Good wackos, bad wackos.

• Author: Seavey, Todd

Seeing a man in Waco, texas, claim to be Christ and lead his gun-toting followers into battle with police in the same month that zany Muslims bombed the World Trade Center, people were bound to discuss religious fanaticism in general. The tricky part--for people in a society that is slowly forgetting how to use private property and individual rights to demarcate the limits of permissible behavior--is figuring out what kinds of fanaticism to tolerate.

The issues of religious fringe groups and the erosion of rights came together unexpectedly in my life recently when I noticed followers of World Pastor Tony Alamo handing out pamphlets a few blocks from my apartment. The pamphlets revealed Pastor Alamo's views on God and his contention that the United Nations, the U.S. justice system (which has been harassing him), and the Third Reich are/were Vatican-run conspiracies. Alamo counts himself among the many opponents of the U.S. government's "Catholic, humanist/ socialist, new world order, Catholic political goals [sic, I guess, unless the second one's for emphasis]."

But wait! This isn't just another conspiracy theorist. Mixed in with the religious content in the pamphlet are arguments that the U.S. government has overgrown its intended constitutional limits, defended with references to Thomas Jefferson, the Federalist Papers, and even 19th-century anarchist Lysander Spooner.

As a believer in limited government, I was intrigued and went to a meeting of Pastor Alamo's followers to learn more.

What I learned, of course, was that many religious meetings are among life's substitutes for group therapy, which is in turn a substitute for talking to your buddies about what a rough week it's been. Nonetheless, after various testimonials about how God had saved virtually everyone present from drugs and alcohol, I prayed with the gathering, and according to one member I am now "saved," which was surprisingly easy.

It would be tempting to pretend to have no kinship to these people now that I'm safely back home, but I think every person concerned about individual rights would do well to show his solidarity with the odd fringe-types of the world.

For instance, have you noticed how often religious kooks who end up in a cabin with a hunting rifle and a lot of canned goods, shouting threats at state troopers, are being hounded for reasons that many defenders of limited government would consider unjust? They're often trying to escape tax collection, gun...