Standoff in Nevada as Militias "mobilize" to support rancher

[Metahive]

No, that won't do because they and their fanboys will just rationalize it into just another imaginary scenario where they are right and everyone else is wrong. That's what every group of fanatics does.

[Broomstick]

Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory, one of the summit organizers, noted that there is an estimated $150 trillion in mineral resources “locked up in federal lands” across the West — wealth that is desperately needed by struggling American families in a flailing economy.

At the end of the day, that's what it's really about for a lot of these people – mineral and other resources they want for themselves.

Aside from that, the federal government has been an especially poor steward of the land, he added, endangering Utahans and other citizens across the Western states.

“The acres harvested are dropping precipitously,” Ivory was quoted as saying. “At the same time, the catastrophic wildfires are increasing dramatically, the cost, the acreage. That’s killing millions of animals; it’s destroying habitat and watershed.

“Harvesting acres” isn't necessarily the best use of land. When someone says that what they want is to take the national parks and turn them into farms, businesses, mines, and dams. They don't see the value of leaving things wild, they only count “development” as a positive. They will claim wildfires are killing and destroying but ignore the damage of clear-cutting forests and the pollution of the mines they want to build to extract that “estimated $150 trillion in mineral resources” out there. They want the Federal government gone so there is no regulation and they can extract the wealth and leave the mess for someone else to deal with. This is a proposal to turn Nevada and the rest of the west into a copy of the worst of West Virginia.

“We’re every bit as capable of managing the lands in our boundaries as the states east of Colorado.”

You mean like Ohio with its flaming rivers and Chicago that the reverse the flow of a river so it was no longer mixing raw sewage with its drinking waters or Love Canal in New York State? Sorry, the states East don't have a decent track record, that's why a lot of the regulatory laws were passed, so the same mistakes wouldn't be repeated again and again.

Others said much of the land should simply be put in private hands, perhaps auctioned off to bidders with the proceeds used to pay down the federal government's gargantuan and growing debts.

More wealth extraction for private profits and public costs.

And for darn sure the bulk of that wealth would not go to the grunt labor doing the real work and taking the risks, it would go to the small elite who have title to the land. Again, look at West Virginia.

[Broomstick]

Bundy just won't shut up:

Cliven Bundy -- the Nevada rancher turned conservative folk hero for bucking the federal government's attempts to stop his cattle from grazing on public land -- admits he doesn't understand the bipartisan uproar over his comments suggesting blacks might have been better off under slavery.

But he understands what he meant by those comments, and he's not backing down.

"I don't think I'm wrong," Bundy told CNN's Bill Weir on Thursday night. "I think I'm right."

Well, OK, freedom of thought and speech and all that, he has a right to speak his view. And the rest of us have the right to have our own opinions, like he's a racist jackass.

For two decades, Bundy's cattle have fed off of government-owned land without paying grazing fees like thousands of other ranchers.

He claims, then and now, that he won't do business with the federal government -- because, in his view, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that Americans can't use land owned by the federal government. Bundy told CNN that he'd only be willing to talk to county and state authorities, opining that they have a more rightful claim to the land than anyone in Washington.

No one is saying he can't use the land. The problem is he's not paying his fair share. That money goes to programs to care for that land (the same guy who bitches about wildfires won't pay the fees and taxes to fight them). Some of his supporters were saying "sell the land and use the money for to pay government debt". Well, then the government will have to tax that land afterwards to continue to get the revenue to function - to pay for things like fire protection, water programs, and all the other perks the ranchers use and don't want to pay for.

This stance made him a darling of conservatives in the media and Republican circles upset over what they've deemed government overreach. Militiamen literally rallied by the side of the 67-year-old rancher as armed federal rangers tried to force him off his land.

Bundy won that standoff. But he didn't stop talking. That's where his new trouble began, which threatens to overshadow his original fight.

Speaking to reporters over the weekend, he recalled driving by a public-housing project in North Las Vegas and seeing "at least a half-dozen (black) people sitting on the porch, they didn't have nothing to do."

"Because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?" he added in comments first reported by the New York Times and later seen on video. "They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton.

"And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom."

This asshole is an ignorant tool. Slave "marriages" had no legal standing and family members were sold off separately, it's a recurring theme in literature and first-hand accounts of the time. Even when a slave was "married" the owner, or anyone else he allowed, could rape the women anytime he felt like it without consequence. Any family life they had was by luck or by the whim of their owners.

The remarks have since gone viral, drawing widespread condemnation from Democrats and Republicans alike. The rancher said he doesn't feel "abandoned" by the uproar by the likes of right-wing radio firebrand and Fox News host Sean Hannity, who has ripped what he called the "ignorant, racist, repugnant, despicable comments."

Asked Thursday by CNN to elaborate, Bundy explained he'd been simply "wondering whether (blacks) are that much better off in the situation we're in now."

Yes, yes they are. They are MUCH better off.

He backtracked somewhat, insisting he "didn't really mean it to compare (African-Americans' current plight) with slavery. I meant to compare it with maybe life on the farm or life in the South, where they had some chickens and the gardens, and they had something to do."[/quote
Slaves in the south didn't own those chickens or gardens. Things like chitterlings are "black food" because back in slave days the only meat the slaves got was what the owner gave them, which typically were the bits the owner didn't want to eat himself.

At the same time, Bundy stood by his general premise that blacks once had better lives -- stating that, right now, "they don't have nothing to do with their children, their family unit is ruined ... That's what I was referring to I don't think they have the life that they should have" because of the government.

How did he arrive at these generalizations?

"I feel that, because I see that," Bundy explained.

CNN's Weir at one point challenged the Nevada rancher about whether he was any more or less a "welfare queen" as those who get entitlement checks -- since his cattle have been feeding off the government, literally, by eating grass on public land.

Bundy's response: "I might be a welfare queen. But I'll tell you I'm producing something for America and using a resource that nobody else would use or could use. I'm putting red meat on the table."

Oh, but it's OK when HE freeloads!

The notion that "nobody else would use or could use" his land is horseshit - there are lots of people capable of ranching. Red meat on the table? Only a thin slice of a proper diet, and it's not like we don't raise cattle other places than Nevada. He's not as special or essential as he thinks he is.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Not only will he not shut up, but his militia supporters have intituted an armed occupation of the Bunkerville area.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/b ... s-horsford

A Democratic congressman from Nevada said in a letter this week that his constituents have reported the armed militia supporting rancher Cliven Bundy have set up checkpoints to verify the residency of anybody passing through.

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), who represents the area, sent the letter Sunday to Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, asking him to investigate.

"I am writing to bring your attention to the ongoing situation in northeastern Clark County which has caused many of my constituents to fear for their safety," Horsford wrote. Residents in the area "have expressed concern over the continual presence of multiple out-of-state, armed militia groups that have remained in the community" since Bundy's dispute with the Bureau of Land Management came to a boil.

The militia, as reported by Horsford's constituents, "have set up checkpoints where residents are required to prove they live in the area before being allowed to pass," the letter said.

They have also maintained a presence, sometimes armed, along highways and roads, as well as community sites like churches and schools, the letter asserted.

Journalists on the scene at the height of the Bundy Ranch standoff estimated as many as 1,000 protesters had gathered earlier this month.

And the letter:



So you know what... I am done. I dont know how much good it will do, but I did start a lovely little
Whitehouse.gov petition

Whereas: Cliven Bundy has repeatedly violated federal court orders mandating the removal of cattle from BLM allotments and national park land near Bunkerville Nevada.

Whereas: Attempts to remove these cattle were met with armed resistance and open threats of violence from said Cliven Bundy and groups of anti-government Militia, forcing armed escort of and later withdrawal of BLM personnel and contractors

Whereas: The militia in question have instituted what amounts to an armed occupation of the Bunkerville area, including the unlawful detainment US citizens by force of arms.

Be it resolved: Here the undersigned do petition the federal government to take whatever steps are necessary to affect the arrest and criminal prosecution of these persons under RICO or other appropriate statutes.

[Channel72]

Awwww....

I feel so bad for conservative demagogues... they try SO hard to distance themselves from racism. It's like they just can't find an archetypal example of the rugged individualist who ISN'T racist.

[Zaune]

I don't. Distancing yourself from racism while espousing militant nationalism is either a blatant lie or doublethink level: EPIC.

[Simon_Jester]

We now see what it looks like when the right decides to Occupy Bunkerville.

[Zaune]

Hah! I only wish we'd been that proactive and well-organised in Windsor.

[The Romulan Republic]

Proactive and organized is all very well, but these people are terrorists, not an example to aspire to.

[madd0ct0r]

I stuck your petition on Reddit Al

http://redd.it/24cmrj

I'll repost it in a more sensible location later today. Traffic at this time is much lower, and new posts fade away.

[Purple]

Here is a hypothetical question. How far does an armed insurrection need to go before your government accepts that they are an armed insurrection?

[Simon_Jester]

These guys are cutting it pretty close; it may depend on how they respond to local and provincial law enforcement in the next few days.

The main thing that's stopped the government from moving in, I think, is the desire to avoid a bloodbath and the new problems that would come with it. Sometimes a sledgehammer is the wrong tool for the job- and I approve of the federals' decision to avoid a fight at the ranch some time ago.

But when you've got people setting up armed checkpoints and wrongfully detaining people at them (which is kidnapping, even if it's "catch and release"), then... on my scale that's crossing the line, so you try to arrest them lawfully.

One possible strategy here, and I hope it's not pursued much farther but it might be good up to this point, is to let the militia discredit themselves this way. So you can point to them and say "Look, a week ago they were talking about how they want to fight oppressive government, but now they themselves have set up checkpoints and are stopping passersby to demand "papers, please!""

Obviously, their real complaint isn't federal tyranny; it's that they don't get to be the tyrants.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I stuck your petition on Reddit Al

http://redd.it/24cmrj

I'll repost it in a more sensible location later today. Traffic at this time is much lower, and new posts fade away.

Sweet. It is already there, but crossposting is permitted.

You know, I actually did check the federal code. What he is doing could be prosecutable under RICO, maybe, with a creative prosecutor (basically, the armed threats etc are threats of murder made on the sharp end, and he derives his income from ranching, which qualifies the whole thing as racketeering). Dead to Rights on the following:

18 U.S. Code § 111 - Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees--under the enhanced penalty no less.

18 U.S. Code § 2231 - Assault or resistance

18 U.S. Code § 372 - Conspiracy to impede or injure officer--Conspiracy to commit the same.

Unlawful Imprisonment under Nevada and Federal law--with the use of a firearm which makes it a lovely lovely felony.

And, depending on what the Militia are packing, numerous firearms violations I am sure, and possibly those involving explosives.

[Zaune]

Proactive and organized is all very well, but these people are terrorists, not an example to aspire to.

Terrorism would've achieved a whole hell of a lot more than standing around in damp tents arguing, though.

[Broomstick]

Here is a hypothetical question. How far does an armed insurrection need to go before your government accepts that they are an armed insurrection?

Killing Federal agents or law enforcement, local or Federal would be a good starting. Depending on circumstances something else might trigger it.

[Purple]

One possible strategy here, and I hope it's not pursued much farther but it might be good up to this point, is to let the militia discredit themselves this way. So you can point to them and say "Look, a week ago they were talking about how they want to fight oppressive government, but now they themselves have set up checkpoints and are stopping passersby to demand "papers, please!""

Obviously, their real complaint isn't federal tyranny; it's that they don't get to be the tyrants.

I seriously have to question how an armed militia can discredit it self any further than it already does by simply existing. I mean just think about it. There is absolutely nothing sane or remotely normal in even imagining such a movement is acceptable. Even if it does not start doing what these people did. Thus those that support such movements are going to be the same kind of crazies that make them up. So there is nothing much that will dissuade them. And everyone else, that is to say sane and honest people of which I hope there are many think they are crazy anyway.

[Thanas]

To add to that: The USA already has an institution where one can serve the country part-time and defend it. Militia members are therefore by definition either unsuitable for it, cowards, objectors to foreign wars or are afraid of the Government. Outside of those objecting to foreign wars there is no reason why any of those should be legitimately in a paramilitary unit, especially not with an anti-government purpose.

[Borgholio]

To add to that: The USA already has an institution where one can serve the country part-time and defend it. Militia members are therefore by definition either unsuitable for it, cowards, objectors to foreign wars or are afraid of the Government. Outside of those objecting to foreign wars there is no reason why any of those should be legitimately in a paramilitary unit, especially not with an anti-government purpose.

We not only have the Reserves, where you serve part time and rotate through active duty if needed to replace the regular units, but we also have the officially sanctioned State Militias (otherwise known as National Guard) where you serve the State directy (if you have any gripes about serving in the Federal military). The NG serves on weekends or during emergency situations or as a reserve in times of war.

[Thanas]

I was talking about the NG actually.

[loomer]

Some even have State Defence Forces for those concerned with the possibility of being sent overseas in the reserves or the NG.

[Broomstick]

Back in the frontier days, when official law enforcement was thin on the ground and Federal authority far away there was some justification for local militias. When outside help of any sort was days or weeks away then local communities did need to self-organize and take care of their own needs, including self-defense

Just not needed any more. Sure, still some justification for a person to have home defense given the distances involved in some parts of the US making law enforcement response times significant, but actual militias? No, I can't see a reason for it anymore.

If you aren't suitable for the National Guard or law enforcement then too bad. For those mentally OK but physically unqualified there are support roles available if they want to assist, but I suspect quite a few of these militia idiots would be turned down on psychological grounds.

[Elheru Aran]

It should be noted that the NG, while a state-run organization, is still more or less part of the US military. They have been sent overseas and served in combat.

State Defense Forces are a fucking joke. Unless you border Mexico, which is about the only nearby country with a halfway decent possibility of ever invading the US (maybe a drug cartel takes over the government and goes nuts, I don't know, but the odds of them invading are greater than, say, Canada), they are completely redundant.

What the "militia" is doing right now needs to be stopped quickly, preferably by state police. Unfortunately I suspect that the cops just rolling up and asking them to go away won't do much, and someone will probably get shot at some point pretty soon...

[Borgholio]

Unless some of the local cops support them...then it gets really ugly.

[Ralin]

You know, I actually did check the federal code. What he is doing could be prosecutable under RICO, maybe, with a creative prosecutor (basically, the armed threats etc are threats of murder made on the sharp end, and he derives his income from ranching, which qualifies the whole thing as racketeering). Dead to Rights on the following:

Way I understand it RICO is on very shaky ground constitutionally and the only reason it hasn't been struck down is because it's usually reserved for mafia and drug cartel people. Is it really worth breaking out to deal with militia yahoos? They have pictures of these guys setting up snipers to kill federal agents; can't imagine there's a lack of things to charge them with.

[Purple]

You know, I actually did check the federal code. What he is doing could be prosecutable under RICO, maybe, with a creative prosecutor (basically, the armed threats etc are threats of murder made on the sharp end, and he derives his income from ranching, which qualifies the whole thing as racketeering). Dead to Rights on the following:

Way I understand it RICO is on very shaky ground constitutionally and the only reason it hasn't been struck down is because it's usually reserved for mafia and drug cartel people. Is it really worth breaking out to deal with militia yahoos? They have pictures of these guys setting up snipers to kill federal agents; can't imagine there's a lack of things to charge them with.

The issue at this point is not how to arrest them. That's easy enough. The issue is how to make sure another one of these does not pop up next week when Joe random decides he wants to not pay for a postage stamp or something because the evil government is stealing his money. This situation simply needs to be handled in a way that sends a clear and unambiguous message to all militias out there that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated ever.

The problem with that of course is that it can't realistically be done without a lot of blood. Especially since the alternative of simply making militias illegal which any sane nation could and would take (or more likely has already taken) is probably impossible due to the constitutional ramifications of the 2nd amendment.