As one alternate juror put it, "I felt like a little kid that finds out there is no Santa Claus."  This was the remark of one citizen who observed testimony and other evidence arising from the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident, in which an innocent woman and her 14-year-old son were ambushed and gunned down by federal agents over what was, at worst, a minor infraction that could easily have been remedied without violence.  Then, in the following year, the Waco incident proved, once again, that there is no government Santa Claus.  Seventy-six men, women, and children were killed in a fire started by the improper use of tear gas by federal agents after four of the agents were killed trying to gain forced entry to the building housing the targeted cult members.  Yet the cult leader could easily have been arrested in prior days, when he had voluntarily visited the federal office to which he had been summoned. Years later, I am finding the same childlike reaction...(Read Full Post)