The Michigan Militia has been a controversial group since its foundation in 1994.  A man by the name of Norm Olson is pegged as the creator of the militia.  He created the radical right wing group in response to the federal governments involvement in Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.  In both cases the federal government intervened, to the point of lethal force, with the affairs of groups of radicals.  Norm Olson’s creation of the militia therefore might be described as fighting fire with fire, its an obvious American solution to problems with the government.

What is interesting about the Michigan Militia is its duality.  In one sense they oppose the big government commonly associated with the democrats, and more specifically the liberal gun policy.  On the other hand they are gun-slinging patriots who tend to think terrorists will have the capacity to invade the united states and somehow penetrate all the way to Michigan, in which case the militia will be ready to have at them!  So in some sense they are citizens who claim they would sacrifice it all for the government.  In another sense they are citizens who, if the government came to town, would sacrifice it all. 

What we have here are confused Americans.  Unfortunately ignorance is a modern American trend. These folks in the militia have a valuable service to the United States.  They serve as one end of a figurative hammock support, lets say the right side.  It is our friends in the militia who keep us swinging, relaxed in the middle of the hammock, just as much as say the citizens of San Francisco keep us balanced on the other end.  The men and women of the Michigan Militia handle the dirty business of protecting the second amendment without most of our knowledge.  You see by being a radical and being vocal they have the ability to be heard by the government, even if their numbers are small.

 Most American citizens might never consider gun control laws an issue other than on TV or in the city,  yet some of those same citizens would be upset if strict gun control laws went into effect.  Here is the necessity of radical groups like the Michigan Militia, they serve to establish a definable right wing philosophy that CAN be defined as radical and therefore the limit of reasonable thought in our American political spectrum.  By this logic I will agree that any left-wing radical groups serve just as important a service to all our combined sense of sanity.

It is practically useless to try and persuade someone of radical beliefs, like members of the Michigan Militia, that another viewpoint has positive sides let alone might be correct. For this reason we must accept the folks in the militia’s and try to focus on the positive THEY provide, if any is discernible.  I see this group as a great example of the freedoms provided in the USA.  Here is a group that carry guns and claim to be anti-federal government, yet the federal government does nothing but keep a watchful eye on them.  We know that agitating them would provide nothing but reinforcement of the saying, “violence begets more violence”.  Imagine them as the bumblebees of people, pesky, yet necessary for a process we cannot quite grasp.