Running With The Wrong Crowd

Tue., Aug. 2, 1994

D.F. Oliveria For The Editorial

Two well-known Idaho conservatives and a Veterans of Foreign Wars post have voted with their feet against North Idaho’s fledgling patriot movement.

Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa and former Republican legislator Ron Vieselmeyer did so by canceling appearances last weekend at a Concerned Citizens of Idaho meeting. They were spooked by the organization’s ties to Militia In Montana, a group led by white separatists.

Conservatives who might be attracted to the patriots’ antigovernment message, spiced with tales of Waco and Weaver, should do likewise or at least use caution.

Ultraconservative, or ultraliberal organizations for that matter, gain credibility when mainstream politicians and supporters appear at their picnics and meetings. But such an association can come back to haunt the uninformed.

Ask Washington state Rep. Steve Fuhrman, R-Kettle Falls, and Ralph Gines, a Republican candidate for Idaho auditor.

In November 1989, Fuhrman, a feed store owner, accepted a customer’s invitation to introduce a Colorado minister at a Colville public meeting. The speaker was Pete Peters, a self-styled Christian Identity minister who ranted for 90 minutes against Jewish people and other races.

Fuhrman later issued an apology in the form of a letter to The Spokesman-Review, which said: “I definitely made a mistake on this one.”

Gines shared many of the conservative values of the Unification Church’s American Freedom Coalition; so, he saw nothing wrong in 1988 with joining the board of the Idaho chapter. He resigned the position four years later, and now that he’s a statewide candidate, is having difficulty explaining why he was associated with a group that advocates a Unification Church-controlled government.

On the surface, Concerned Citizens of Idaho shares a concern with many conservatives that government has grown into an unwieldy and heavy-handed monster that is trampling individual and states’ rights. The kookiness lurks beneath the surface.

In recent meetings, for example, the patriot gathering heard from John Trochmann, organizer of Militia In Montana, who once spoke at the Aryan Nations Church in Hayden Lake and advocates formation of “a domestic army to fight the government.”

Organizations are like individuals. You can know them by the company they keep.

Local journalism is essential.

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