Freemen Spurn Carrot, Face Stick

The FBI has learned what Garfield County (Mont.) Attorney Nick Murnion knew all along about Montana’s lawless freemen: “These people are just impossible.”

In other words, you can’t talk sense to these Constitution manglers who recognize no authority or law but themselves.

The FBI has tried.

Agents and Montana officials, backed by behavioral science experts, have talked themselves blue trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the seven-week standoff near Jordan, Mont. The FBI has offered to reduce charges against some of the approximately 18 freemen in exchange for their surrender. The agency even allowed Bo Gritz, the ultraconservative Vietnam War hero who talked Randy Weaver off Ruby Ridge, to have a crack at them.

Nothing has worked.

The freemen, in fact, act as if they’re in charge of the standoff. Now, they’re demanding a hearing before the Montana Legislature. As suspects charged with threatening public officials and writing about $2 million worth of bad checks and money orders, the freemen deserve no other hearing than one before a judge - in handcuffs.

It’s time to clean out this rat’s nest - with force, if necessary. The law-abiding farmer who purchased the freemen’s 960-acre “Justus Township” compound has a right to plant his crop and earn a peaceful living.

Commendably, the FBI approached the freemen standoff cautiously after the federal law enforcement snafus at Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas. The agency was drawn into the standoff only after angry Jordan residents began organizing an armed posse to settle the matter themselves.

The FBI doesn’t want another batch of religious or political martyrs on its hands, another round of congressional hearings or another made-for-TV show portraying its agents as the bad guys. But as long as it doesn’t shoot an unarmed mother holding a baby or torch dozens of children, it shouldn’t worry about those things.

At last count, there are more than 800 anti-government “patriot” groups nationwide, including white supremacists, neo-Nazis, common-law freemen and paramilitary militias. If the FBI allows itself to be immobilized by mistakes of the past, it will find itself host to the media at checkpoints throughout the country every time some kooks draw a line in the sand.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board