Six,
>>you go so far the other way that everything is a conspiracy,
>>nothing we hear in the news media is correct, etc, etc. IMO, the folks
>>who I see taking that stance, and writing and SELLING books to take
>>that stance, are often idiots… If you're going to be a skeptic please be
>>a equal opportunity skeptic … I can certainly filter what the government
>>says about it's actions along with all the sources of info I get. In Koresh's
>>case, that info was often gotten by seeing his face and his voice, or
>>hearing either his followers, or family members of his followers. So my
>>information is, to a large extent, a product of no history maker other than
>>the principles involved.
I never said that everything is a conspiracy. Come on, Six.. play fair!!
I really believe that we are not far from having the very same opinion, both of
Koresh and McVeigh, only in relative degree of evil, if it could be measured on
a scale somehow. I'm not a major conspiracy theorist, per se, (I did read The
Unseen Hand, though) but I do believe that certain things aren't at all like they
are played up to be in the media. I don't see conspiracies nightly on the national
news or CNN, but I DO happen to believe that every now and then the aims of the
powerful and super-wealthy don't jibe with those of common folk like me and you
and they use their influence to get a certain message across that isn't entirely
harmonious with all of the facts, known or unknown.
Like you, I believe that most of the Davidians, if not every single one (including
Koresh) simply wanted to be left alone to worship their god as they saw fit.
While I have the opinion that Koresh did indeed want to push the ATF as to
his Constitutional rights in the matter of the weapons he had stockpiled (which
the ATF asserted he had no right to at all), I really don't think he was suicidal,
except maybe at the very end. But maybe not even then. I could be wrong, though.
Perhaps he was consumed by his God-complex, but who can say with
absolute certainty? Visuals on a TV screen can be misread, just as words on a
pc monitor can as well as body language on the part of someone in whose
actual presence we may be. Misunderstandings occur, later resolved with a
simple, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know… I misunderstood." It's my contention
that, in the case of Koresh, we will never know with certainty. We'll never
have our present view of him clarified by increased understanding, especially
since the only exposure we got to him was through the filter of a government
agency that has had problems with candor before and since. The complete
story of why a small handful of bible thumpers in the rolling hill country of
south-central Texas were deemed such a threat that the full weight of the U.S.
government felt compelled to intervene to the extent it did will probably never
be known.
Be that as it may, all of that is somewhat peripheral to my original post which
I admit could've been clearer as to its intent. Let's make a leap and say that
both Koresh and McVeigh are the two vilest humans ever to walk the earth. Hell,
throw Genghis Khan, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Khadafi and whoever else into the
mix, I don't care, and the guilt they collectively bear for their horrific crimes does
nothing to absolve "God" of his inattentiveness and inaction respective of human
misery and suffering, especially since, as I was taught, Jehovah supposedly has
had all the legal ammo he's needed to bring the suffering to an end for more than
two millennia.
The platitudes of religionists (JWs included) that all the evil is just a part of some
Grand Scheme and that at some future time of his design he'll make things all rosy
rings more and more hollow the longer I live. On that I'm thinking you and I are
in full agreement. If I've ever had an epiphany, that's the one I had that day when
that nice Christian lady told me that God loves us while we were overshadowed by
a nine-story office building with its northern face ripped off, where 168 innocent
people spent their last seconds of life, all while "God" watched. The hell he does!
>>about UT, I was trapped in a cult which strongly discouraged higher education,
>>so I did not go to any college. I could tell from your post that you lived in OK, so
>>I just thought I would raz you a bit.
HA! They never said you couldn't go to college....
Seems we were trapped in the same cult, though I'm taking some classes
now. As far as the "UT" reference, I figured you were just trying to get my goat.
Yet I wanted to make it clear that I ain't no Okie. As my man Barney Fife on
The Andy Griffith Show would say, I wanted to "Nip it, nip it, nip it in the bud."
later, dude, and peace!
todd
