There is a real risk in this country that people will lose faith in the ability or even willingness of the government to protect us. The Lieutenant Governor of Kansas wondered if Governor Nixon did not hold back the National Guard, at the request of the White House, from intervening in Ferguson on the night of the heaviest rioting. It certainly would not surprise anyone familiar with this administration if that did happen. What we know for sure is that the National Guard was there, that the Governor had declared a state of emergency and they were not used.
That is when, according to this article, the Oath Keepers stepped in:
We know that somebody showed up and they apparently had a positive impact. There are numerous reports of heavily armed and trained civilians deploying on roof tops defending property. We are fortunate that in this case that apparently the people who showed up had training and more importantly demonstrated discipline. If the wrong people had showed up this the results could have been very ugly.
The police, who were not there in time to protect property, were there to in time to order the armed civilians off the premises. The following article provides more information about the “Oath Keepers:”
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/02/the-oath-keepers-in-ferguson-three-update
It was interested to note that the National Guard was only deployed to protect government buildings, not private property. I do not know anyone from Oath Keepers and don’t even know anyone who claims to know someone from Oath Keepers. My only source of information is the internet. It was my understanding that they were primarily a group of U.S. Military people who made an Oath to refuse to obey an order they considered illegal under the U.S. Constitution to deploy our military against civilians. At first I could not reconcile that goal with them showing up in Ferguson. However, the following quotes by Steven Rhodes who founded Oath Keepers puts that in perspective:
“In Ferguson, what they’re being told is you only have two choices: 1) a hyper-militarized police state to stop violence, including arson, or 2) let it go and burn the town down. Twenty different buildings have burned to the ground. That’s a false choice.
For Ferguson in particular if…they don’t believe that the police department is legitimate, they should be protecting themselves and secure themselves because the more they secure themselves, the less reason there is for the police to be in their neighborhoods and communities. So they should take care of themselves for both reasons—to be secure, but also to be more free.”
Obviously somebody showed up in Ferguson, with arms. If it wasn’t the Oath Keepers it was someone else. Regardless of whether one agrees with the Oath Keepers or not, at least they appear to have been a positive influence. The problem is that this is more evidence of people losing faith in our most important institutions. If that happens we may see other people involved and they are very unlikely to be helpful.
TDM