Age of the Geek

Play time is over in Oregon
 
It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
     Like much of America, I’ve been deriving amusement from the ongoing standoff between the federal government and the group of militia men holded up at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
     It’s been fun watching these guys, many of them the pure embodiment of the anti-government conspiracy-nut stereotype, ineptly stage their pseudo-revolution from the middle of nowhere. Ammon Bundy’s incoherent rambling at the FBI about the Constitution looks like something out of a satire movie. Any legitimate point he may have been trying to make is completely overshadowed by the lunacy of the situation.
     This is to say nothing of the sight of a grown man angrily clearing a table full of sex toys and lubricants, gifted to the protesters by the loving citizens of the Internet.
     And then there’s the nicknames. “VanillaISIS,” “Talibundy” and “Yeehawdists” are all great, but my favorite has to be “Y’all Qaeda.”
     It’s funny because they are technically terrorists. An armed group of people with an affinity for religion and beards forcefully occupying a government facility and making demands of the government? It’s a good thing that they are mostly middle-aged white guys without enough sense to bring winter gear to their occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge in January. If they were capable of being a legitimate threat to anybody but themselves this would be an entirely different story.
     For nearly a month these people have been demanding… it’s actually still kind of unclear what they want. Other than attention, of course.
     The initial premise behind the occupation was the imprisonment of a couple of convicted arsonists, but they’ve rejected any association with the militia. They also apparently want the government to give up their claim to the federally owned lands in the area. Either to start their own nation or give it to the area ranchers that just want these gun-toting extremists out of their county, I’m not entirely sure.
     In either case, it’s been entertaining. Sure, it’s costing the state thousands of dollars a day, but just consider it local stimulus. And I’m certain the ordeal has disrupted the local community, but it’s probably the most interesting thing to happen in that area in a long time.
     One really has to admire the restraint shown by the FBI and the State of Oregon as well. If this were a movie, some politically-minded FBI agent would have already sent in a team to take the militia by force, triggering a tragic blood bath on both sides just as the protagonist was moments away from working out a peaceful resolution.
     Instead, law enforcement reaction to this incident shows that we’ve clearly learned a lot since the days of Ruby Ridge and Waco. Instead of tear gas and sniper rifles, the best strategy against this militia is to treat them like toddlers. Let them have their little tantrum until they tire themselves out and give up peacefully.
     For the most part, it’s worked. Last Tuesday, Ammon Bundy and several others were taken by surprise and arrested during a traffic stop miles away from the wildlife facility and their heavily armed friends. Most of them surrendered peacefully, but 55-year-old LaVoy Finicum apparently decided to take the hard way out.
     Three weeks earlier, Finicum told an MSNBC reporter that he was willing to die rather than be put in a cell. To Finicum’s credit, he was true to his word.
     Video of the incident shows Finicum crashing into a snow bank in an attempt to evade a roadblock. Once out of his truck, he twice reaches inside his jacket before being shot by surrounding law enforcement officers.
     I doubt we would have agreed on much, but from his appearances in various videos of the occupation he seemed like a decent enough person, in spite of the company he kept. I hope Finicum believed this was a cause worth dying for, though I doubt we’d agree on that either.
     At the time of writing this, it seems most of the militia have either fled or been arrested.
     The remaining occupiers, apparently believing they really are in a movie, have spent the days after Finicum’s death convinced that the FBI was moments away from coming in to kill them all. David Fry, the militia’s resident tech guy, released a video Tuesday night anticipating that it would be their last night alive.
     Fry proclaimed the same thing during a multi-hour live stream on Wednesday night.
     And he kept streaming on Thursday, with the day’s highlight being a rotund man armed with a large gun amping himself up for the coming battle by shouting into the camera like a professional wrestler.
     The FBI didn’t come for them on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. I seriously doubt that they will come for them at all. So far, law enforcement seems content with their strategy of waiting them out.
     With their leaders arrested, I doubt it will be long before the handful of remaining occupiers either do something very smart or very stupid. In fact, I suspect this whole ordeal will be over before this column sees print.
     I hope they do the smart thing and surrender. Enough is enough. They’ve had their fun. They’ve made their point. They’ve gotten our attention.
     They’ve played out the drama that will define the rest of their lives. Now it’s time to put away the toys before somebody else gets hurt.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and wonders if this is supposed to be the “well-regulated militia” that’s so necessary to our security.