Article: Ammon Bundy Speaks From Occupied Oregon Refuge...

[Ultralight]

Peaceably freezing theirs bleeps off in the middle of nowhere, and hoping to get Facebook/Twitter viralization and snacks brought in?

This.

[bae]

One data point - I just chatted with some friends in the area, they claim these folks are mostly moronic outside agitators, and the locals don't want 'em there.

[Ultralight]

I am curious how this thing will play out.

[LDAHL]

One data point - I just chatted with some friends in the area, they claim these folks are mostly moronic outside agitators, and the locals don't want 'em there.

Sort of like Occupy Wall Street with cowboy hats?

[bae]

Sort of like Occupy Wall Street with cowboy hats?

Yup. And not a Starbucks in sight.

[jp1]

Sort of like Occupy Wall Street with cowboy hats?

I wonder what the government response to the Occupy protests would have been had the protesters been armed.

[jp1]

The info I've come across indicates the important government building is about the size of a highway rest stop bathroom.

What does "taken over" mean, btw? Are they forbidding others from coming/going? Holding hostages? Trespassing? Peaceably freezing theirs bleeps off in the middle of nowhere, and hoping to get Facebook/Twitter viralization and snacks brought in?

The size of the building seems irrelevant. Is it any less of a crime if I steal someone's Smart car versus someone's large SUV?

Please feel free to go down there and try to enter and let us know armed folks in the watchtower respond.

[Alan]

Please feel free to go down there and try to enter and let us know armed folks in the watchtower respond.

Being armed and threatening violence are two different things. I spent most of my adult life armed on a daily basis, and I'm a pussycat.

[LDAHL]

I wonder what the government response to the Occupy protests would have been had the protesters been armed.

So far it seems about the same except for the fashion choices. People squatting on public property making ambiguous demands while the authorities hope they'll get bored and go away before the available sanitary facilities are overwhelmed. But it's early in the show.

[bae]

The size of the building seems irrelevant. Is it any less of a crime if I steal someone's Smart car versus someone's large SUV?

I was attempting to provide context to the "OMGZ they've occupied a Federal Building!!!!" tidal wave. I do see perhaps some difference between milling around a closed-for-the-season ticket booth/visitors interpretive center of a remote wildlife refuge and occupying the Governor's office or a State University President's office or blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. But if it's handy to collapse all this into "angry armed white guy domestic terrorism" for the sake of convenience, heck, go for it. You can see the lust for blood in the social media sphere, so many folks are just slavering to see these morons cluster-bombed.

Please feel free to go down there and try to enter and let us know armed folks in the watchtower respond.

No thanks, I strive to maintain distance from disorder, and I can see no good at all coming of anyone being around that clown show. If I were the law enforcement folks in charge, I'd take photos of the participants, ignore them, wait for cold and hunger and lack-of-media to do its work, then roll around next month when they are sadly sitting at home and arrest them, if that was even necessary.

Might look to how Canada is handling the Wet’suwet’en's Unist’ot’en Camp blockade. (Weird, that one doesn't make the news much, wonder why...)