Bill Clinton recently took to the New York Times op-ed page to mark the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. In the process, the former president became the latest Times writer to not-so-subtlely demagogue those currently opposing the big government agenda of the Democratic Party as violent extremists.
“The bright line [between civic virtue and violence] protects our freedom. It has held for a long time, since President George Washington called out 13,000 troops in response to the Whiskey Rebellion,” Clinton wrote.
That line between civic virtue isn’t as bright as he thinks. For one thing, Washington’s chief qualification for civic office was that he successfully led an armed revolt against a king to whom he had previously sworn allegiance.
This nation was founded by laying out an explicit rationale for anti-government violence. “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,” reads one notable anti-government declaration of the era.
Of course, the Declaration of Independence goes on to say, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.”
As bad as Democrats’ current big government rampage has been, no rational person could see it as grounds for overthrowing the government or committing violence. Indeed, for a mass political uprising based on governmental discontent, Tea Parties have been remarkably free of violence compared with the recent anti-war and anti-globalization movements.
Unfortunately, there will always be some people who can’t tell the difference between when it’s appropriate to criticize your government and when to take up arms against it. For instance, Timothy McVeigh justified the Oklahoma City bombing by claiming the Clinton administration overstepped its bounds with its bungling of the standoff with Branch Davidians in Waco.
The uncomfortable truth is that the way the Clinton administration handled Waco concerns a lot of reasonable people. “The plan [Attorney General Janet] Reno approved and took to President Clinton for approval contemplated the children choking in the [CS tear] gas unprotected for forty-eight hours if necessary, to produce the requisite ‘maternal feelings’ … to flee with them into the arms of those trying to gas them,” Kenneth Anderson wrote in the Times Literary Supplement in 1995.
In other words, Clinton and Reno approved a military-style assault with the potential of giving a number of infants present chemical burns and toxic pneumonia. That wasn’t an unfortunate consequence — that was the plan. I doubt the decisions Clinton made with regard to Waco were undertaken lightly, but that doesn’t mean he should escape meaningful public scrutiny for what happened. The fact he’s still using Oklahoma City as a political cudgel 15 years later suggests he’s uncomfortably self-righteous about his exercise of power in Waco.
Which is too bad. When politicians aren’t regularly held accountable, it creates the impression that there are no limits to power. This in turn emboldens the real extremists who can’t tell the difference between “light and transient causes” and governmental actions that truly jeopardize the liberty of all Americans.
McVeigh’s actions were unspeakable and unforgivable in the eyes of anyone who loves this country. But anyone who makes an implicit comparison between McVeigh and contemporary peaceful opposition to the Democratic Party is merely stifling dissent. Being deeply concerned about what your government might do to you or that your representatives in Washington are exercising power in a way that’s unmoored from the Constitution does not mean you’re ready to resort to violence.
It does, however, suggest you’re more inclined to agree with George Washington than Bill Clinton. And no matter what the New York Times op-ed page says, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Mark Hemingway is an editorial page staff writer for the Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
