Posse Comitatus

Posse Comitatus

In the 1980s, the Posse Comitatus spread its conspiracy-minded antigovernment as well as antisemitic message inward the cite of white, Christian, males to counter what they saw every bit attacks on their rights.

Concentrated inward 18 states, arching from the Southwest, upward the Pacific Coast through the Rocky Mountain region, as well as into the Midwest, the organization sought to decentralize all authorities to a higher identify the county level. Their message resonated strongly inward economically stressed rural areas of the U.S. of A. of America as well as their rhetoric as well as ideology continued to learn Christian Patriots into the twenty-first century.

The electrical current Posse motion started inward the belatedly 1960s. William Porter Gale helped organize the Posse Comitatus—Latin for “power to the county”—on the regulation of local governmental say-so at the county degree as well as elimination of federal authority. Gale argued that the local sheriff constituted the supreme law of the county as well as should endure the simply recognized law.


Henry Lamont “Mike” Beach of Portland, Oregon, to a greater extent than or less other early on Posse provocateur, echoed Gale’s message as well as helped the motion spread throughout the West, from Mariposa County, California, to Bonner County, Idaho. By 1976, the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated the motion to convey betwixt 12,000 as well as 50,000 members.

For the Posse Comitatus, political evil manifested itself inward 3 areas: corruption of the nation’s government, perversion of the fiscal system, as well as degradation of Christian beliefs. First, republic had usurped the founding framers’ republican shape of authorities inward the United States.

Believers argued that the rabble similar a shot ruled governmental decisions, robbing “Freemen characters” of their God-given rights. Accordingly, the Posse attempted to restore vested ability of authorities into local hands amongst the approbation of the supreme law of the land, the Constitution.

Two actions, according to the Posse, corrupted the national authorities as well as granted it unlawful supreme power. First, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution allegedly created an alone novel shape of citizens to bring together those so-called Freemen characters who had ever had rights.

Racial as well as cultural minorities, every bit good every bit women of all ethnicities, had similar a shot gained rights from the authorities every bit “federal citizens,” dissimilar “Freemen” who had received their rights from God. The Fourteenth Amendment, they thought, had thence undermined the master intent of the Constitution.

The instant setback had supposedly come upward amongst the expansion of authorities during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Roosevelt administration, Posse conspiracists said, attempted to destination the distinction betwixt “federal citizens” as well as “Freemen” yesteryear eliminating the natural rights of the “Freemen.”

In companionship to cause “Freemen characters” to surrender their God-given rights, the governmental cabal plotted methods for citizens to unknowingly sign away their rights yesteryear applying for a hunting license, social security, or fifty-fifty a depository fiscal establishment account. Participation inward these authorities programs, according to Posse ideology, must stay voluntary, amongst simply the local sheriff enforcing the law on white Christian men.

The Posse besides developed potent ties to the Christian Identity movement. Followers of Christian Identity believe that they are the truthful Israelites, the chosen of God. The Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Germanic, as well as other northern Europeans reportedly migrated to their homeland from Israel. Some subsequently moved to the truthful holy land, the United States. Conversely, the motion stated, Jews sought to assist Satan destroy earthly civilization.

Therefore, according to the movement, to keep civilization, whites must band together to motion out the evil forces of Satan consisting of the Jews, minorities, as well as nonbelievers. The Jewish faith has purportedly undermined white citizens’ rights yesteryear producing the Federal Reserve banking scheme as well as the Internal Revenue Service.

By 1974, the Posse’s rhetoric extended from the West Coast into the Midwest, where a local Wisconsin Posse kidnapped an Internal Revenue Service agent, held him for several hours, as well as assaulted him.

The next year, an Illinois Posse fellow member earned a contempt accuse during a divorce hearing for refusing to admit the court. In San Joaquin County, California, the Posse attempted to preclude organizers from the United Farm Workers from speaking to laborers.

Richard Butler, subsequently of the Aryan Nations, as well as his Posse tried to arrest a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, constabulary officeholder who was testifying inward courtroom on an onslaught accuse against a Posse member. In Stanfield, Oregon, a Posse armed amongst dogs as well as guns attempted to appropriate a large wheat as well as Irish Gaelic patato farm to settle a dry reason dispute.

The unlawful role of County Sheriffs every bit LACKEYS of the Courts should endure discontinued at once. There is no lawfull [sic] authority, for Judges as well as the Courts to straight the law enforcement activities of a County Sheriff. The Sheriff is accountable as well as responsible simply to the citizens who are the inhabitants of his County.

The literature of the Posse Comitatus exhorted beau “Patriots” to create their duty against those who “destroy our freedoms as well as mak[e] us serfs of a ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT, ruled yesteryear the ANTI-CHRIST.”

In the belatedly 1970s, the Posse Comitatus motion tapped rural America for membership. Between 1983 as well as 1990 at to the lowest degree 500,000 people had their farms foreclosed each year. The economical hardship provided an chance to recruit from an audience disenchanted amongst the electrical current system.

In the mid-1980s, Posse members reacted to the increasing surveillance yesteryear the government. In Feb 1983, Gordon Kahl resisted receipt of a warrant for outstanding taxes as well as shot ii federal agents exterior Medina, North Dakota.

While Kahl escaped the initial gunfight, authorities killed him when he resisted arrest after a nationwide manhunt. Twenty months later, Arthur Kirk engaged the highway patrol SWAT squad exterior Grand Island, Nebraska. Authorities shot Kirk during the gunfight.

In the wake of media coverage of these as well as other such vehement events, the Posse broke into secretive cells, next Louis Beam’s “leaderless resistance” model. The Posse’s rhetoric for decentralization, local government, economical reform, as well as religious beliefs, however, continued to encourage like-minded groups inward the evolution of their ain movements.