dhartung@chinet.chi.il.us (Dan Hartung) writes:  [massive dan blather mercifully deleted.]  >>His last sentence says it all.  Who the hell ARE we (or the government) >>to judge their religion as wrong.  This event, I hope, will be recorded >>in history as the American Holocaust.  These people were murdered  >>by the US government just as surely as the jews were by the Nazis. >>I hang my head in shame for what I've allowed my government to become.  >I have NEVER judged them by their religion, but by their ACTIONS.  >If they had lived a quiet, religious life as they claimed, there would >have been no raid, no siege, and no deaths.  Instead, they chose courses >of action at every turn that were at the very least STUPID, if not >IRRATIONAL.  The first was to stockpile weapons.  The second was to >shoot federal agents.  The third was to stay inside.  Last time I checked, "amassing an arsenal" and practicing any kind of religion were mentioned in passing in the Bill of Rights.  Guess it's OK with you if we just brush 'em aside in order to justify killing a bunch of religious nutcakes, eh?  Of all the idiots I run into in daily life, Dan, your type scare me the most.  You'll accept expediency and a coward's safety over any belief just as long as the government tells you to.  You assume that anyone who doesn't comform to your beliefs and ways of thinking are wrong and therefore bad.  Worse, you seem to accept without question what the government says is wrong to be wrong.  David Koresh's religion was not mine but then again, neither are the baptists, methodists, catholics or any of the rest of the corporate religions.  BUT even though Koresh's, the Baptists, the methodists, etc, don't believe the same way I do, I recognize that their religions are equally valid to mine and more importantly are equally protected under the 1st Amendment. You see, I'm not that much different than Koresh and I suspect many others fit the same catagory.  I read the Bible many times and as I learned  from it, I discovered that a lot of what corporate religions practice just isn't justified by MY interpretation of the Bible.  Therefore I go my own way.  So did Koresh.  And neither you nor I nor anyone else, either individually or collectively as the great socialist "we" has ANY  RIGHT WHATSOEVER to tell me or you or Koresh that our religions are wrong.  You seem to think that it would have been oh so easy for the Davidians to just forsake everything they believed in and walk out of their compound in order to "save themselves".  Think (if you're capable) for a moment about some belief you hold dearest.  Would you abandon that belief if suddenly told to do so by the government?  If you would do so you are beneath contempt.  Let's assume you have a belief that you hold dear enough to commit your life to.  Do you think it would be the correct course of action for your government to initiate actions specifically designed to force you to make that "forsake or die" decision?  The "forsake or die" option is exactly what the government forced on the Davidians the day the first wave of black-clad stormtroopers fired that first shot and tossed that first grenade.  The FBI clenched it on Day 51 when they sent in heavy armor against 80-some-odd men, women and children holed up in a rickety old building and armed with small arms.  The people who stayed, who held to their beliefs over personal safety, whose individual personal honors demanded they die rather than submit, who believed that the Bill of Rights meant exactly what it says, to those people go my deepest respect, regardless of their religion.  People like you who blithely blow off the murder of 80 people with "well they could have come out" get my most scornful contempt.  I'd spit in your face were there not a network between us.  You're not worth the ashes of those people who burned.  John