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I've read that piece before, and I think our @KulakRevolt both overestimates the ease of assassination government officials — and the willingness of sane, non-suicidal people to attempt it, given the negligible odds of getting away with it — and underestimates the willingness of our officials to bear the risk (which, again, is lower than he thinks).
Was McVeigh really that much of an outlier? You make a good point that this would require sufficient motivation, but I think living conditions could easily get bad enough that people no longer have much to lose.
Really all that needs to happen is that people get their friends and family killed, raped or immiserated with no recourse.
As mentionned elsewhere in this thread, the Feds have been smart enough to avoid escalating in such conditions since Waco, but if they did we could easily get back to levels of violence that are not really that far in the past. People forget there are still living members of the Weather Underground.
Yes, and his sort even more so in the decades since.
Perhaps, but not particularly soon, and as times get more desperate, people tend to get less cooperative as they compete with one another to maintain their slice of the shrinking metaphorical pie.
I think Nybbler answered this one pretty well.
McVeigh had very little to do with the lack of further Wacos. Nor is it due to any unwillingness or incapacity on the part of the government. It is my understanding that the local cops had several opportunities to arrest Koresh and other leading Branch Davidians, and indeed wanted to do so, but were specifically told not to by the feds, who wanted to sweep up the entire group in a single big operation that Janet Reno could show off in the media, and the FBI and ATF could use to justify their big budgets and fancy toys.
But then it went wrong. So, now, they don't bother doing it that way. Instead, they let the local cops pick off leadership as soon as possible.
The reason you don't see any more Waco-type incidents isn't because the government can't deal with groups like the Branch Davidians, it's because they've gotten so good at nipping such groups in the bud long before they ever reach the "armed compound" stage, in ways that don't grab mass media attention.
It's not a sign of their weakness, but a sign of their strength.
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They'd cling to authority and blame their friends and family for their disobedience and defiance. Law-and-order conservatives do this as naturally as progressives denounce their "racist uncle".
Because they believe in a recourse. This cannot be maintained forever.
It can be maintained until they are dead.
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