I think militias are an overblown echo from the early 90's. Groups were fairly serious in the early 90's and emboldened by shitty authoritarian actions by the Federal government (as fucked as a person as Randy Weaver was, the government had no right to do what it did, and they paid a settlement because of it - keep in mind, that was under Bush and not Clinton - something which is not necessarily insignificant). I feel like the Waco ordeal was massively overblown by both the federal government as well as the media talking heads, but there was certainly not really any reverberation through the militia crowds. No Linda Thompsons calling for armed marches on Washington to arrest congress like there was in the first year of Clinton's presidency. I can't even think of a time I heard that during Obama's presidency. Also, those original leaders are all getting old now. Bo Gritz is ancient, the only thing he'll be leading offensives into are crates of Metamucil. Not to mention the divergence into crazy religious extremism.

Americans reaction to 9/11 was mostly out of naivety to how the world works and the US governments dealings across the globe. I remember having an understanding immediately when I saw the first still picture of the towers burning that it was fundamentalist terrorism, and we were going to be doing exactly the wrong things to combat it. And we did.

I was thinking about this the other day. Think about if Bush would have spent all that money on rebuilding America's infrastructure, education and election systems, instead of wasting it on a war on terror. He'd have one hell of a legacy for a conservative POTUS. But that was to not be the case.