The Man Behind The Curtain
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

As I write the world is holding its breath, waiting to see what will happen with young Elian. The talk radio pundits are predicting another Waco, that Saint Reno (whom one friend refers to as Attorney General Janet Nero) will break her way through the human barricade with another round of Saint Elmo's fire. Though I'm not sure what will happen, I don't believe there will be a deadly showdown. I believe it won't happen because the man behind the curtain is essentially impotent. There are too many strings being pulled in too many directions for the wizard to exercise much real power. The president tells us that he wants the rule of law upheld. (He picked a fine time to stand up for the rule of law. I guess he thinks it should be upheld, unless someone really, really needs to get the mud out on his accusers. But that's another story.) But the President also wants to bring home the Cuban vote for Gore (thus the carefully timed "defection" by Gore on this issue). He also doesn't want as his legacy the kind of newsreels that make Bull Connor live in infamy. Janet's done the frontal assault twice already and though she looks none the worse for the wear (how could she?), she doesn't look any better.

I've said it before and I'll say it again- the feds are just a bunch of frightened bullies. Sure they rattle swords. They can thunder like the great and terrible Oz. They can drive us to our knees with all their gas and explosions, but in the end it's just smoke and mirrors. Like the bully, they can terrorize all except those who will not fear them. What they fear is not power, but those who will fear them no more.

As wicked and tyrannical as our federal government is, even I never went in for that moral equivalency nonsense back in the 80's. The Soviet Union was, as President Reagan described it, the true evil empire. We were, and are, in comparison, merely the very, very, very bad empire. They kept their people penned up behind barbed wire. They turned their churches into museums. They practiced their deadly arts in Lubyanka. They held an iron grip on their nation, and the nations'around them. Until what? Until a bigger bully came to town? Until barbarian hordes came and swallowed them up? No, until people said that they'd had enough, the very people who had lived for nearly two generations under the supposedly all-powerful propaganda machine of the state. All it took was some marching in the streets, and an empty treasury back in Moscow, and the wall came tumbling down. They showed themselves to be what they had always been, a paper tiger.

If the Soviet Union was such a paper tiger, what is Washington but a paper bobcat? Sure, they can cause some real havoc. They'll scratch the heck out of your ankles, and maybe kill a few of your chickens. But they will run off with their tail between their legs, if we will but stand. Take gun control. They make it tougher and tougher for a man to defend his family. They nip at our heels with new legislation every time their old legislation fails to protect someone. But they do not and will not make it impossible. There will never come a day here when the feds will take our guns away. How can I be so sure? Because those of us who have guns are not the kind of people a bully wants to pick on. They won't come for the guns because they know that if they do they'll go home in a bag.

Back in 1994, when they came for us homeschoolers, seeking to pass into law HR6, a vicious bill requiring that only teachers licensed by the state be allowed to teach children, we sent them packing with a simple barrage of faxes, emails and letters. The homeschooling community raised such a fuss as has never before been raised, or since. The one illicit bill still holds the record for eliciting the most grass roots response. And they've never come back. Do they want our children? Of course they do, but not enough to tangle with some pretty ferocious papa and mama-bears.

I'm not saying they're not dangerous. They are, terribly so. They did burn down Waco, with all the world watching. I'm not saying they can do us no harm (though of course, ultimately they cannot, for the heart of the king is in the hand of God). I am saying it is not true that in order for us to get the beast off our collective back that we must acquire weapons and soldiers, or even voting blocs, the equal of the armed forces. I am suggesting that we need no weapons at all. If a small group of stoned hippies could stop a war, there's no telling what we would do.

All we need is a nation of Bartleby's, free men who prefer not to swallow the propaganda of the state. All we need is a governor or two who will simply declare that there will be no more babies killed in his state. All we need is a few thousand county sheriffs who will send the feds packing when they enter into the wrong jurisdiction, a few more mayors willing to tell the INS that it may not have any more six-year olds yearning to be free. All we need is a few more judges like judge Roy Moore, who are willing to stand with the law of God against the laws of the godless. All we need is a few thousand churches and Christians who refuse to bow the knee to Caesar, and all Caesar's enemies will know that he is impotent. In short, all it takes for freedom to be regained is for, men to do something, or a little dog to pull back the curtain.