A little history lesson is in order for the liberals in the this country. You are hearing and reading a lot about publications such as the Anarchist's Cookbook these days as tools of the trade for "right wing" terrorists. Let us review the bidding.
The Anarchist's Cookbook is one that I would recommend to every terrorist. Fully one third of the recipes do not work. Another one third will kill the person trying to follow its recipes -- I would be the last to call them formulae or formulations. And of the less than one third that remains further research is advised to make them work.
I presume this "dreadful" book is a good enough example. So when did it become popular and with who? It was first published in the 1960s and was popular with anti-Vietnam War protestors such as our current President.
Now this is not to suggest that either terrorism nor the tools of terrorism first started in the Vietnam war protestors. Vietnam era terrorism was the post WW II explosion, so to speak, of domestic terrorism. The first real era was started by the union movement in this country. They were the stereotypical bomb throwing bolsheviks.
And that of course continues to this day as recently as the Greyhound strike of the last decade when there was random rifle fire into buses with passengers. At least there was a cause to deny guns to union members but that was not the liberal agenda at the time.
Terrorism in this country is nothing new and it did not start from the right. The current wave was started by the left. That it has spread like any other "craze" in this country is something better left to sociometrists without an agenda to explain.
But I will point out, when the strikers were shooting into Greyhound buses intent upon killing people the liberals were saying, "There is no excuse for it but ..." and then going on to explain "legitimate" grievances that would drive a person to such an attempt at indiscriminate murder.
To some extent Clinton might be right. But he would make a much more compelling case were he to discuss his youthful interest in such things as the Anarchist's Cookbook and how he grew beyond his action oriented youth. Of course I do not know that he had an interest in that specific book but it was popular in his anti-war sub-culture.
From spiking trees to bombing this particular federal building there is no difference. In the last thirty years this is not the first federal building to be bombed, it is only the first to be connected with the right rather than the left. That the left was less effective in fulfilling their intentions is a separate discussion.
And in these past three decades those who "understood" the motivations of the leftist bombers were in political ascendency and they in fact protected them. It did not matter to them that leftist groups had been identified and in fact convicted of bombing, they in fact prevented the FBI from infiltrating left wing groups for the purpose of preventing further terrorist acts.
That is history and not refutable save by those who will not present facts. This is not to say that infiltration will do any good as the Attorney General has stated that infiltration would have done nothing to prevent this bombing. So again we are dancing around the head of a pin with the angels.
The issue is not left or right. This issue is that we can do nothing to prevent nutcases from from doing what they want regardless of any safeguards. It is well known the place with the most rules against deadly weapons is a prison and also that a prison has the highest percentage of deadly weapons of any population in the country.
Even making the country a prison can not prevent terrorism. Terrorism is too simple. The only way to stop terrorism is to disinvent the human mind and the first place to start is outlaw fire and all later discoveries.
The existence of terrorism under whatever guise or name is but one part of the political fabric of every country in the world. And that all political parties in those countries are willing to both "abhor" and "use" it to their advantage at the same time is not in question.
It is hard to imagine anyone singling out Oklahoma City as something exceptional unless they believe body count is what makes a tragedy.