What Does Soldiers' Plot Say About American Politics?

Federal prosecutors announced Monday that in an unbelievable case that involves American soldiers privately stockpiling weapons and recruiting other military personnel to their cause.

The details of the story are surreal. The group allegedly executed one of their former comrades and his 17-year-old girlfriend in the woods last December because they feared the two would betray their plans to authorities.

They had cached $87,000 worth of weapons, ammunition and explosives in their homes, and even purchased a plot of land in Washington State to serve as a base of operations. It was bought with a half-million-dollar insurance policy that was paid out upon the death of one of the men’s pregnant wives, whose family was told by investigators that she may have been poisoned.

Among the stated objectives of their movement: to assassinate President Barack Obama; to poison the food supply in Washington; to seize Ft. Stewart and its ammunition production facility.

Set aside, for a moment, any discussion about their chances of actually carrying out these plans. Ignore the larger question of how a group like this could operate for as long as they have essentially under the noses of an entire military base. Even hold off, if you can, on speculating about what this discovery might say about the vetting process for our armed forces.

The biggest thing a story like this says about Americans is whether we as a people believe in such a thing as a shared vision for the future of our country.

For years, we as a nation have prided ourselves that our democratic process is the finest system available in the world. At its core is the tenet that we hold free and fair elections, the results of which are upheld in the peaceful transition of power from one civically chosen leader to another.

When our politics are so fractionalized and so high-stakes that to plan acts of violence against our own people seems like a reasonable alternative to voting, we need to acknowledge that America is a country on the brink.

The saddest thought in this whole story is the notion that the people who were volunteering to be our shelter from harm believe that the true battlefield is their native soil.

We have lost the ability to appreciate those with which we disagree. We no longer propose to compromise with our adversaries; we condemn them outright. We have evolved from a country founded on the ideals of toleration into one driven by zero-tolerance thinking.

How do we change that?

How do we withdraw from believing that it’s better to dominate our enemies than trying to understand them? How do we get to a place where we can even address that feeling?

Do any of you have suggestions? It seems that at least four men in Georgia did not.

More on the story from the Fort Stewart, GA Patch: