You are absolutely right. And the same thing goes for the BLM marksman who was doing the exact same thing to journalists. Lower right in this news photograph:
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It might be considered brandishment. Oddly however the fact that he is concealed might make him legally innocent of that crime, because as I understand it brandishment involves threatening or intimidating your target (explicitly or implicitly), and he appears to have been concealed from his potential targets.
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As a local pointed out on TPM, the guy at the center of the dispute doesnât want to pay the BLM for use of the land, claiming it has been in his family for decades. . . which means instead of owing BLM fees, he owes several decades worth of property taxes.
Either way this kind of behavior is uncivilized and childish. âI donât like the law so Iâm not going to follow it, and if the Sheriff comes me and my buddies will threaten him and his deputies.â And before you bring up âcivil disobedienceâ, remember that MLK and Gandhi were willing to go to jail to make a point, not shoot a cop from a sniperâs perch. The BLM exists to prevent overgrazing and overuse (among other things), so they are doing a true public service, whereas this guy is being self-centered and self-serving.
This affair isnât over, and the little guy wonât win in the long run.
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Not to mention that was a staged political event at the State Capitol, not a visiting crazy pointing guns at cops.
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Apologies if Iâm all over the place on this⊠butâŠ
Not all of the activities listed in the Wikipedia definition of Sedition are illegal in the US. Plenty of speech and probably some organizing against the âestablished orderâ would be constitutionally protected (plotting overthrow by force⊠er less so).
This numnuts with the gun (and picture and name in the paper) probably should be charged with âreckless displayâ under my limited understanding of Arizona gun laws.
It sounds like the fed own the land. Bundy may have some good points about how the BLM basically was trying to manage him out of his livelihood(Â I personally donât give a hoot about the majestic desert turtle), but most of the arguments heâs been spouting are just plain wrong.
The BLM trying to take the cows was a pretty stupid plan. Iâm not a big fan of domestic paramilitary operations on non-violent (if somewhat seditious) citizens. Do they have a lien on his land? Canât they somehow prevent him from profiting from his cattle? I think someone at the BLM wanted to play with their toys.
âwhite militiaâ
Xeni, race is a social construct.
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How do you have a lien against him for land he doesnât own?
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My only hope is that HUD doesnât get involved in all thisâŠ
Yeah, I canât really disagree with that.
They should have locked this down 20 years ago when he first started doing it. Now itâs like âsquatters rightsâ.
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What a pathetic â and shamelessly prejudicial â statement; alas it serves as a microcosm of how Race gets needlessly injected into seemingly every domestic issue, regardless of whether the glove fits. And in this case, the application of Race is like trying to fit a glove onto oneâs foot. (this is mostly Xeniâs fault for that white-liberal-guilt headline â a pityâŠI usually enjoy her posts.)
Not everyone who has different values than you or I deserve derision, incarceration, groundless labeling, summary execution, etc. @GideonTJones, how is your comment any different than whites looking at a bunch of random blacks and concluding that the only difference between these âseeminglyâ non-violent blacks and the ones in the penitentiary is how they âpublicly present themselvesâ?
And to those who spend their time on the Internet looking for government boots to lick and cover stories to swallow hook, line & sinker, consider history, e.g. the historical reality of unjust laws (and ratseal rightly points out above â or tries to â some of the less-advertised though no less real issues at playâŠthereâs nothing âsupposedâ about it, @Eli_Zaren â just because youâre unaware of these well-documented issues does not mean they do not exist). To use an albeit hyperbolic example, the "Government = Always Correctâ crowd are the 21st century analogs to the cowards and lemmings who said in pre-1865 America, âweâre not sure we agree with slavery, but itâs the law â therefore itâs perfectly reasonable for us to keep buying, selling, and keeping slaves.â These days, most of the federal laws that are passed ARE NOT EVEN READ by legislators! Theyâre the original âTL;DRâ trolls. Most federal laws these days are drafted by K Street lobbyists under direct supervision of the corporations who in turn pay the lobbyists for their access to Capitol Hill lawmakers (many of whom are former legislators or legislative aides with well-polished old-boy networks). The BLM are a bunch of land-grabbers who cut sweetheart deals with corporations (the feds now own something north of 80% of Nevadaâs land), with no cognizable benefit to any taxpayers â unless weâre defining âtaxpayersâ as monied cronies, often from
distant countries and with more money than honor (extra credit: the merger of state bureaucracies with corporations equalsâŠ? Answer: the OTHER âFâ-word).
This has nothing to do with racism or white supremacy, and Xeni Jardin should be ashamed of herself for needlessly injecting a clichĂ© hot-button issue into a situation that, with virtually little doubt (if late-20th century precedent offers us any lessons) will end in some sort of siege and needless bloodshed (watch this space). There is, without a doubt, blame to go around, not the least of which is the grandstanding of Bundy & his supporters. But couching this as a bunch of white supremacist ideologues obscures real issues, which should be the exact opposite goal of real news. (NEWSFLASH for the Libertarians touting this as some sort of conclusive victory: the Fedsâ stepping back wasnât a concession or even a moral victoryâŠthey were performing recon on the resistorsâ preparedness and capabilitiesâŠa feint of sorts. Military Strategy 101. Like âAhnuld,â back in the day, theyâll âbe backââŠbecause you best believe the fed boys and military contractor boys just back from the Middle East canât wait to squeeze their triggers in anger.)
Regarding Bundy and his acolytes, as Voltaire once said, âI disapprove of what you say [or do], but I will defend to the death your right to say it.â
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Bundy doesnât own the BLM managed grazing land, but he does own land that his house and ranch set on. I agree with crizzle that there are already long established processes the govât goes through to collect a debt and putting a lien on his house and ranch should be an early step. It looks increasingly like the BLM had some other development they wanted to pursue on that land (or perhaps more accurately, their bosses in DC wanted to do with it) and they got impatient with the 20+ year legal battle they had been fighting with the rancher. Rather than continue the court battle while whatever development opportunity passed them by they tried to force a conclusion with⊠well brute force. From a lawfare standpoint the BLM looks like it ought to win, but the moment they set up a 1st amendment zone, brought in snipers, faked an attack by his son on a police dog, and rustled his cattle⊠they ceased to be in the right or the law. Cops may be used to being able to seize somebodyâs car or cash without cause for so long they didnât realize what horrible crime they were committing in the eyes of rural Westerners the moment they deliberately obscured a cattle brand. They used to hang people for that; in these civilized days people who do it are usually just fed to hogs.
If this had been some other type of laborers with a history of fighting the Pinkertons and the development had been to please the Kochs instead of Greens then I think the tone here would be completely reversed without one iota of difference in facts.
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Old as the hills. The Sanskrit word for war - gavisti - means âseeking more cattleâ
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The asshole in question drove in from Idaho.
Hey statist. How about you take a look around. We live in a police state. These people are defending YOUR LIBERTIES too. Research Agenda 21 or better yet, read a history book or two. Good god, dude.
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He owns a âquarter sectionâ of about 160 acres probably originally given to his family by the federal government after the feds killed the Indians.
Heâs grazing 800 head of cattle on high desert federal lands when his ranch could probably support 20 cattle. These laws are to prevent assholes like Bundy from creating a new Dust Bowl. He refused to pay these fees the last 20 years. He has probably liquidated his personal property and spread it among family members.
There are about six different conspiracy theories about âdevelopment.â There was a solar farm planned a couple miles away, which was canceled in 2013. There are other solar farms 50 miles away that are also being mentioned.
Hereâs the deal - Harry Reid criticizes the Kochs. Suddenly the Koch brothers Americans For Prosperity declare that Bundy is being martyred by Harry Reid. Next militia members start driving in from out of state like Russians infiltrating Crimea. These militias are there to get the boot of solar energy off the necks of the American people. The Koch business depends on midwestern pipelines like KeystoneXL and the Canadian tar sands (the Kochs are biggest non-Canadian lease holders). Now we have roving militias and domestic terrorist wannabes roving from state to state to fight the scourge of solar energy (which has nothing to do with Bundy).
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Take the scope off the gun and use like a telescope? You really donât have any experience with how scopes are mounted, and how important (and sometimes time consuming) it is to zero in a scope.
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Iâm from Montana. Just down the road from the area where all the white power guys moved to after Idaho ran them out of the state. Iâm quite familiar with these guys and their ideology. They are racists. As in, actual, organized white power types. You might want to do some reading about it.
The guy who organized this âmilitiaâ is named Richard Mack. Feel free to look him up.
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Weird with all these comments and original post and not a description of what the actual &%@# dispute is over more succinct than this:
Bundyâs dispute with the government began around 1993 when the bureau changed grazing rules for the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area to protect an endangered desert tortoise.
Bundy, whoâs in his 60s, cites the Constitution in asserting that the state of Nevada holds sovereignty over the charging of grazing fees and, if he owes such a fee, he would pay it only to the local government â not to the feds.
Bundy also contends his family has been ranching in the Virgin Valley on the Nevada range since 1877 â long before the BLM even existed and before the tortoise was declared endangered.
Bundy has said he owns 500 of the more than 900 cattle that federal officials had been planning to confiscate for illegal grazing, according to local media accounts, with each head worth about $1,000.
Also, according to The Atlantic, Bundy is pretty unhinged:
âI believe this is a sovereign state of Nevada,â Bundy said in a radio interview last Thursday. âI abide by all of Nevada state laws. But I donât recognize the United States government as even existing.â
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Sorry, I donât need crazies with guns âsavingâ me (or lining me and my non-Christian brethren up against the wall if they get in charge). Iâll pass.
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There are a variety of mounting systems that will retain their zero going all the way back to Weaver mounts. Those AR shooting mall ninjas probably have a variety of optics in their toy boxes that they like to swap out.
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The longer I think about this argument, the less I âgetâ where youâre going.
So, because Oakland police are abusive toward minorities in their jurisdiction, the Federal government should be killing militia nuts? Just to make it fair.
Huh?
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