Cows, oil, all the things that you can sell for money. If it’s worth it for the US to blow some shit up for some oil rights, why wouldn’t other people think it was worth it for grazing rights? The notion that it’s cows instead of some other valuable commodity that makes this ridiculous is the most ridiculous notion in this thread.
I think this guy (the rancher) is in the wrong. If he’s grazing his cattle on BLM land, he should pay the proper fees. I think it’s a sad commentary on the state of the world that Xeni thinks this is “mindblowing” because a single private individual has brought tout his rifle to this protest and is pointing it towards a group of people (who, to me, look like his fellow protesters, which makes me think, “WTF?”) when, as Mister44 has pointed out, there are government personnel doing the exact sane thing and nobody bats an eyelash.
As Steampunk Banana says, the first rule of gun safety is to not aim the gun at things you don’t want to shoot, so why on earth is this guy pointing his gun towards a big group of people? At the same time, why do we not care when the police do this!?
This guy’s gun should not be aimed at a crowd. The police should not have similar guns aimed towards the crowd. Nobody should be aiming guns at anyone unless the situation is so dire that shooting someone is actually likely to improve things, and from the photo, which a group of people standing around peacefully, I don’t see how that could be the case.
Xeni, can you clarify the ‘white’ angle?, I am not finding any evidence of overt racism/supremest here, more of a civil dispute with the US government. Do we really really care about skin color in that case? Do they exclude protesters based on ethnicity or skin color?
(edit) For those who don’t know, the BLM is not a park system. It is an arm of the US government which acquires land in all kinds of deals. This so it can exploit it mostly by renting or leasing it in sweetheart deals to corporations so they can make windfall gains and ignore state minimum wages while not benefiting regular citizens unless you consider meager rent toward the general fund to be a benefit. Some ranchers also rent/lease land for grazing or other purposes.
The whole situation down there is pretty crazy. I feel like they need an “It’s a Wonderful Life” moment - George Bailey needs to go down there and say “No, you’re thinking of this all wrong. Why, Joe - this is your land! And Cliven hasn’t been paying you to use it! And you, Fred, it’s your land too, and Cliven owes you money as well - and a hundred others! Now put your guns down and let’s all get a nice strawberry egg cream at Mr. Gower’s.”
I was going to ask the same thing. I’m a westerner, born and raised, and I’m reasonably sure that this is more about old-school (and deeply misguided) Libertarian philosophy than it is about race. I do think these guys would pick up their guns and rage against what they see as government overreach regardless of the race of the president.
For someone not familiar with the nuanced weirdness of Western politics, this may look like a bunch of white guys trying to throw off the yoke of the black guy in charge, but I think they’d responding to the BLM the same way, regardless of the racial “face” of the federal government.
I thought it was more along the lines of ‘Only ever point a gun at someone you are about to shoot.’
If you see a gun being pointed at you; probably best to assume you are about to be shot at.
Yeah - I’m here in KC so I’m aware of it. I have a friend who goes to the center there. Not to get too far off topic, but man talk about Alanis Morissette levels of irony that the anti-Semite shot 2 Methodists and a Catholic. :o/
But anyway - the whole BLM thing has nothing to do with race. It’s about a guy who didn’t want to pay the gov to let his cows graze on public land. IMHO the whole thing seems widely blown out of proportion. I understand people’s frustration with an ever encroaching gov, but the guy they chose to make a stand with comes off as sort of an asshole.
Anyone want to take bets that this guy who doesn’t recognize the authority of the federal government hates illegal immigrants? (Immigration law is the jurisdiction of the US federal government; if you don’t recognize their authority then the US has no immigration laws.)
Well, this is interesting. So this guy has been photographed in the act of preparing to commit premeditated murder. Even if Bundy had legal title to that land, which is does not, this guy is set up to shoot a Federal government agent under circumstances other than self defense, over an issue which is actually none of his business. There is way too much hyesteria in these people.
The civilian with the rifle aimed towards the armed BLM agents and the private military contractors is lucky that he was unspotted. If federal LEO sees you aim a gun at them you get dead, quick. Like it or not, the BLM has federal powers and can act like a LEO.
Kinda surprised that the guy was unspotted. Either he got down, posed and popped back up again, or the countersnipers were really of their situational awareness game.
Has anyone noted that the private military contractors working with the Feds are visually indistinguishable from their brethren in Ramallah, Baghdad, Fallujah, Helmand and Kuduz? From the go-fast Oakleys, to the cheesy facial hair, tats, UA ballcap, Molle gear and M4gery? And they are operating in the US against US civilians? Where is the outrage?
Do the readers here know if there is substance to the (potentially under-) reported story that land in question is being de-cattled in order to comply with requirements that the land not be grazed so that it qualifies for offsets - offsets negotiated by Rory Reid (as a lobbyist on behalf of a Chinese corporation that is building a solar energy plant) in consulation with former Reid staffer Kornze who now works at the BLM? This might account for Reid’s comment, “This isn’t over, by crikey!”.
What I find interesting, too, is that the BLM has been taking up this land primarily because it is a losing game to actually ranch out there anymore. Almost nobody else does it. The Bundys are the among the last of a dying culture in rural NV; almost everyone else has pulled up stakes, sold their cattle and their land, and literally left for greener pastures. There is no way the Bundys were making money ranching unless they were getting massive subsidies and, as the BLM noticed, grazing on land they didn’t actually own. So yeah, these guys were mooching off the government, and now they’re upset that they got caught. Don’t tread on me, indeed.
Whether or not there is substance to the ‘offset’ theory or anything else is totally irrelevant. Under the laws of this country, the only thing that matters is the fact that Bundy does not have legal title to that land and never has.
