Well, lets just take it a step further and understand why they are trying to defend themselves. A little video produced for all, helping to explain their point of view.
Weather you feel it is right or wrong, please watch. As Americans we are having a lot of things taken from us, look at Occupy Wall Street as an example; Do you think the abuse that transpired did anything? It did. It made the rules of assembly within major cities change for the worse as now you will have 1st “amendment areas”, drone flights are being planned up and down the eastern seaboard for your safety, and you are dependent up on some one else 15 min away praying the robbery taking place doesn’t turn into rape of you or your loved ones. For what? So you can fulfill your own Orwellian Prophecy? Wake up.
Well, a simplistic answer to your first question would be that SWAT/BLM has legal authority to set up their long guns–the black-hatted poseur most certainly does not.
Also, he’s shooting iron sights from way up there? Yeah, good luck with that. And, just for giggles, he’s doing it from what appears to be a federal highway, and I believe that’s illegal. Poseur should take his pretty things and go home, is my unasked-for opinion.
He’s grazing cattle on land that belongs to the Federal Government. He’s been to court three times and lost three times. I hope I’m wrong, but my Orwellian prophesy here is that he’ll end up in a 6"x8" cell with a sign on the wall saying “First Amendment Zone” along with his rifle bearing friends while they wait for the gas chamber
Debt prisons are not allowed in the United States. Mr. Bundy has never done anything but owe money. That’s why they haven’t arrested him.
If that’s how you want your country to act, maybe you should move back to England where they will arrest you for not paying your debt. I do welcome that; Moving.
It’s a matter of perspective, but the way I see it, he’s grazing his cattle on land that belongs to the Federal Government public. Considering that:
a) He is a member of the public, and
b) His use of that land isn’t interfering with anyone else’s use of that land (This is a HUGE area we’re talking about)
I don’t see why he shouldn’t be allowed to graze his darn cattle.
I don’t believe that the grazing fees are fair (and I do believe that the high cost of those grazing fees is a significant part of the reason why all of the other ranchers in the area have given up on ranching), but even if you think that he really ought to owe the Federal Government $1.1M, the appropriate recourse would be to place a lien on his properties.
Funny part is, it would be hard to do, as they don’t have jurisdiction regarding civil precedence of this specific type of case. If they ended up doing that, in court he just has to argue that there the fees are not within reasonable or agreeable limits for his industry. Which that is the main reason why he doesn’t pay them to the fed but tried to pay the normal fees to the state of Nevada. Note all the other cattle ranchers left the area instead of dealing with this hassle…
Ask yourself this question… Why did the federal officers opt to just try to take his cattle on BLM land only?
Fair enough. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t for a minute believe that this will start another civil war. I only think that it’s another straw on the back of the camel, and there have been numerous others over the past several years (many or most of which BoingBoing and the BBS community have been very sympathetic towards).
I do agree with you 100%. It is completely ridiculous. Problem is, most civil conflicts arise from small farm based insurrections. Look at the Vietnam war; ask any Vietnamese of that time and they will tell you they thought all the Americans were trying to be another colonial power. They feared that and resisted. The first rule of conflict is to understand your opponent. A government agency like the BLM should report to some one besides themselves. Being their own executor is not very American, it’s what happens when humans manipulate, deceive, and outright lie to benefit themselves.
It’s a bunch of crap land in the middle of no where, do you think a bill for over a million dollars for 20 years is fair?
That is a joke. And everyone knows it. Especially when he was paying something like $500/year for a township to feed his cattle.
Now you can see why they are angry. They feel lied to, they feel like the Feds are stealing from them, they feel not represented. I am not agreeing with their tactics.
The only reason it’s not interfering with anyone else’s use of the land is that everyone else is following the rules regarding use of said land.
It wouldn’t make much of an impact in the grand scheme of things if I, as an individual, decided to go hunting for bison in Yellowstone National Park. (This is a HUGE area we’re talking about, after all!) But if everyone else did the same thing then we’d see some of the last wild bison herds gone forever in the space of a three-day weekend.
Yes but choices made by both the national park service and others responsible for designation of hunting are done through the people as in elected officials. The blm is a separate part of another larger portion of the federal government that makes it’s own choices and its’ appointed members are never reviewed by congress or the senate.
So they can go ahead and put your uncle who feels it’s ok to let corporations buy spaces of land for their own use. And you won’t have a choice. Bend over or wake up.
Try to buy land from them, you can’t. But a major corporation can. Bend over or wake up.
Technically, he wasn’t blaming the Jews, so much as the Zionists.
Whose chief fault, I believe, is insisting that they should have rights to their ancestral lands. Because they homesteaded it. And don’t recognize the authority of others who claim it. Nor should have to pay for it. And like to point guns and blow things up.
Yes, the Secretary of the Interior is an appointed official. Who must be nominated by the (elected) President and approved by the (elected) Senate. Is the terrifying conspiracy here that we don’t hold general elections for every Federal official? That’s not exactly a new thing, it’s been the same way since Washington’s time.
And I’m still waiting for you to clarify this statement:
…considering that the National Park Service is another Federal agency under exactly the same department as the Bureau of Land Management.
