Jim Fulcher

The American Militia Conspiracy Novel

In the last two decades of the Twentieth Century, American militia conspiracy novels echoed but influenced militia conspiracy theories by suggesting moral commentary about them.¹ For example, in William Diehl’s Reign In Hell a Sanctuary leader in a federal prison says, “Racism is for the Klan, the Posse, the Aryans. That’s their thing. The Sanctuary is mostly separatists. We want to get out from under the government” (170). His term “racism” refers to several ideas that are believed by white supremacists; his term “separatists” refers to several ideas that are believed by those who are anti-federal government. These are two of the major conspiracy theories in the novels. Some members believe both, but some believe one or the other.

Reverend Gerbhardt in Dead Bang tells a detective that the Aryan Nation Church of Christ “embodies the nucleus of what America once was and will be again . . .”(126). He adds, “our nation is dying because it has become infected by people of low blood . . . the deterioration process is slow . . . but decidedly deadly. The process has got to be stopped” (127). Then he switches to anti-government conspiracy theory: “Many good and true Americans have been lulled into a sense of false security by a government who, for financial and political reasons, does not want the American people to know the true facts” (127). He then reverts to a white supremacist theory, saying, “The crimes, the acts of violence and torture, the perversions these lower races inflict upon the white race is part of an organized, systematic attack designed to corrupt and, eventually, eliminate white faces from this great land of ours” (127).

Another twist in the conspiracy theories appears in Reign In Hell. In this version, officials in the government are under control of external forces of evil. An informant reveals that the militia members call themselves patriotic and believed that those in the White House and Congress are traitors. Considering government officials to be traitors is conventional among militia members and white supremacists that use the term Z.O.G. or Zionist Occupational Government for the federal government. He also insists that members of Sanctuary believe that some kind of world police would in the near future “take down anybody who didn’t believe the way the government said to believe” (192).

Tom Dempsey in Blood of Patriots jumbles this anti-government theory with a supremacist theory. He thinks government officials “wanted to put the United States of America under the control of the United Nations, Jews, niggers, queers, man-hating dykes, and pope-worshipping Catholics” (269). He believes he is an American patriot but believes the federal government officials are “a cabal of power-hungry socialists” who are “trying to kiss off the Second, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. In order to keep blacks from killing themselves off, they wanted to trash the right to keep and bear arms” (269). He continues, “[B]ecause they loved to issue high-minded edicts, they poached on the rights of state and local governments” (269). He concludes, “[B]ecause they were atheistic humanists and women’s libbers who feared competition, they pursued unequal protection of the law” (269).

Part of the conspiracy theories believed by Gerbhardt, Dempsey, and the others is a notion that officials inside the federal government are working for outside forces, and that notion is taken in two ways in the novels. For some militia members, it means that federal government officials are not patriotic and cannot be trusted. So government is legitimate only at the levels of county and township, which is another version of the old state’s rights idea with perhaps the twist into the idea of county supremacy. For other militia members, it means that outside forces want federal officials to eliminate the pure Americans and to eliminate American freedom. This leads to intense opposition to federal regulation of guns, land, and abortion. The existence of federal regulations and officials to enforce them signifies a lack of control and a loss of freedom. Also, the existence of regulations and officials indicates a governmental tyranny to take away gun rights or land rights. So these officials are no longer considered Americans and the government they operate is not the government of the Constitution. Government tyranny justifies taking immediate action to resist and oppose that false or un-American government, and the immediate action taken is armed formations to protect the people and resist tyranny.

This set of conspiracy theories believed by members of militia and hate groups grows in a thicket of white supremacist ideas and anti-government ideas. In the supremacist brambles, the outside forces are usually identified as United Nations or New World Order, and the agenda of these outsiders is to advance the life and rights of non-whites. On the other hand, in the anti-government brambles the agenda of the outside and evil forces is to advance the life and rights of non-Christians. Both the Bible and the Constitution are interpreted to not only sanction but also to require armed resistance to the “false” officials and government. These Christian fundamentalists or Christian Identity believers (the two are not quite the same) want to restore the nation to a biblical government. From both brambles come the militant conclusion that immediate action is necessary and that the immediate action is armed insurrection.

Between the lines in the novels is the idea that the language used by militia and hate groups to express their conspiracy theories is deceptive. When the imprisoned Sanctuary leader contrasts the Klan and the Sanctuary, he identifies the Klan as racist and the Sanctuary as separatist. The use of “separatist” adds a trait to the group to make the group’s reality less recognizable; in other words, he is disguising the group. He claims that Sanctuary members only want to be separate from the federal government; but he forgets to mention that the Sanctuary’s chosen means to achieve separation are violent and criminal. Sanctuary robs banks, murders United States Marshals, and kills the Army soldiers in the convoy Sanctuary ambushes.

When Reverend Gerbhardt of the Aryan Nation Church of Christian in Dead Bang says his church “embodies the nucleus of what America once was,” he distracts the attention of the detective by excluding such past Americans as William Lloyd Garrison and his struggle to abolish slavery, Abraham Lincoln and his struggle to reduce the number of Sioux hanged after Little Crow’s war in Minnesota, and the Army officers who investigated and then court-martialed Colorado’s Chivington for commanding the Sand Creek massacre.

When Tom Dempsey in Blood of Patriots thinks about “hardworking, freedom-loving Americans everywhere,” his words misdirect his interest by presenting an alternative interest to a real interest. The wording implies an inclusion of those Americans in militia and hate groups who lie, steal, kill, and persecute other Americans, and his wording implies an exclusion of those American victims of militia and hate groups, victims who were working hard to pay the rent or the mortgage and to raise their children freely.

When Wilson Barnes in Chet Williamson’s Clash By Night does his radio broadcasts on behalf of The Sons of Free America, a militia group in Minnesota, he responds to a bombing of a local day-care center. He distorts facts about the bombing to insinuate that the federal government could be “involved” in the “staging” of the bombing “to smear the right-wing, conservative, and militia movements in this country” and “to discredit the Right, sacrificing ten innocent children in the process . . .”(60). After he asks—“Is the government capable of doing such a thing?”—he answers by saying, “Well, they were capable of shooting Vicki Weaver in the face when the only thing she held in her arms was her baby . . .” and “They were capable of creating a firestorm at Waco in which over twenty children died . . .” (60). His use of Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidians at Waco exhibits at least three logical fallacies, a coldly calculating mind, and a deceptive intent.

The novelists show that the deceptive nature of the language of these militia conspiracy theories is not due merely to careless or accidental choices of wording. Nor is the effect of the jargon of militia and hate groups, along with euphemisms and gobbledygook, just careless or accidental. Instead, the effect is to disguise the face of these groups, to distract the attention of witnesses, to misdirect the attention of opponents, and to obscure rather than clarify what is meant by the spokesmen of these groups.

In these militia conspiracy novels there are also some “loose ends,” which is Russell Reising’s term for the “elisions, silences, and gaps” in novels that result from a lack of fit between narrative forms and cultural conversations (19). For instance, the brutal treatment of victims by the hate and militia groups provides villains that challenge heroes. Yet a “loose” end is whether any of the concerns of militia members are legitimate. One of the novels contains a curious passage of about two pages. In Bean’s Long Shadows In Victory, the main character in the novel is a small town police chief in Wyoming. Reading an FBI file left in a state policemen’s office to provide and updated background for local authorities, the police chief thinks about how the membership of many militia groups comes from “the American farm family.” He remembers that just before the farm crisis, state and federal agricultural officials encouraged farmers to borrow too much to plant too much for the sake of a grain deal between the United States and another country. When the grain deal collapsed for political reasons of “foreign policy,” the tax officials and bank officials did not hesitate to enforce the rules and regulations. The farm crisis blew up. He comments to himself, “If you ask me, we have nobody but ourselves to blame for the growth of organizations like the Posse Comitatus. But then, nobody asked me. Guys like me are just paid to clean up the mess” (210). His reflective thoughts help characterize him, including his ironic comment about a function of law enforcement. Still, it is odd that out of all these novels there is only the two-page section in Bean’s novel about an economic and political injustice that fueled the human suffering that helped raise memberships in some militias in farm country.

Another loose end in these novels pertains to ethical questions. A novel, Martha Nussbaum, says “gets its readers involved with the characters, caring about their projects, their hopes and fears, participating in their attempts to unravel the mysteries and perplexities of their lives” (31). A loose end about an attempt by characters “to unravel the mysteries and perplexities of their lives” is the flawed attempts by Reverend Gerbhardt, Wilson Barnes, Tom Dempsey, and Joshua Engstrom to develop a justification about a particular moral issue. The issue, outside of these novels, is traditionally called the ethical problem of “just war” and consists of two major issues. The first is whether going to war is just, and the second is what is just during a war. In the first issue, traditional topics include whether the cause or the purpose of a specific war is just, whether the costs and benefits of going to war are more valuable than those of an alternative, such as the use of a boycott, and whether the ultimate intention of going to war is justified. In the second issue, the traditional topics are whether the degree of necessary force used is proportionate and whether judgments rightly discriminate between noncombatants and combatants (and military and nonmilitary targets). This whole line of argument about the problem of “just war” is already included in the American cultural conversation. It is obvious that voices from news reports, magazine articles, and bestselling books focus these issues and topics of “just war” on such subjects as the Nuremberg trials, the Korean “police action,” and American covert operations from Laos and Vietnam through El Salvador and Guatemala.

Loosely based on the “just war” argument, militia leaders and spokesmen, such as Gerbhardt, Barnes, and Engstrom, offer the claim that militia activities are morally justified. First, the militias are engaged in a war with ZOG. A second claim is that the destruction of ZOG and the restoration of the freedom of real Americans are worth more than the injuries or deaths of a few innocent people. A third claim is that the militia violence is self-defense and defense of those oppressed by ZOG.

The novelists refute the militia justifications. By conventional definitions in this culture, war is a state of open, declared, armed, and hostile conflict between nations or states. Although by definition no militia group can authorize a war, militia groups can use terrorism. Again, without even bothering with technical definitions, most conventional definitions in this culture hold that terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion, and that a “reign of terror” consists of violence committed by a group or groups in order to intimidate a population or a government into granting the demands of the group or groups. Thus, the first claim of militia leaders—that they are engaged in a war with ZOG—is mistaken, and as a matter of definition and fact they are engaged in terrorist activities. Indeed, the milita activities are not acts of war but are instead acts of crime. Even if militia violence were considered as acts of war, militia violence is not proportionate and is excessive. Nor does militia violence usually discriminate between combatants and noncombatants or between military and nonmilitary targets.

The use of violent rebellion against government policies is not justified in the novels since there is little evidence that militia leaders weighed and judged the costs and benefits of both violent and non-violent means, such as boycotts, elections, and lawsuits. Thirdly, the purpose of the militia violence is not justified in the United States (remember the insistence by militia leaders and members that they are American Christian Patriots) since those purposes (revocation of the Bill of Rights and other Constitutional amendments as well as elimination of opponents and critics) are both undemocratic and illegal. Fourthly, the development of their purposes and methods is not by rational discussion and persuasion but is instead by intimidation, including both violence and deceptive conspiracy theories. Thus, the novelists reject militia attempts to justify their activities as “just war.”

Even so, these popular novels collectively achieve two tasks of a pragmatic aesthetics. One task is to construct a coherent narrative form about militia conspiracies, and the other is to construct a coherent ethical critique of militia conspiracy theories. A coherent narrative form makes sense of the incidents and characters, and a coherent ethical critique makes sense of the values and judgments implied by the incidents and characters. The novels dramatize militia members and leaders, especially their habitual behavior about right or wrong and good or bad; the novels also imply an ethical critique by novelists about living by the ideas of the militia conspiracy theories. For instance, in the novels, habitual actions by militia members and leaders exhibit vices associated with fanaticism. In particular, militia groups generate and intensify a closed-minded approach that is negative, especially for contemporary philosophic pragmatists. In Practicing Philosophy, Richard Shusterman mentions that close-minded people violate several ethical concepts most pragmatists advocate (100-1). One is a conception of William James and John Dewey that personal improvement is partly contingent on free inquiry in an open community. Another is a concept of such pragmatists as Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, John Dewey, Cornel West, and Richard Rorty. It is the belief that the existence of diverse voices, values and ends in a democratic society is valuable because an individual discovers or creates a distinctive self by addressing the contrasts and the connections with other individuals in a democratic society. Still another concept is articulated by Richard J. Bernstein in “Community in the Pragmatic Tradition.” He says that for pragmatists in general and John Dewey in particular social conflicts provoke philosophic reflection and that in the search for resolutions to social conflicts, intelligent deliberation and reasonable debate are valuable (154). Thus, Bernstein suggests that pragmatists tend to reject absolutism. The habitual practice of intimidation by violence and deception by militia leaders clearly violates the concept of addressing social conflicts with intelligent deliberation and reasonable debate.

Robert L. Holmes articulates yet another concept believed by many contemporary pragmatists. He proposes “that our obligation in particular situations is not to change the external world . . . [but] is rather to try to do so, and to try as carefully and responsibly as possible . . .” (210). He adds that trying to change the external world affects the internal aspects of people, fostering “self-absorption, mistrust, selfishness, greed, envy, insensitivity, and violence” or fostering “respect, consideration, caring, compassion, and non violence” (211). There is no question that the militia groups are trying to change the external world. Nor is it contestable that militia methods foster “mistrust” or “insensitivity and violence.” A related concept of contemporary pragmatists is that a good community, as Richard Rorty says, is “one whose ideals can be fulfilled by persuasion rather than force, by reform rather than revolution, by the free and open encounters of present linguistic and other practices with suggestions for new practices” (60). Many contemporary pragmatists also hold a concept of deliberation, particularly moral deliberation, that is at odds with militia activities. An example Is Hugh LaFollette, who says about moral deliberation that “having a variety of habits is a crucial element of moral deliberation; it increases our ability to think about problems in different ways” (9). He emphasizes, “Deliberating about what is best to do in the circumstances is done better by thinking about the situation from multiple points of view,” which increases the likelihood that misguided solutions will be tested in the area of ideas (17). Obviously, these conceptions by philosophic pragmatists are violated in the novels by militia groups with their violent, arrogant, fanatic insistence that only they know what is true and valuable.

Going beyond contemporary pragmatists, the novelists clearly show that the use by militia members of half-truths, euphemisms, exaggerations, and other doublespeak more than suggests a depth and breadth of deceit that is consistent with fanaticism. The presence of sincere commitment in Reverend Gerbhard and Joshua Engstrom characterizes them as much as the absence in them of honest examination of all sides of issues. Ruthless towards enemies, these men consider their enemies as less than human. They see their enemies and their opponents as representatives of the Zionist Occupation Government or as animals without souls. Nor are their enemies restricted to members of minority groups. For Dempsey or Engstrom the enemy, who is a white American woman or man, is a “race traitor” or a ZOG puppet.

The novelists also depict militia members taking their obligations more than seriously. Instead of the multiple obligations (self, family, neighborhood, nation, occupation, religion) that most human beings try to perform, the militia members advocate one obligation. For some militia members, the supreme and unifying obligation is racial, as in the case of white supremacist groups. For other militia members, the absolute obligation is patriotic, as in the case of those who believe in the anti-federal government ideas.

For other members, the fundamental obligation is religious, as is the case with those who identify with the Christian Identity movement. There are, of course, some militia members in the novels who merely jumble these three kinds of obligations together or simply confuse one with another. The point to remember, however, is that a militia member’s obligations operate within the constraints of a particular conspiracy theory believed by a member. Also, since a militia member’s obligations are supported by deceptive conspiracy theories that function as worldviews, in these novels a militia member’s obligations are performed in ruthless, fanatic ways. To put this another way, militia members consider sincerity and loyalty as moral virtues. Yet this suggests that a simple admiration of sincerity or loyalty takes on a whole new dimension of meaning, considering that such admiration may motivate a member of a fictional Christian Patriot group to assassinate a federal judge or murder an informant who lives across the street.

In addition, the novelists show that the consequences for living one’s life on the basis of militia conspiracy theories are devastating. As the plots of the novels move towards the resolutions of conflicts, the militia members are less and less likely to consider alternatives, question assumptions, or assess objectives. Thus, the novels show an evolution of belief in militia conspiracy theories that becomes an extinction of critical thinking. Whether Wilson Barnes and Brother Abraham are doing radio broadcasts to express the views of militias or Engstrom and Dempsey are conducting paramilitary activities, this lack of critical thinking or intellectual honesty fits with the habit of giving more priority to sincere commitment than to honest examination.

As a type of American political conspiracy novel, in the last two decades the militia conspiracy novel echoes and influences the cultural conversation about conspiracy. It is not just that the novels portray people who successfully overcome the hate, deception, and violence of the militia groups. It is also that the novels dramatize an ethical critique of living by and for militia conspiracy theories.

Jim Fulcher

Humanities Division

Lincoln College

Lincoln, IL 62656

¹ In addition to the cited novels, other American militia conspiracy novels include the following:

Burke, James Lee. A Stained White Radiance. New York : Avon, 1992.

Goddard, Ken. Double Blind. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1997.

MacDonald, John D. The Green Ripper. New York: Ballantine, 1979.

Morrell, David. Testament. New York: Warner, 1975.

Parker, Robert. B. Night Passage. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1997.

Ryan, Charles. Code Black. New York: Avon, 1997.

Smith, Jr., James V. Force Recon. New York: Avon, 1997.

Truman, Margaret. Murder At Foggy Bottom. New York: Random House, 2000.

Woods, Stuart. Grass Roots. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.

Works Cited

Abercrombie, Neil, and Richard Hoyt. Blood of Patriots. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1996.

Bean, Gregory. Long Shadows in Victory. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.

Bernstein, Richard J. “Community in the Pragmatic Tradition.” The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays On Social Thought, Law, and Culture. Ed. Morris Dickstein. Durham: Duke UP, 1998, 141-156.

Diehl, William. Reign In Hell. New York: Ballantine, 1997.

Holmes, Robert L. Basic Moral Philosophy. Second Edition. Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 1998.

LaFollette, Hugh. “Pragmatic Ethics.” 1 May 2001. www.estu.edu/philos/faculty/hugh/pragmati.htm.

Naha, Ed. Dead Bang. New York: Berkley, 1989.

Nussbaum, Martha. Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Boston: Beacon, 1995.

Reising, Russell. Loose Ends: Closure and Crisis in the American Social Text. Durham: Duke UP, 1996.

Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.

Shusterman, Richard. Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life. New York: Routledge, 1997.