Today’s exhibit: the case of Elaine Brown, recently sentenced to 35 years in prison.
In Elaine’s words:
“I’m 68 years old. I don’t have much time left on this Earth. But I have no doubt I will spend eternity with my husband and a myriad of others who have fought tyranny and oppression,” she said, pausing several times to clear her throat but maintaining a defiant tone.
Brown insisted that she and her husband were being punished for nothing more than civil disobedience and “daring to challenge and question this massive government.”
“Our state motto is ‘Live free or Die,’ which is what we proclaimed over and over during our resistance,” she said. “I will always resist.”
Very honorable, right? In fact, remarkably similar to comments made on here in support of the teabaggers.
Digging a little deeper, here’s the charges:
She and her husband, Ed, holed up in their 110-acre compound in Plainfield in early 2007 after being sentenced to five years in prison for tax evasion. They were arrested nine months later by federal agents posing as supporters, and were convicted in July on a variety of weapons and conspiracy charges.
Again, just a pair of patriots on the wrong side of the law, right?
Then the details:
The prosecutor described the weapons strewn about the couple’s home — 22 pipe bombs and a 50 caliber rifle in the bedroom alongside Elaine Brown’s stuffed animal collection. Bulletproof vests and ammunition in the closet with the jigsaw puzzles. An explosive device on the jelly cupboard in the kitchen.
The handgun Brown carried was capable of killing 17 people without reloading, Huftalen said, and there was a fanny pack full of extra bullets on the kitchen table.
During the couple’s second trial, Ed Brown testified that the weapons were for self defense and that explosives in the woods around the home were to scare intruders, not harm them. But in a radio interview during the standoff, he said if authorities came in to kill him or arrest him “the chief of police in this town, the sheriff, the sheriff himself will die. This is war now, folks.”
Context is indeed everything.
I’ve never gone from, “wow, that’s harsh,” to “wow, lose the key,” so quickly in my life. Details are important.
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p>22 Pipe bombs?! Explosives planted in the woods? That cannot be tolerated. If the right-wing is going to insist on stuff like the death penalty as a ‘deterrent’ (even if the death penalty has never been one), they need to be consistent.
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p>People holed up fighting the government armed to the teeth need to go to jail for a very, very long time. Teabaggers cannot be allowed to think of themselves as a militia. Dress up in goofy costumes every Tax Day all you want, pray to the prophet Glenn Beck ten times a day if you must, but getting armed in a quest to subvert democracy and fight off the government is intolerable.
Before this crowd starts comparing themselves to civil rights activists or something we should point out two things. First, people known for practicing civil disobedience such as MLK, Gandhi, and Thoreau never armed themselves and prided themselves on non-violent tactics. Second, the civil rights protests were either about laws enacted contrary to the Constitution (equal protection) or economic disruption of businesses that discriminated. These taxes were duly enacted by elected representatives and as such are fully enforceable. If these people don’t like it they are free to campaign either directly for repeal or to elect representatives who will.
There is an American tradition of nonviolent tax refusal, generally based on opposition to war.
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p>To say that practice is distinct from that of Elaine Brown would be an understatement.
refusing to pay your taxes because of political views is extreme, but so long as you’re willing to take the consequences whilst giving your case voice, that’s okay. What was wrong here was the fact that this couple built up arms and laid traps around their property and basically tried to fight out a siege against this country. There’s nothing nonviolent about that…
let em. Humanity mastered the solution of castles hundreds of years ago. It’s called a siege.
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p>Don’t let food get into their property or catapult a couple of rotting animals on their front lawn. They’ll give up and sign an armistice eventually.
Armed movements against the government because you disagree with it doing legal, democratically-voted things is not okay. They had pipe bombs in the forests surrounding their yard, Joe. ‘Nuff said.
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p>Plus, do you know how many millions were probably spent on that months-long “siege” on their house? Many, many, many times owed on their taxes, that’s for sure.
We may brood, sulk and feel sorry for ourselves, and vow to debate the issues more effectively next time. We do not use armed force to undo a democratic election.
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p>Thoreau did preach…. and practice civil disobedience. He refused to pay his taxes to protest the war and slavery, voluntarily serving time in jail. As I recall he preferred to remain in jail and believed that individuals committed to civil disobedience must be willing to submit to the consequences. That being the difference between a noble cause and simple self indulgence.