The Citadel

The Citadel.  No, I'm not talking about the military college of South Carolina.  That fine old school in Charleston known as the West Point of the South.  A fine school indeed.  No,  there is another Citadel  I really want to talk about.  But where,  where do I begin?  The topic is so target rich for a liberal atheist like me.  This is going to be lots of fun.  I hope.  

"The Citadel"  is a planned gated community in Idaho.  It is to be a walled city of 3 to 7 thousand people.
It will be centered around a gun factory called III Arms Company.  The walled city will be about one square mile,  but there will be housing outside the walls as well.  The residents will be known as "Patriots".  Before they can set up their residency,  they will have to go through an application process.  And sign the "Patriot Agreement".

I won't take time to tell you about the Patriot Agreement.  But I just have to tell you one thing about it which is quite a tell.  Each "Patriot" over the age of 13 must own at least three firearms:  A handgun of his own choice,  a rifle of his own choice,  and an AR15 variant with at least 1000 rounds at the ready.  And qualify annually with these firearms.

There is more.  So much, much more.  But we can all just go to their website and read all about it.

I'm interested in this from the sociological viewpoint.  Fascinated!  I wrote a post in this blog about rich folks dropping out of the "socialist big government America".  It was back in August of  2011 and it was called "Tycoons and Typhoons".  The folks I wrote about then were just babes in the woods compared to these Patriots. The island owning drop outs were just rich guys who didn't want to obey U.S. laws and never wanted to deal with poor folks unless they were servants.  In that post I pointed out that it was just too easy to poke lots of huge holes in the idea.

Okay,  enough background.  I just can't wait to opine about this concept.

 The first irony is:  The Patriots (and I just love them) are seeking, according to their manifesto,  Freedom.  Ah,  Freedom.  So they are going to take their guns and get inside a walled compound with rules.  Kind of like a prison?  (Yea,  this is too easy).

The second irony:  They say that anyone is welcome to apply to join their ranks.  They warn that Liberals,  and Socialists,  and Marxists will not be welcome.  And they do not expect to have law enforcement,  so they expect their members to be God fearing so all can be trusted.  This reveals a naivete, do ya think?    They all believe in god and guns.  What could go wrong?

Third irony:    Remember the story of Masada?  The Jews up on the mountain top that had their own community inside the Roman Empire.  They didn't have to do anything wrong or illegal, to make the Romans want to kill them.  They just had to be there and not recognize Rome.  Rome could not stand it.  I'm sure you know what happened.  Or can guess.

Fourth irony:  From what I could read in their agreement,  it seemed guns and freedom were the important thing.  I didn't see the vision about crops and self sustaining energy and medical care and care for babies and the aged.  They claim to want freedom and insulation from a collapse of the U.S.;  and loss of the power grid,  and a total breakdown of the U.S. infrastructure.  So they have a bomb shelter mentality.  They would never be able to hold off a bunch of starving, end of the world,  Mad Max's,  even if they had 1000 rounds each.  The guys on the islands would have a better chance.  But they've sucked me into their insane world with this kind of speculation.  You can think of lots more things.

I could go on and on.  I'd like to go on and on.  But I'm not going to.

I really,  really, hope that this community gets built.  It's a grand experiment. I don't think it is noble.  At all.  And I think it will help us all learn things about ourselves as a culture.  As a society.  As a nation. My guess is that this experiment will somehow yield the opposite of what it's creators want.

I told my wife that I was going to write this post and I was pretty jazzed about it.  She told me that Glen Beck is starting one of these communities.  It will be called "Independence".   I shall find out about that! 
I wonder what kind of guns they will have.

LLITTY          ::::::+::::::