-Caveat Lector-
~~for educational purposes only~~
[Title 17 U.S.C. section 107]
Siege At Sagle
by Jeff Elkins
"Get the guns!" We don't know exactly what alerted
15-year-old Benjamin McGuckin. It could have been one
of the family dogs, warning the boy when a jackboot
broke a twig. Perhaps one of the Sagle, Idaho, storm
troopers attacking the McGuckin home cursed softly
when he slipped on some gravel. However it happened,
the boy called out an alarm that precipitated a
dramatic five-day standoff with the Bonner County
Sheriff's department.
Sheriff's deputies had already captured Benjamin's
mother, JoAnn McGuckin, after luring her from her
home with a lying promise to take her to buy groceries.
Instead of a trip to a grocery store, Bonner County
sheriff's deputies arrested McGuckin on various
charges; County Prosecutor Phil Robinson has claimed
she spent the family's meager resources on liquor,
and has slyly insinuated that her husband, Michael
C. McGuckin's recent death was not from multiple
sclerosis but from deliberate starvation of a
terminally ill man by an insane wife.
Oddly enough, we heard no tales of methamphetamine
laboratories or child sexual abuse from Herr
Prosecutor Robinson; items from the typical government
play book he missed. One must suppose that charges of
insanity, alcoholism, child abuse and possible homicide
were deemed sufficient.
In the aftermath of the siege against the young
home-schooled children, five weapons were found,
according to Robinson. The small collection consisted
of shotguns, rifles, and handguns and of course was
referred to as an 'arms cache'. Despite Benjamin
McGuckin's cry to 'Get the guns!' none of the McGuckin
children were ever seen brandishing a weapon. The
brave deputies of Bonner County were chased off the
McGuckin property by the family dogs.
The final not-so-stealthy assault on the McGuckin home
was the culmination of a four-year campaign by Idaho
authorities to steal their property via tax warfare.
The McGuckin property, which is worth nearly $500,000,
was seized for $5,000 in back taxes and sold at
auction for $50,000 to a Schmuel and Amy Korengut.
As I write, Mrs. McGuckin sits in jail having bravely
refused the state of Idaho's embarrassed offer to
release her on her own recognizance; that order was
contingent on her agreement to not attempt contact
with her children. "Those children are my children,
not wards of the state," McGuckin said in a statement.
"The state needs to learn its place and that is not
in family business. I do not accept the charges
against me."
The children, Kathryn, 16, Benjamin, 15, Mary, 13,
James, 11, Fred, 9 and Jane, 8 are in state custody,
the state having refused an offer of temporary foster
care from a family friend of ten years who lives on
a nearby 140 acre ranch.
Odd circumstances indeed for the surviving family of
a former Boston Brahmin. Michael C. McGuckin was a
graduate of the prestigious Groton prep school,
class of 1957. His father, an Army major, was a
Harvard graduate and a Cambridge Fox Club member.
His mother was Jane Shreve, of the distinguished
Boston jewelry firm, Shreve Crump & Low Co.
McGuckin went on to study engineering at the University
of North Carolina, and served in the US Army, where
he learned Arabic. After discharge he moved to
California to set up a series of successful businesses:
furniture manufacture, textile plants, and home
construction. After a divorce, he moved to Idaho
to start a new family and a new business, a sawmill.
Ultimately the sawmill failed, even with infusions
of cash from McGuckin's Massachusetts relatives. A
federal tax lien filed in 1988 listed McGuckin as a
debtor to the IRS for $18,842. Then McGuckin was
diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and slowly,
inexorably, the McGuckin family fell into tax hell
as they became unable to pay state and local property
taxes on their extremely valuable lakefront timberland.
The end result was the kidnapping of the mother and
this pitiful siege against children by the State.
The McGuckin children can count themselves lucky in a
way; marginally more merciful local sheriff's deputies
were in charge of the assault. Had federal jackboots
been involved, the children would have undoubtedly been
subjected to tape recorded screams of dying rabbits
projected at ear-smashing decibel levels and at least
one of them would have been assassinated by an FBI
sniper. Perhaps Mr. Horiuchi would have been recalled
to Idaho to duplicate his superb marksmanship of Ruby
Ridge fame.
Sadly, the ending of the McGuckin affair is all too
predictable. Their lives, already devastated by the
tragic loss of a beloved father, have been ruined
forever and their homestead stolen by government. JoAnn
McGuckin, demonized and charged as a felon by a
power -- and publicity-mad prosecutor, will probably
have the charges dropped or reduced; but she'll remain
under the watchful eye of the Idaho Department of
Health and Welfare, unable to raise her children without
government interference. Those children, five healthy
young Americans, will no longer enjoy roaming the
family timberland or canoeing in Beaver Lake. Nor will
they have the benefit of a home-schooled education,
they will undoubtedly be forced into a government
reeducation center, to be molded into proper servants
of the State.
For our masters, all turned out well in Sagle, Idaho.
For the rest of us, it's another tragic tale of liberty
denied and freedom crushed, under the jackbooted heel
of Leviathan.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
