As we’ve been talking about the last couple of weeks, after Hurricane Harvey came through the Gulf coast, a bunch of goofball gun toters from Portland, Oregon calling themselves American Freedom Keepers teamed up with a racist motorcycle club calling themselves the Confederate Riders of America and sauntered into a small flood ravaged community known as Little Cambodia outside of Rosharon Texas.  They immediately informed FEMA that the community “wasn’t ready” for federal help, and took over the recovery efforts for the town.  That’s just what was needed – a bunch of unqualified, anti-government weirdos pushing out the actual experts, getting in the way, and slowing down response for actual help.  Had they just volunteered and cooperated with authorities (as has been done all over the region), it would have been great.  Had they left their guns and body armor at home, it would have been better.  Had they not worn their white supremacist leather it would have been super.  Even not threatening FEMA workers would have been a start.

But NO. These folks announced themselves in charge, and started flooding (no pun intended) Facebook with live videos ranting about how they didn’t need the government and that they could save these poor people with eleventy seven dollars, and a few volunteers.  They then attacked a local television reporter for daring to ask who these people were after telling the reporter that FEMA wasn’t welcome.

The result was easily predictable.  The residents of Little Cambodia were poorly served and the federal response has been greatly delayed – that happens when scary people take over a community and run people off.  But worse, and more obvious, is the absolute failure of the effort.  Have some homes been cleaned up?  Certainly.  Have some people been helped? Yes. But now what?  These “citizen groups” have no resources.  They have no support base short of some Facebook donors who have no money.  These groups are not qualified or trained in hurricane recovery and have kept out those who are.

So, who are these folks?  We’ve talked about the racists who belong to the Confederate Riders of America before, but what about American Freedom Keepers?  They’re a typical shadowy militia group from the Pacific Northwest who call themselves “peacekeepers” and run all over the country protecting racists.  They’ve been seen in scuffles around the country, most notably in Charlottesville Virginia where they went to “protect” the white supremacists during their tiki torch rally on the campus of the University of Virginia.  Their little escapade turned into a rout when one of the racists they were protecting decided to plow his car into a bunch of counter protestors, killing one and injuring dozens.

Militia groups like AFK have flourished since the election of President Obama.  They are fed a steady diet of libertarian bullshit from right wing media and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, and are brainwashed to believe that government is the enemy.  Most of the time they love to parade around in camo carrying guns “protecting” some preferred class of people, usually racists.  However, when Harvey flooded much of our coast, one group decided they could demonstrate just how their libertarian religion worked and could show the world how government was not needed (with a side benefit of arguing that they’re not really bigots since they’re helping Asian people).

Which leads us back to Little Cambodia.  AFK’s effort to save Little Cambodia came apart this week when their national secretary was accused by an AFK member of absconding with all of the organization’s money totaling a whopping $700.  These folks are now stranded, are begging for money from donors, but are sticking to the mantra that government is no good while worrying about how to get home.  We’ll see how long they last before declaring victory and actually going home.

This is the problem with this kind of libertarian belief system.  It simply doesn’t work – it’s never worked in any society on the planet.  This is the lesson that goofy militia organizations need to learn.  Societies exist for the common good and have rules for a reason.  Ad hoc support or decision making doesn’t serve the society as a whole and therefore doesn’t work.  Putting on camo and slinging a rifle doesn’t put you in charge of anything.  A bunch of you wearing camo and slinging rifles doesn’t make you a militia.  You’re just a bunch of guys wearing camo and slinging rifles.  Period.

While volunteerism is good, vigilantism is not.  The rescue effort after Harvey gave the perfect textbook example of how societies are supposed to function.  Local, state, and federal authorities threw everything they had behind the effort while tens of thousands of Texans (and the Cajun Navy) stepped up and helped.  Let me be sure I’m clear here – they helped. They worked with local authorities. They didn’t try to take over.  They didn’t announce they were in charge and push out other help.  They cooperated.  In other words, they acted like normal people.  And it worked.  Lives were saved and homes are being restored.  That’s called a functioning society.

AFK and the CRA who came to Little Cambodia didn’t do that.  They decided who could come in. They decided the federal government couldn’t come in.  They decided who would get help and who wouldn’t.  In other words, they freelanced, and now their organization is unsurprisingly coming apart, they’re out of money, and the poor folks in Little Cambodia are poorly served.  And the federal government is way behind.  Thanks, guys.

The problem with AFK is that they’re trying to look like a bunch of good guys to burnish their reputations after the Charlottesville disaster.  They also announced they were coming to Texas to protect rescuers which wasn’t needed.  They acted like assholes and got in the way, which is common for militia goofballs.  The lessons here?  Simple: 1) Assist authorities on the ground and don’t get in the way; 2) Help where you can; let the system work where it can and help where it isn’t;  3) Don’t be an asshole.  Oh, and 4) Leave your AR-15s at home.  This is a flood zone, not Afghanistan.

If even one of these guys learn these lessons, maybe some good will come from this disaster.  I’m not holding my breath.