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Human rights speaker draws fire from audience

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ST. IGNATIUS — A presentation by Montana Human Rights Network Executive Director Travis McAdam sparked a heated debate over the Patriot movement and Constitutional issues Wednesday night in St. Ignatius.

Community members packed the St. Ignatius Senior Center for the public event, which was sponsored by the Flathead Reservation Human Rights Coalition. McAdam’s presentation, titled “The Resurgence of Right-Wing Extremists in Montana,” drew fire from several in the audience who disagreed with McAdam’s interpretation of recent political trends in Montana and nationwide.

During a 45-minute long talk, McAdam discussed the history of extreme right-wing movements dating back to the early 1990s, when anti-government activism led to events like the FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Since the last Presidential election, a nationwide trend toward grassroots conservatism bears many of the hallmarks of a similar trend in the ’90s, McAdams said. Typical characteristics of the movement include an emphasis on Second Amendment rights, a belief that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified, a focus on the importance of the office of county sheriff, and a claim that documents such as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were divinely inspired, McAdams said.

“This idea that what we’re dealing with is brand new (is wrong) … we at the (Montana Human Rights Network) feel like it’s 1994 pretty much all over again,” he said. 

Groups like the Hamilton-based Celebrating Conservatism and the newly formed Calling All Conservatives in Lake County, which McAdams used as examples, often draw large numbers of people to their early meetings, but eventually attendance dwindles as the extremists in the groups start to take over. McAdams described the change as a “funnel cloud” effect, with people merely interested in discussing issues at the large end of the cloud and radical “believers” coming out of the small end.

“The people who really start to buy into the beliefs of these groups start to go down the funnel cloud,” he explained. “Timothy McVeigh was somebody who popped out the other end of the funnel cloud.

“One of the real issues we have with this type of organizing is not the ideas as they’re presented, themselves … what we worry about is what happens down the line if somebody decides to act on that,” he added.

When McVeigh acted on his anti-government views in such an appalling way, the more mainstream conservatives withdrew from far right-wing groups, causing the movement to lose momentum. A few years later, near the end of George W. Bush’s presidential term, Bush started to fall out of favor with many conservatives, causing even more division in the political right, McAdam noted. But with the election of President Barack Obama — someone “of color” without an Anglican name — coupled with an economic recession, “what happened was a perfect storm for what we’re calling the ‘resurgent right,’” McAdam said. “There was now something out there to really focus on.”

Now, Tea Party rallies, Patriot money theories and the belief that the 16th Amendment wasn’t correctly ratified are popping up in more mainstream conservative circles, he added. In addition, supremacist movements like the Creativity Movement, a white separatist organization, are growing in Montana. And it’s the job of organizations like the FRHRC to provide a forum for people to hear opposing viewpoints to such “right-wing extremism,” he said.

“It’s incredibly important work,” McAdam said. “The fundamental issues at stake are, we believe, ‘What kind of community do you want to have?’ I think it’s important for those of us who have opposing views to be talking to people as well.”

Following McAdam’s talk, audience members submitted written inquiries for him to answer — most called into question McAdam’s views that the Patriot movement and the Constitution Party are extreme right-wing movements. His responses were met by several outbursts from the audience.

In the pre-Revolutionary War era, McAdam explained, the founding fathers no longer had a way to get a redress of grievances through the government. Thus they were justified in “radical” actions like the Boston Tea Party and eventually the Revolutionary War, but McAdam said he believes that the situation in the United States today does not call for such drastic measures.

“Trying to equate that era of American history with this era of American history, I don’t agree with,” McAdam said.

Unsatisfied with his answer, one man accused McAdam of “sidestepping the issues,” which drew a chorus of “Amens” from the crowd. Another man said his own political views are in line with the founding fathers’ belief system, and asked, “What makes that radical?”

“I have no problem with anybody in this room talking about what they believe the Constitution says,” McAdam responded. “I just think all of us should have the same opportunity.”

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