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Our Own Private Idaho |
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What IS it with
Idaho, anyway? You know. Ruby Ridge. Aryan Nations.
McGuckin kid standoff. And now, Lonny Rae. That sort of
thing.
I get
visions of redneck fascist hordes, Idahuns if you will, in white
sheets, riding horseback through the streets of Boise. Idahuns
burning crosses in downtown Sandpoint. Idahuns stringing up blacks
across from Coeur d'Alene's city hall.
Idaho's Uncle
Daryl is the Idahun.
Like Rome in
its decline, America loves a good spectacle. And TV
delivers the goods far better than the Coliseum ever did to its
rabble. Imagine Uncle Daryl falling into the cake while
trying to kiss the bride, live with Regis. Then the camera
pans to you. What do you say? "Unhhh.....we're
putting Uncle Daryl into rehab tomorrow. Have you met cousin
George?"
That's why a
runaway jury tagged Richard Butler, of Aryan Nations fame, with a $6.3
million verdict last year, bankrupting him and taking away his
family home ("everything but the shirt on his back," as Morris
Dees put it), for a two-bit assault by followers who were off
duty, off property and drunk. Imagine holding city hall liable
for a couple of cops who rob a service station in the next town when
off duty, out of uniform, on a bender and using a personal
hunting rifle. Now imagine them getting away with nothing while
putting a good scare into the attendant. Now imagine those same
cops serving several years hard time in the state slam. But the
attendant still wants several million bucks from the city for his
hurt feelings. Yeah, right.
That's why
the Boundary County Commissioners just yesterday voted to drop
the criminal prosecution against Lon Horiuchi, of Ruby Ridge
(and Waco) fame, despite the appellate opinion which reinstated that
suit by saying the state could prosecute a federal agent for his
illegal acts. Horiuchi is the same professional marksman who
claimed to be able to hit a dime at a hundred yards, but who missed a
whole person and "accidentally" shot a mother with a babe in
arms, square in the head, from less than a hundred feet. Lt.
William Calley wishes he had come from Idaho,
I bet.
That's why
Bonner County officials quickly dismissed JoAnn McGuckin's supporters
as being "white supremacists," and conned her into going
along with their agenda, so that she ended up losing her home, her
family - everything, in fact, just days after burying her husband.
And kept her in jail on trumped-up charges, while they sifted through
her home for plumbing and electrical code violations to justify
prosecuting her. And still want to try her for criminal child
neglect. Because she home schooled her six kids. Because
they were "malnourished" (but pronounced in "good
condition" by the hospital that examined them after that
so-called standoff). Because her dogs were in bad condition and
starving (also pronounced in "good condition" at the pound
when taken in, yet only yesterday fourteen of those dogs
were put down, every one of them a mere puppy,
allegedly because of illnesses they contracted at the pound). "We're
from the government and we're here to help you..." Enough
to make one want to get the gun and let the dogs loose (that's
just what 15-year-old Ben
McGuckin said when the "standoff" began).
Now comes Lonny Rae. You
haven't heard about Lonny yet, but you will. Lonny faces a
five-year sentence in the penitentiary for using the N-word. For
a so-called "hate crime." For defending his diminutive
wife from a hulking black man who had grabbed hold of her from behind
in an attempt to take away her camera. And he simply yelled it
at the building into which the black man had disappeared. Once.
"Get that N--- out here, cuz I'm a gonna kick his butt!"
Then he and his wife called the cops and demanded the black guy
be charged with assault and battery. He never was. But
Lonny was charged
under Idaho's hate crime statute, adopted in forty states throughout
America but only just now being applied to its
citizens. Since then,
Lonny and his wife lost their jobs over the "hate crime" and
couldn't get work, then they lost their home because they couldn't
keep up the payments. Then Lonny got his ankle broken by
the town ruffian during a scuffle resulting from his, once again,
defending his wife's honor over the black eye the town got from the
"hate crime." Uncle Daryl....er....Lonny Rae.....goes
on trial in Adams County in just two months.
Have you met cousin George yet?
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