I'm not the only one who's paranoid about law enforcement, especially when it resembles Haiti's Touton Macoutes. According to a current poll, 11 million American adults view the government as their enemy. Fortunately, only 10,000 of these people are members of armed militia groups of which there are at least 224 now in operation.

Panicked by the rising costs of living, confused by a misreading of the Constitution, disgusted by the Iraqi War, and angered by the restrictions placed on their activities by the Patriot Act, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, EPA, IRS, and the Equal Employment Commission, many of these emboldened souls, called "patriots" by some, are ready to start what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich once called "the second violent American Revolution."

Of course this isn't the first time Americans have armed themselves against a sea of government troubles. The Whiskey Rebellion, Shay's Rebellion, John Brown, the KKK, the Weather Underground, and the Black Panthers all carried forth armed struggle against what they saw as an oppressive government.

None of these people, however, had armor. Presently, the Illinois Minutemen, Arizona's Sons and Daughters of Liberty, the Freedom of Montana, and others are armed to the teeth, often with heavy weapons sold as scrap by the Army after the demise of the Cold War.

"If you think these people are crazy," psychologist Clark McCauley told Time Magazine, "then you have to ask if there is anything the government could do
that would make you willing to take up arms against it. If you say yes, then you better hazard a thought that they are human beings just like you."

Just like me? Now that's a thought. People like myself, who have located ourselves in the counterculture that arose during the 1960s, have spent much of our lives resisting the government in some form. We've lived under the impression that our natural impulses were somehow against the law, and that the government, if not out to get us, at least had us in their viewfinder.

I've sided more than once with outlaws--from beatniks, hippies, war protesters, artists, feminists (egad), to even ski bums. Many of my friends have had babies out of wedlock, had abortions, voted Democratic, badmouthed Nixon and both Bushes, went to jail for growing weed, wrote filthy poetry, and got divorced. They debunked the myth of the happy nuclear family.

But hanging with the fringe has meant watching one's back. All these years it seemed the enemy was the Right. That's why it's scary when a gun-toting right winger complains not only about the assault weapons ban, but also about things the Left complains about.

While we--Left and Right--oppose each other in many ways, we are jointly suspicious of our government and, as weird as it seems, we are allies.

When I drove through Tahoe City on the Fourth, I saw an overkill of law enforcement. What I saw was menacing, not welcoming, authority, and what I heard as I rambled around town were multiple tales of police aggression on the Fourth.

Editor's Note: Following the 4th of July weekend, local representatives from the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association did meet with officials from Placer County and the California Highway Patrol to address the concerns outlined in this article. Tahoetopia will continue to follow up on this story.