming tyrannical.
I joined FR in 2004 and found a family of like-minded individuals, and I see now that Waco was really a tragic display of government tyranny against a religious group of men and women who I’m sure weren’t completely innocent in every aspect of the law but were not in the wrong defending themselves in the way they did.
John Ross’ book “Unintended Consequences” set me straight on a lot of things.
They were simply a target of opportunity.
They weren’t completely innocent and their lifestyle was odd to most people. The Clinton’s needed someone considered odd by most people to demonize.
It could just as easily been any other “odd” group the govt. had chosen to demonize for their own gain.