7,000 Gun-Loving "Patriots" Living in an Walled Citadel Built Around an Arms Factory in Idaho

[SecularMotion]

They call it III Citadel, and they say they’ve already lined up “hundreds” of extreme-right gun lovers to join them in the walled city they’re planning for a lonely tract in northern Idaho. The end game, they say, is an ideologically pure settlement of 7,000 “Patriots” built around a huge arms factory.

But there’s no sign that the latest fantastic plans from antigovernment extremists will ever come to much. Dave Resser, the sheriff of sparsely populated Benewah County, calls the whole thing a “scam.”

They say they’re not racists and welcome any and all comers, so long as they promise to follow the rules and they’re devoted and well-armed defenders of the Constitution — “liberals, Marxists and blue voters” need not apply.

But in practically the same breath, the man who with others recently purchased the land enthusiastically described how Latinos and Muslims will be “purged” and “culled” by “fed-up Americans” in the not-so distant future.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/7000-patriots-living-walled-citadel-built-around-arms-factory-idaho-what-could?paging=off

[onehandle]

1. KKKlansmen love their long hard steel.

Wall them up there and forget them.

[Jackpine Radical]

33. They've already built the wall.

All we have to do is turn the machine guns around to point inward.

[arcane1]

2. Because nothing says "Home of the Brave" quite like hiding behind fortifications.

[azureblue]

41. but what does a wall do?

it keeps people out. and keeps people in. likewise, food, clothing, supplies, etc. I hope they complete this project - it will be a hard lesson that will end in starvation and cold.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

52. The should'a built it around a brewery.

[XemaSab]

58. It's what the Founders would have done

[longship]

3. Gotta love the delusions.

Reminds me of a few political movements of the past. Most never came to anything. Of those that did, none ended well.

[atreides1]

4. Look at the bright side

One bombing run is all it'll take...

[hunter]

11. Just wait for winter. Maybe they can call it Jamestown...

On May 14, 1607, Captain Edward Maria Wingfield, elected president of the governing council on April 25, selected a piece of land on a large peninsula, some 40 miles (64 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, as a prime location for a fortified settlement. The Peninsula was surrounded by the York river in the north, the James river in the south and the Chesapeake bay in the east of the peninsula. The piece of land had deep water, making it a navigable and defensible strategic point. Perhaps the best thing about it, from an English point of view, was that it was not inhabited by nearby Virginia Indian tribes, who regarded the site as too poor and remote for agriculture. However, the island was swampy, isolated, offered limited space and was plagued by mosquitoes and brackish tidal river water unsuitable for drinking.

In addition to the malarial swamp the settlers arrived too late in the year to get crops planted. Many in the group were gentlemen unused to work, or their manservants, equally unaccustomed to the hard labor demanded by the harsh task of carving out a viable colony. One of these was Robert Hunt, a former vicar of Reculver, England, who probably celebrated the first known service of holy communion in what is today the United States of America at Jamestown, on June 21 1607. In a few months, fifty-one of the party were dead; some of the survivors were deserting to the Indians whose land they had colonized. In the "starving time" of 1609–1610, the Jamestown settlers were in even worse straits. Only 61 of the 500 colonists survived the period. There is scientific evidence that the settlers at Jamestown had turned to cannibalism during the starving time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia

[surrealAmerican]

25. A bombing run seems unnecessary.

A bunch of well armed people, united only by their paranoid fantasies and distrust of outsiders, are bound to start finding one another suspicious.

[n2doc]

30. Toss a lit pack of firecrackers over the wall

[RKP5637]

35. LOL, well said, that'll do it!

[SummerSnow]

46. No, I rather throw bags of exploding shit over the wall

[SammyWinstonJack]

47. heh

[truebluegreen]

54. Hunter Thompson once suggested a bag of live rats

over the fence at the Nixon White House...

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. Let 'em all go to Idaho.

[HardTimes99]

6. Scary! - nt

[Robb]

7. Not all gun nuts are racists. But it sure seems the racists are all gun nuts. nt

[backscatter712]

8. As long as the gate locks from the outside, I'm fine with this. n/t

[arely staircase]

9. good

when they start their revolution we will know where to drop the first daisy cutter.

[Stargazer09]

10. Sad

Those people are so close-minded and afraid that their lives must be pretty miserable.

I grew up near there. My high school classmates, for the most part, are spending their entire lives in the same small town, drinking and hunting and building their arsenals against the scary people coming to take away their guns.

Not the life I want to lead.

[NuclearDem]

12. Pfft, that's not a Citadel.

[rl6214]

13. Not even built, no one living there yet

[onethatcares]

14. just another way to seperate

a fool and their money. I can imagine the brochure for prospective home buyers

"Send me a thousand dollars and I'll build a city free of taxes and government interference".

Wow, that would certainly work out well, especially with the well armed part thrown in.

[Earth_First]

15. I can see the forum pledges of support now!

I bet there's already eleventy-hundred million already pledged.

In fact, there's already a baker, a tailor and a candlestick maker signed up to participate!

[dogknob]

16. The looks on the faces of roughly 6,992 people...

...when they realize the other 8, and all of their money, are mysteriously gone.

Comedy Gold.

[russspeakeasy]

17. I'm reconsidering my stance on drones.

[Ohio Joe]

18. I'm good with gun nuts walling themselves up

Sounds like a good plan to have them all confined behind walls.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

53. Padded.

[Skip Intro]

19. Like the federal government will allow that. n/t

[phantom power]

20. yeah, I'm sure it will be a model of racial integration

[Gman]

21. Sounds like their planning to break the Guinness Book Of Records

Record for circle jerks.

[formercia]

24. ..or the most tiny Dicks in one place in all of History.

The Hookers will be disappointed....

[formercia]

22. Walmart is planning a Super-Store next door.

so they can be real Patriots by buying all of that cheap Chinese-made crap. I can just see the Trailers of the Camp-Followers Now..

[jmowreader]

42. Actually, they plan to set up a farmer's market inside their compound

Funny you should mention this, but the Shopko chain has a division that goes into little towns like St. Maries and builds box stores tailored to the needs of the community. They attempted to go into St. Maries, then cancelled their plans after the people who owned the only piece of land (which has a trailer court and a fast-food joint on it now) refused to sell it to them. And I kinda agree with the owners: the way St. Maries is arranged, there's nowhere else for the people who live in the trailers to go. You know the old joke about having to walk uphill to school both ways in the snow? In St. Maries, it's not a joke: St. Maries is in a valley. The school is on the side of a mountain on one side of the river, and the populated part of the town is on a hill on the other side of the river. In the morning you ride the bus to school and walk uphill from the bus stop to the schoolhouse; in the evening you ride the bus back to St. Maries and walk uphill from the bus stop to your home. But seriously: there's nowhere to put a Walmart, a Shopko, a jail (they have one, and the average length of incarceration there is one night because if you can't figure out how to break out of the Benewah County Jail fifteen minutes after they throw you in it you're too stupid to commit crimes) or much of anything else in St. Maries.

[Zoeisright]

23. At least they're all in the same spot.

That's useful.

[JDPriestly]

26. How long do you think they will live with all those guns before they start shooting each other?

[gristy]

27. Your subject line notwithstanding...

there is no such walled citadel nor are the plans to build one likely to come to anything.

[Demo_Chris]

28. It's just another scam. nt

[Teamster Jeff]

29. Just for shits and giggles

can't we fly some black helicopters over them once in a while

[Jim Lane]

49. Great idea!

With markings in Arabic or Cyrillic on the side.

[Kelvin Mace]

31. Short version:

They are racists.
They are being scammed.
Some are mentally ill.

[IDemo]

32. The author of this piece failed to keep up

The individual taking money for reservations was revealed to be a scammer. Very doubtful that the Citadel has a future.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/01/22/2421922/group-taking-citadel-fees-tied.html

Group taking Citadel fees tied to extortionist

Application fees that could total more than $40,000 from people hoping to join the planned community near Coeur d’Alene are being sent to a political group linked to a man with federal convictions on his record.

People who want to join the Citadel — a walled, armed community being advertised online — must pay $208 to apply. The planners said on the Citadel’s website in December that more than 200 applications had been filed.

The planners have purchased land and business registrations bearing the Citadel name have been filed with the state of Idaho. But it doesn’t seem to have gone further than the idea stage.

Everyone within the Citadel walls would have to carry firearms and be prepared for catastrophe. The planners are designing the community with rules that would “keep liberals from moving in,” according to the Citadel’s Facebook page.

[leveymg]

34. The Idaho Panhandle is Aryan Nations and Sword & Covenant country.

North Paraguay.

[Helen Borg]

36. They won't be able to stop tanks!

...

[Initech]

37. File this under "things that will not end well".

Put a bunch of crazy, armed, dangerous lunatics in one place and feed them non stop anti government propaganda 24/7?

[jmowreader]

38. It's not there yet and I don't think it ever will be

First, this is a picture of Benewah County Sheriff Dave Resser:



For a small-town sheriff, doesn't he look perfect? And he is a good guy.

Seriously, guys: No one in Benewah County wants these guys there. I print their paper, and every time they talk about the Citadel the paper gets a deluge of anti-Citadel letters. They're so pissed off at Dan Hammes, the Gazette's editor, calling him a liberal and every other bad name they can think of (Dan Hammes makes David Koch look liberal), that they have announced they plan to print their OWN newspaper and distribute it free to all the citizens of the county to set the record straight on their plans. Who they're going to get to print the thing is an open question, since I know everyone who owns a newspaper press within 200 miles of St. Maries and none of us will do it, but they plan to print them a Newspaper.

The real problem the Citadel people have is there's a history of these armed settlements in North Idaho, and folks here have long memories. We had the Aryan Nations compound. We had Ruby Ridge. We still have Shaun Winkler, the only sheriff's candidate in America who conducts weekly cross-lighting ceremonies in his own front yard.

[Thinkingabout]

39. Wow, thought I was going to be forced to go behind the wall, kindasounds like the FEMA camps.

Thank goodness I am a blue voter and liberal, I knew voting Democrat has its advantages but never did I think it would save me from Citadel, I will be glad to pass this good news s to my fellow Democrats.

[bravenak]

40. Is that wall waterproof?

Lets fill it up with water.

[jmowreader]

43. That wall has gates, so it's probably not waterproof

Given that, Obama's Secret All Black Army should be able to park a couple of M-1 Abrams tanks across each of the entrances to keep the people in before they start lobbing mortar shells in there.

[bravenak]

44. Obama's secret all black Muslim foreign socialist gay Mexican cross dressing army. Benghazi!

I can't believe those idiots built their own FEMA camps! And they're pro-drone! It's so classic!
We don't even need to break a sweat. Just put a hip hop club across the street with salsa night every Thursday and come as Lady GaGa night on Fridays, and watch the show.

[jtuck004]

45. Maybe we could do a pool on how long it would be 'till this happens...

I remember when the event below took place. I figure, with 7000 paranoid people, it won't be long until a similar event occurs...but hey, the firefighters need practice.

They actually do have an LLC, and supposedly a Federal Firearm Manufacturers license. Now all they need to find is a bunch of people who don't burn up all their money shooting at suspicious empty beer cans and unarmed dirt hillsides on weekends...

From the Aryan Nations link on Wiki:

"Shooting and lawsuit
In September 2000, the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $6.3 million judgment against Aryan Nations from an Idaho jury who awarded punitive and compensatory damages to plaintiffs Victoria Keenan and her son Jason. The two had been beaten with rifles by Aryan Nations security guards in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in July, 1998.[8][9] The woman and her son were driving near the Aryan Nations compound when their car backfired, which the guards claimed to misinterpret as gunfire.[citation needed] The guards fired at the car, striking it several times, leading the car to crash, after which one of the Aryan Nations guards held the Keenans at gunpoint.[9][10] In the summer of 2004 the Aryan Nations moved to Sebring, Florida.

In February 2001, the group's Hayden Lake compound and intellectual property, including the names "Aryan Nations" and "Church of Jesus Christ Christian", were transferred to the Keenans.[9] The Keenans sold the property to Greg Carr, a Southeastern Idaho philanthropist who donated the land to North Idaho College, which designated it as a peace park.[5][9] The watchtower was demolished, and the church and meeting hall were burned to the ground during a firefighting exercise, an instance where firefighters practice their firefighting skills."

I do like a couple of lines from Huffington...here.

"The people behind the Citadel are like 12-year-old boys talking about the tree house, or the secret underground city, they're going to build some day," he said.

Armed 12 year olds.

"Marxists, Socialists, Liberals and Establishment Republicans will likely find that life in our community is incompatible with their existing ideology and preferred lifestyles."

Just trying to make friends with their likely supporters.

[hobbit709]

48. Walled cities went out with the use of gunpowder.

But don't expect these yahoos to know any history.

[XemaSab]

59. Keeps the illegals out, dontcha know?

They'll be mowing their own lawns and scrubbing their own toilets there in God's country!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

50. Uh,...they shoulda done it around an AMMO factory....

...that's what makes da boom boom noise.

[Skittles]

51. paranoid cowards

[Scootaloo]

55. They'll go Lord of the Flies in less than a week

[Half-Century Man]

56. The Donner compound.

The perfect defense against artillery, a well documented fixed location with very limited escape routes.

What kind of walls? The big stone castle sort of wall? The kind the hold in fire pretty well?

Yeah, nothing will discourage governmental scrutiny like dressing up as the Waco Compound.

[Historic NY]

57. But can a Citadel stop a drone....

a least they have built their own prison.