United by Hate: Patriots Share Rage Against Government

The Patriot movement is a potpourri of the American right, from members of the Christian Coalition to the Ku Klux Klan -- people united by their hatred of the federal government.

Patriots come from all regions of the country and all walks of life. Among them are real estate agents, preachers, commodities traders, elk ranchers, electricians, and retired military officers. They include tax protesters, millennialists, survivalists, Populists, freemen, constitutionalists, neo-Nazis, Skinheads, Klansmen, Identity believers, Christian Reconstructionists, secessionists, militant abortion foes, radical anti-environmentalists, and gun enthusiasts.

They all share a few characteristics: they are overwhelmingly white, almost entirely Christian, and predominantly male. And they are bitterly disappointed in what America has become.

They express their disappointment in a variety of ways. They might study the Articles of Confederation, practice wilderness survival skills, school their children at home, refuse to pay income taxes, collect weapons, or practice guerrilla warfare. They are voracious readers who use mail ordered books and Internet discussions to immerse themselves in arcane theology, conspiracy theories, explosives chemistry or common law.

Many consider themselves ordinary citizens disillusioned with big government. David Darby is a 49-year-old former electrical engineer who restores old Jaguars and is concerned that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will rob Americans of jobs. Like most Patriots, he is "fed up" with a federal government that "is slowly taking to take away our Second Amendment, the right to bear arms." Darby says he pays his taxes and has no criminal record, but in 1994 he began forming an armed militia group in Clark County, Wash.

Some Patriots are filled with nostalgia for the early days of the American nation. They believe the unwieldy federal government of today has abandoned the ideals of its original founders. Denis Johnson, who moved to a cabin in the Canadian Yukon "to live again for a while out from under authority," understood the hearts of many Patriots when he wrote in Esquire, "This isn't the United States I was taught about in school, and it's not the one the founding fathers founded." The framers of the Constitution meant to secure individual liberties, Johnson wrote, but something has gone wrong. "Many of us are troubled that somewhere, somehow, the system meant to keep us free has experienced a failure."

Something for Everyone

Whatever impulse drives its followers, the Patriot movement makes them welcome. For the isolated and aimless, it offers a sense of mission and a host of allies. For those who view themselves as victims of a particular injustice, the movement offers an expansive, faceless enemy -- the best kind of scapegoat. For gun fans, the militia arm of the Patriot movement offers the company of other gun-lovers and an opportunity to train with their weapons.

Some are driven to the Patriot movement by religious fervor. Those whose faith is focused on the millennium (when Christ will supposedly return to gather up believers as the world is destroyed) join the Patriot movement to be prepared for the final battle between good and evil.

Some are driven equally by racism, religion and resentments against the government. August Kreis, an unemployed Vietnam-era veteran, became a Klan member in the late 1970s when he saw his hometown of Newark, NJ., growing increasingly black. Today, it is no longer racial integration that Kreis fears; it is the federal government and the Jews he believes control it.

Now Kreis is an Identity minister who hopes to make his home of Potter County, Penn., an Aryan homeland with the help of The Messiah's Militia, a group of men and women who live on his rural compound. Kreis leads them in worship and in weapons training and insists that if federal agents ever come for him, "It won't be like Waco. They won't have to wonder about who shot first. It will be us."

Driven by Fear

Many Patriots have grown so deeply distrustful of government and disillusioned with the political process that they believe their very survival will depend on their ability to defeat the government in an armed conflict. They have heard elaborate stories about the government's plans to subjugate its people and are terrified that the stories might be true.

Mike Howse, 42, owns an auto body repair shop and serves as unit commander of a local militia in Fort Bragg, Calif. He is concerned about the 300,000 United Nations troops he believes are stationed in the U.S., "and how easily they could be used by a government gone tyrannical to disarm the people."

Michael Cross, a 28-year-old insurance salesman, founded a local militia group in Salem, Ore. "It's my fear of the unknown that is driving me on this," he says. "All of these sources of information are pointing in the general direction of totalitarian government."

The novice Patriot may first approach the movement with caution, attending a public meeting on local land rights, for example, browsing a survivalist expo, or monitoring an Internet newsgroup discussion on Second Amendment rights. As soon as he enters the Patriot world, whatever grievances he brought with him are quickly multiplied. He finds that thousands of others share his exact concerns, and he discovers a whole litany of other, seemingly related, grievances, that point to a much greater conspiracy than he had imagined.

Hungry for explanations and evidence, he may subscribe to a Patriot publication, tune in to a shortwave radio broadcast, or order videotapes and books from Patriot catalogues where he is then introduced to even more complex and terrifying tales of the dangers American people face at the hands of their own government.

Finding his fears justified, the new Patriot soon discovers that it is only among others who are equally paranoid that he obtains solace. The Patriot movement tells him that paranoia is a reasonable response to a treacherous world and that he is not alone. The movement becomes his island of imagined sanity and safety in a life filled with fear.