Waco Thoughts

September 30, 2006, Austin TX.  Carrabba's Italian Grill

            30 day's has September, yada yada whatever.  That rhyme is rendered useless by the ability to easily rhyme the wrong months - "30 days has September, March, July, and December."  Eh??  No they don't, dumbass!  But the rhyme works, at least in part, one day out of every year; today.  The other 364 days of the year you use the knuckle counting thing.  My mom will show you if you don't know it, it's 100 times better than that stupid rhyme. 

            Today I rode through Waco, Texas.  Unless you had a previous affiliation with that place you only think of one thing when you hear it; David Koresh and the Branch Davidians.  I'm a little slow on some things but one thing struck me today, 12-15 years after that fiery day.  David Koresh, the Branch Davidians??  What a pompous ass.  He just named the whole damn tribe after his first name.  To his credit, it sounds better than: "I'm the chosen one - give me your money and let me have sex with your wives; hey, what's that burning smell?" 

            So how about The Branch Dougians; that'll go nowhere.  But my dad's name is Waldemar and who wouldn't want to be a Branch Waldemarian??  That would look cool on a t-shirt and his only requirement would be to learn Flight Simulator and try to land at all the airports that I've ridden by on my motorcycle.  That's easier than giving up your wives and money.  Okay, it's easier than giving up your money. 

            Those are helmet thoughts.  It's 95 degrees, I'm wearing a black helmet and I'm needing to pull over for a water break.  After re-hydrating I reflect on some other Waco thoughts.  Some folks use Waco and Ruby Ridge as examples of how the FBI and Federal Gov. are clearly out to get us and that's why we need to arm ourselves against a potential onslaught of government bad guys.  Look - I agree with the right to keep and bear arms but use better examples, okay?  I can only remember two recent situations where US citizens tried to out-gun the US government.  Waco and Ruby Ridge. 

            There's a mountain of evidence that the Fed's made many bad decisions at Waco and tried to cover up those bad decisions by worse ones and many people died as a result.  I'm less familiar with the whole Ruby Ridge thing but I hear it was similar in some ways.  But the Feds don't always screw it all up and as far as I can tell they're not out to get us.

            What about Elian Gonzalez.  We were in for a huge mess when we let 'Little Havana', Miami Florida, keep that kid for more than a couple of days.  Eventually the ATF, the Feds, went in after the kid.  They took little Elian Gonzalez in the middle of the night.  The media focused on a single picture of an ATF agent appearing to point a gun at little Elian.  What's my point?  The ATF went into an extremely volatile situation in 'Little Havana' to send Elian back to Cuba [we could debate the merits of returning Elian to Cuba for hours but it was the right thing to do.  It should have been done immediately when it was clear his father wanted him back, then we would've avoided that potentially deadly situation]. 

            They did it without a single injury or shot being fired.  'Mission Accomplished', for real this time.  So maybe we could admit that the Fed's did a good job on that project?  And I'm only talking about the single action of safely extracting little Elian, not the whole situation which was run so poorly that it was a bit of a miracle that it concluded without violence.  Everything but the extraction of little Elian was a complete and total train wreck .  But imagine how much worse that situation would have been if people were killed or even injured during that extraction; it would be seen by many as another Waco or Ruby Ridge.

            I'm not an anti or pro Fed guy, I just like to see the whole picture and try to remain objective.  That's all I've got to say 'bout that.  Tomorrow I'm off to Laredo, Texas.