Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Really? Overthrow the .gov? Couldn’t they at least wait until after November to see how it shook out?

LUDOWICI, Ga. (AP) — Four Army soldiers based in southeast Georgia killed a former comrade and his girlfriend to protect an anarchist militia group they formed that stockpiled assault weapons and plotted a range of anti-government attacks, prosecutors told a judge Monday.

Prosecutors in rural Long County, near the sprawling Army post Fort Stewart, said the militia group composed of active duty and former U.S. military members spent at least $87,000 buying guns and bomb components and was serious enough to kill two people — former soldier Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York — by shooting them in the woods last December in order to keep its plans secret.

Well, they turned out to be more serious than 99% of the self-appointed ‘militia’s out there…they actually killed someone.

You know, I live in the heart of ‘anti-government extremist’ country. I’ve met the guys at the Militia Of Montana, I’ve met Randy Weaver, and I’ve met a lot of people who have the most fascinating basements and garages you will ever see, and I’ve read the literature, seen the movies and heard the speeches. My conclusion? These guys were not going to achieve their goals with $87,000 worth of ‘assault rifles’ and training camp. They would have had a better chance, several orders of magnitude better, if they had taken that $87k and bought themselves an election. Pick a personable, likeable, photogenic, squeaky clean guy who is on the same wavelength as they are and run him for political office. Then, once he’s in, work on getting him higher and higher up the food chain. It’s low risk, high reward.

Now I’m not saying you can’t change the direction of a national government through attrition…most countries in Africa hold their elections to the sound of gunfire and screaming…but when you get into First World countries the whole ‘we are here to liberate this country in the name of the people…’ nonsense just won’t fly. It’s hard finding a hundred guys who believe in something so strongly that they’ll give up everything they’ve built, including their lives, to storm the halls of power at gunpoint. But you can easily find a hundred thousand people who will fork over ten bucks to achieve a similar end result (the end result being change of government). Even way back during the American Revolution, if you look closely, you’ll see that money was a big, big part of making it a success.

I think you’re far more likely to achieve your political aims through greenbacks rather than black rifles, but thats’s just me. Sure, maybe someday it’ll come to that…but I doubt it very highly.

And, as the saying goes, ‘three can keep a secret if two of them is dead’. Forming your own super-secret armed ‘committe of freedom’ is just not going to work in an age when no one can keep their mouth shut. Oh, you may think to yourself “Ha, you’re wrong! Me and my cadre have been active for several years and we’ve never had a problem!” Fair enough. But when you and your buddies move on to actually, you know, doing stuff and one of you gets caught…well, I’m pretty sure group cohesiveness will plummet as everyone scrambles to be the first to take the deal the .gov will be offering to the first one to turn on his ‘comrades’.