And here I thought I'd gone out of my way to be fair. O8)
I didn't take the version set forth above from any one particular source. I typed it from memory, and if pressed, I couldn't begin to tell you where it all came from. Since I don't read stuff like newsmax, tho, it couldn't have come from there. :)
Am I "anti-government?" To some extent, yes. I'm ready to believe accounts like the one above, because they fit with my pre-conceptions of how government behaves when it's given too much power and not enough oversight.
I don't see how you can look at the War on Some Drugs and not become at least a little bit cynical about government and police power. I lived in San Diego when the local sheriffs decided to murder a man for his ranch. That's not just me talking, either -- the post-shooting investigation determined that the sheriffs never had any evidence of marijuana, and decided to make the raid because of the value of the property that they could confiscate.
I was personally acquainted with a woman who was a "material witness" in a corruption case down there -- the local US Attorney threatened to take away her kids if she didn't "toe the company line" in her testimony. So yeah, to a certain extent my own perceptions are colored by cynicism toward government.
But I'd be interested to hear what part of my synopsis you think is untrue. I didn't include (because I don't believe) the more wild-eyed stuff about Vicky Weaver being intentionally targeted, or Federal agents at Waco shooting at people trying to flee the burning building. I thought what I wrote was fairly well documented, but again, I'm doing this from memory. In fact, as I review it, I think I was mistaken about the Federal agent in the initial shootout with Sammy Weaver -- he was killed, not just wounded. I think. But the Federal government did pay the Weavers something like three million dollars to settle a civil suit. And I'm absolutely positive about the rules of engagement being "shoot any armed male on sight," because there was a huge stink about it. Here's one source:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9510/ruby_ridge/index.htmlAnyway, I still think you raise a good point about "hey, the Feds can't just mumble an apology and walk away," but that doesn't mean that they can't exercise better judgment in the run-up.