Stand-off in Nevada

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/...8431397503860/

So what do you all think of this? Here is a thief who simply decides he isn't going to pay the fee, like every other rancher there, and manages to attract every gun loon and conspiracy theorist to, I don't know, kill some feds over HIS RIGHT TO STEAL from US citizens. Un-freaking-believable!
Talk about b*lls!
So, the tea party is seeing this as some sort of victory, cause might makes right, I guess. The guy with the biggest gun, or largest number of guns, gets to make the rules in tea party taliban world. The lands not yours? No problem! We'll just take it by force, cause, we got the guns, and plenty of idiots to use them. And here's a great idea! Let's put the womenz in the front line just in case anyone starts shooting! Works for the Taliban!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5154606.html

The rule of law has been officially replaced by mob rule.:( Gee, I wonder what else they can take by armed insurrection?

Meanwhile, I think I'll go pitch a tent on the capital lawn cause, you know, I want to camp there, so i have a right. Right?

I think you posted in the wrong forum, probably meant Public Policy.

"Tea Party Taliban" - now *there's* a sign that the discussion will have some nuance...

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Originally Posted by bae

I think you posted in the wrong forum, probably meant Public Policy.

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Agreed. I've moved it to Public Policy

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Originally Posted by peggy

So what do you all think of this?

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I think we've potentially got another Waco in the works. If the protestors (or Tea Party Taliban if you just can't resist) have delayed that result, I'm glad they put themselves in the way.

I can't tell from that brief article if Bundy has any legal grounds, but it wouldn't be the first time the BLM bulldozed their way onto someone's land claiming it as their own. I think our Native American citizens know rather a lot about that.

M FIL, who had an agreement from the railroad that his farm land would revert back to him when the rail line was abandoned, found out just how sneaky/sly is the goobermnet in these land matters when they reneged.

Maybe we can gen up a Tea Party protest--with guns!--if we can convince my FIL Norman to get all riled up again. His wife, my MIL, is now dead, so she won't hold him back. We can have a little Waco there, too.

About Norman:
http://www.bikeiowa.com/News/1207/la...reation-trails

Actually Iris, this land isn't his. Never was. It is government land,(belongs to we the people) which allows ranchers to graze their cattle on it, for a fee. All the other ranchers pay their fee, and in fact the Nevada ranchers association wouldn't back this crazy up because, again, all the other ranchers pay their fee, which isn't much actually, but because this guy decided, decades ago that he simply didn't NEED to pay his fee, it has added up. The gov has been trying to get him to either pay his fee or get his cattle off gov land for decades. It's not like WAco at all. This guy is clearly breaking the law, and stealing what doesn't belong to him.
EVen if his family has been renting this land for a long time, that doesn't give him the right to take it anymore than your tenant declaring that because he has rented the house from you for 20 years it belongs to him.
The guy is a thief. But he's a well armed thief, which is why I called him, and his 'friends' tea party taliban, cause any group (and this one identifies itself as tea party) that decides it can do what it wants and take what it wants at the point of a gun is Taliban. That's exactly how they work. Might makes right, and we will rule by the terror of 'we will kill you if we don't get what we want'.
And this sets a dangerous precedent, cause these bullies are now emboldened to continue to take anything they want simply because they have the guns. See, even Alan here thinks the feds backed down in the face of greater firepower. Some sort of mexican stand-off, right here in the good 'ol US, that he apparently approves of, and all for the wrong reasons I'm afraid. *Note, it's interesting to see the 'good guys with the guns' backed down cause 'the bad guys with the guns' out gunned them. Is this what the NRA had in mind? I wonder what would they say if it had been black street gangs in St. Louis who decided they wanted to take Iris Lilies property?
The tea party has become such a joke. These people are no more fighting for freedom, or rule of law, or liberty, than republicans are the 'party of responsibility'. And speaking of that, did you see which republican 'leaders' stood up for these guys? The usual suspects. It just amazes me how, for a momentary base-cheering sound bite, they are so willing to be associated with law breakers, and criminals. Yeah, let those armed thugs try that on THEIR property and you'll see how fast they'd be arrested.

It's worth it to read up on this a bit, and don't just listen to Fox News, or get your info from right wing bloggers. It's worth it to learn the facts in the case cause it's an important turn in the future insurrections these thugs are so desperate to get us involved in.

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Originally Posted by Alan

Agreed. I've moved it to Public Policy

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Actually, I thought it was just general (open forum) stuff, cause far be it from me to assign taliban type ignorance and law-breaking to a political party. People from both parties can be thugs and law breakers, can't they? Law breaking and general thuggery isn't really a political issue, but so be it. If this is the right forum, I'll bow to your better judgement in this.>8)

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Originally Posted by peggy

See, even Alan here thinks the feds backed down in the face of greater firepower. Some sort of mexican stand-off, right here in the good 'ol US, that he apparently approves of, and all for the wrong reasons I'm afraid.

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No, actually I don't think the feds backed down in the face of greater firepower. I think the feds temporarily backed down in order to wait for protesters to leave the area before storming the ranch.

Personally, I think this Bundy guy is nuts, but I also think the small army the feds sent after him is overkill. Put the two together and you get a bad result, especially if there's no third party willing to step into the middle.

Peggy is right that this guy won't pay his grazing fees and now owes over a million dollars. I don't think this will be resolved in a way that they like. Feds are probably just letting it die down before taking action.

Iris Lily what finally happened to Norman's dispute? I just went & read the article.

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Originally Posted by Alan

No, actually I don't think the feds backed down in the face of greater firepower. I think the feds temporarily backed down in order to wait for protesters to leave the area before storming the ranch.

Personally, I think this Bundy guy is nuts, but I also think the small army the feds sent after him is overkill. Put the two together and you get a bad result, especially if there's no third party willing to step into the middle.

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On this we agree. The feds backed down cause they didn't want a bloodbath to play ad nauseum on right wing sites. ( I realize some in the feds would have liked to rush in there guns blazing, but thankfully cooler heads prevailed) But that doesn't make this guy any less guilty. I just wish all those 'tea baggers' hadn't rushed down there to defend this law breaker. I have to believe they didn't have the total truth to work from. From what i saw on tv, so many of those "patriots' were fairly young people, so maybe not in full faculty of critical thinking. I'm glad the feds realized this. EVen against clear law breakers, I don't want unnecessary deaths.
The feds do need to take care of this, however. They can't let these law breakers get away with this, anymore than they need to let bank robbers 'just go' because they have guns and hostages. There is always an alternative plan. The less violence in the process the better.

I've been closely studying this to see if Bundy falls under the "thief" category or something else. Wikipedia now seems to have some very detailed information on this if search it for "Bundy Standoff". From what I've read, grazing rights are issued in 10 year increments and 1993 was a renewal year. At that point, the BLM wanted to cut back his cattle by 90% to only 150 head. At that point, Bundy basically told the BLM to go screw themselves and stopped paying. While Bundy doesn't own the land, he is required to own "base property" adjacent to the land which I presume is his homestead. If he loses the grazing rights I suspect it could impact the value or usefulness of the base property as well. I think I read somewhere that he owns about 100 acres. I just got back from a trip to Arizona and let me tell you, and if it is anything like this land, it is so arid that 100 acres is nothing. Legally, he doesn't have a leg to stand on. According to legal documents that I've seen, the Bundy's first started grazing cattle on that land in 1954. I've heard the Bundy's claim that they grazed cattle back into the 1800's. I don't know about that. He doesn't possess any "ancestral rights" to the property apparently. Courts have ruled that Bundy is "now trespassing on a broad swath of additional federal land, including public lands within the Gold Butte area that are administered by the BLM, and National Park System land within the Overton Arm and Gold Butte areas of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area." The original allotment was called the "Bunkerville Allotment". So, within this respect, maybe he is a thief.

So I guess I do have some sympathy for the guy. Whenever you rent or lease you are pretty much at the mercy of the landlord.

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Originally Posted by Teacher Terry

Iris Lily what finally happened to Norman's dispute? I just went & read the article.

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I think (dont' remember for sure) that Norman's loss in court is the status quo. I'm not sure that he ever got that piece of land the county was going to give him. If I remember correctly something about the gates was important because the trail riders opened them, wouldn't shut them, and cattle got out.

But now Norman doesn't have cattle so it doens't matter.

That is really sad that he had his land taken:(

Diane Rehm had an interesting feature on this. As I get it, initially Rick Perry and Ron Paul had a little support for the cause, but once Bundy came out with his obviously racist statements intimating that blacks might have been better off as slaves, among other ignorant and biased remarks,they backed off by the distance of the proverbial ten foot pole (I would wonder why they didn't notice he was a kook way before this). I can't recall if it was Perry, Paul, of both, who made statements alluding to the fact that the basic issue still was relevant. That the federal government has undue control over vast areas of public land. I'm am sure there are isolated cases for this, but as hard as I could think, it seems that the government generally manages public land for the general benefit of everyone and is the regulator to protect us against special interest groups.

Not doubt they have some unstated implications around mining and fossil fuel exploitation among other issues and would like more of a hands off policy.

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Originally Posted by peggy

But that doesn't make this guy any less guilty. ... The feds do need to take care of this, however. They can't let these law breakers get away with this, anymore than they need to let bank robbers 'just go' because they have guns and hostages.

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Precisely. I see this kind of thing almost like appeasement prior to WWII - letting offenses go in the interest of peace only leading to the offenders getting more brazen and presumptuous in their offenses. We see that this one guy - an outlier for sure, but I think indicative of the continuously burgeoning extremism of the right-wing, being emboldened by his "success" in browbeating society to abide his petulant presumption and making apparent even more offensive behaviors that he would like to engage in.

Public land is public land. The overriding consideration for its use is what is best for society as a whole, and that necessarily should be driven most substantially by what would best address society's unfulfilled obligations to its most vulnerable members. The desire for people who want to use public land for their own purposes, on their own terms rather than terms set for by society through its established processes, is not something society should be placating.

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But that doesn't make this guy any less guilty. ... The feds do need to take care of this, however. They can't let these law breakers get away with this, anymore than they need to let bank robbers 'just go' because they have guns and hostages.

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wouldn't it be nice, but that has nothing to do with who they decide to let go (I am 100% convinced they shouldn't have let the Bush admin crimes slide - that that has led to an absolutely horrendous state of affairs. Some would say they shouldn't have let the banksters - although I don't tend to jump on the banksters were the only reason for the economic collapse bandwagon). Is it really reasonable to believe the Fed gov is terrified of a bunch of people resisting (yes even with guns) with a full knowledge of what it is capable of when it wants to crack down on something? (although wait and see can be a military strategy too) I don't 100% know the answer, but I wonder.

But Bundy is he some hero? No. I don't think he has a legal claim to the land. And if not that's pretty clear cut. But legal is not moral? Sure. I mean if you want to argue to abandon the existing real property system and adopt a new one ok (I have no particular attachment to the existing one - I'm not some vast profiteer on rent) - make it so people can only own land they are using for instance - that might in general be beneficial but I do like things like national parks preserved as well for non human species - so there yet has to be a way to protect the commons (if you want to advance such an agenda and your not even talking about the commons then I have no use for it - it's garbage). And then your just as likely to identify with Occupy's Strike Debt and all those who squat on their foreclosed homes as Bundy (because all squatting is an attempt to claim the land and if you squat enough years maybe it's even adverse possession).

Bundy is in many ways a pure USEFUL IDIOT. That's really what he is. So I've nothing huge against ranching, it can be more or less sustainable, but I don't like it going on in the national parks. But if the government has no title to land it has title to, why assume it's ranchers that will be the one's who benefit? Come now, it will probably be developers and the like. Like I said he is a pure useful idiot for those types of interests that want to completely rape and exploit the land, until it's: they paved paradise and put up a parking lot (or maybe he is a paid off idiot and front man and public face? Possibly, *charitably* he's a useful idiot ok). But the Fed gov is already in bed with a lot of sleazy interests? Yea that's not lost on me, it's just a question of whether it gets even worse, and useful idiots help with that (and money in politics helps even more).

That's he racist is neither here nor there (it shouldn't even be the main concern of anti-racists whose main concern should obviously be structures of oppression like racist policing etc.) but it's really not here nor there in whether he should have a claim to the land. But it seems way too easy an issue to jump on some bandwagon about even though it doesn't matter (so he's a rotten guy ok, what does that have to do with anything - I guess with the need to create heroes and knock them down - but obviously Bundy is no hero to me and the whole need to create heroes has an element of pathology even in much more worthy cases).

Now i read that these gun nut militias who ran down there spoiling for a fight are left frustrated that they didn't get the armageddon they were hoping for. I read they are setting up check points, of all things, along public roads for..I don't know, because?...
If this is true, the national guard (if the local sheriff won't) should definitely go in and take these terrorist out. They should not wait. These idiots need to be taken care of, right now. I say send in the drones or black helicopters they keep saying Obama has. Take their guns..and their bibles too, for good measure!:D

Seriously, what i don't see are the supposedly serious tea party folks condemning this. Or mainstream republicans. Especially those who just weeks ago were declaring the patriotism of these thugs.

One thing I DID notice was how quickly the mainstream republicans distanced themselves from Bundy when he started the crazy about 'the negros'.
Funny though, they didn't have a single problem with him being ANTI-AMERICAN.
Some patriot, huh?

I'd prose that if Bundy were wearing a hoodie instead of a cowboy hat and if he had a slightly deeper tan, he'd be dressed in orange eating off a tray in a nice government sponsored cafeteria.

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Originally Posted by Rogar

I'd prose that if Bundy were wearing a hoodie instead of a cowboy hat and if he had a slightly deeper tan, he'd be dressed in orange eating off a tray in a nice government sponsored cafeteria.

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That's an interesting take. What has he done other than fail to pay grazing fees? What actually prompted a small army of government agents to surround his property? And finally, what makes you think race has anything to do with anything?

Just curious.

I'm actually surprised they let Bundy go for so many years without nipping it in the bud from the onset if they have the legal authority to do so. I worked as a government regulator (environmental compliance stuff) and would never let someone continue to violate the law or continue non-payment of fees that long. There's generally a process that is followed and if, within a certain time frame, compliance isn't met then it's met with legal action asap. Why did they wait years to enforce this?

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Originally Posted by Alan

That's an interesting take. What has he done other than fail to pay grazing fees? What actually prompted a small army of government agents to surround his property? And finally, what makes you think race has anything to do with anything?

Just curious.

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The courts ruled that he owed trespass damages caused by the cattle and that he had unlawfully grazed cattle on federal land, in addition to the backlog of grazing fees. Since some of the restrictions on his grazing were to protect the dessert tortoise, I suppose you could say that the trespass damages included irreparable or measurable harm to a natural resource. I suspect the governments agents expected trouble based on previous experiences with Bundy and is the same reason they released a couple hundred head of Bundy cattle they had rounded up to pay for damages. Some where in the mess of it there is probably impeding the duties of a law officer. Maybe creating a public nuisance if his deputies are really stopping cars on a public highway. Someone might find public endangerment an as a possibility. I don't think I want to touch the race issue, but you can suspect the answer.

Here's the court ruling on the charges of trespass and unlawful grazing.
http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medial...%2010-9-13.pdf

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Originally Posted by Alan

That's an interesting take. What has he done other than fail to pay grazing fees? What actually prompted a small army of government agents to surround his property? And finally, what makes you think race has anything to do with anything?

Just curious.

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I'm still unclear on that.

I tend to think in terms of political calculations - that a certain amount of non-threatening (and actually like I said a good front man for those who have far worse plans for the land than ranching - think mining, development etc.) dissent is allowed for a certain while. Useful politically to divide and conquer and so on. Maybe he even bribed local officials for awhile to avoid paying, I don't' know :). They sure did let the fees slide.

So I hadn't thought of the race angle though it's fair enough, but it's seldom *just* race.

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I'd prose that if Bundy were wearing a hoodie instead of a cowboy hat and if he had a slightly deeper tan, he'd be dressed in orange eating off a tray in a nice government sponsored cafeteria.

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I propose that if he was a homeless white guy he'd be shot by law enforcement. See how that works? And based on the news too. If you don't really have parallel situations to compare to you can make the claim there is systematic racism (but not just from this example) but you can't really make the claim that poor white people aren't sometimes treated just as badly, as they are.

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Since some of the restrictions on his grazing were to protect the dessert tortoise, I suppose you could say that the trespass damages included irreparable or measurable harm to a natural resource.

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You could. Meanwhile BP puts another rig in the gulf (all restrictions have been lifted - they are). How much wildlife did that kill? Meanwhile fracking spreads and people can set their water on fire. Meanwhile another oil pipe bursts and poisons a town. Because one need not support Bundy in any way to realize that he is probably still small fry (so he's a millionaire, but is he a corporate person? that don't impress me much ...). And that the laws don't apply to the truly big guys. It's a multi-tier legal system. And just because Bundy may be treated better than a poor minority doesn't mean he has the legal immunity of the big guys like BP (the fine was a slap on the wrist) - who actually ARE the ones doing most of the irreparable harm to natural resources. At worst he makes a good front for them to move in (but even that won't be primarily Bundy - he's at worst PR - if that happens it will be because the government is bought up)

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Originally Posted by Alan

And finally, what makes you think race has anything to do with anything?

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That's an easy one:

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The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.

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Originally Posted by Rogar

The courts ruled that he owed trespass damages caused by the cattle and that he had unlawfully grazed cattle on federal land, in addition to the backlog of grazing fees. Since some of the restrictions on his grazing were to protect the dessert tortoise, I suppose you could say that the trespass damages included irreparable or measurable harm to a natural resource. I suspect the governments agents expected trouble based on previous experiences with Bundy and is the same reason they released a couple hundred head of Bundy cattle they had rounded up to pay for damages. Some where in the mess of it there is probably impeding the duties of a law officer. Maybe creating a public nuisance if his deputies are really stopping cars on a public highway. Someone might find public endangerment an as a possibility. I don't think I want to touch the race issue, but you can suspect the answer.

Here's the court ruling on the charges of trespass and unlawful grazing.
http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medial...%2010-9-13.pdf

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As long as we're suspecting, I wonder what brought this to a head now, after 20 or so years of legal wrangling? I'd suspect that there's some political wrangling going on as well, in an effort to cherry pick a known scofflaw and create a right vs left situation guaranteed to generate publicity.

The Senate Majority Leader represents Nevada. The Senate Majority Leader is well known for his creative use/misuse of facts and often laughable rhetoric in an effort to hurt his political/ideological opposition, and has gone on record referring to Mr Bundy and his supporters as domestic terrorists. The Bureau of Land Management initiates this operation against Mr Bundy at the same time as the Senate Majority Leader's long time lieutenant is being confirmed as the new Director of the BLM. A great deal of media coverage ensues and controversy escalates along ideological divides.

I suspect shennanigans are in play and further suspect that this situation will come to a head in the fall, just prior to mid-term elections and the exact time it garners the most political capital.

Maybe, Alan. Although both both left and right including the Ron Paul bunch have pretty much disowned him now, which seems to subtract from the supposition. My suspicions are more that either due to changing politics or a long festering situation, someone said this can't go on any longer and we should do something. It might be totally impossible to separate politics from the issue as much as it is impossible to deny that he ignored paying grazing rights on the same public land everyone else pays to graze on.

I can imagine that the 1995 banning of all grazing on the land he used in order to protect the land tortoise, which resulted in his trespass damage charges, also had a touch of politics. It was still wrong, at least by the court's standards, which are probably a little further distant from the political arena.

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Originally Posted by Rogar

It was still wrong

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This is key. Even if you don't like the way the laws are, that still doesn't excuse transgressing them - even as a matter of principle: Principled noncompliance means having the honor and integrity to abide the consequences of your transgressions. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led nonviolent resistance to laws he and his supporters found oppressive and indefensible: They did so fully cognizant, and yes even welcoming, of authorities' enforcing those laws, arresting them, incarcerating them, etc. The imposition of the penalties imposed due to enforcement of unjust laws is what legitimate resistance uses to raise public awareness to get laws changed. Refusing to acknowledge authority that doesn't kowtow to your own personal edicts is nothing more than childish petulance.

Many laws are not enforced now. It seams we pick and chose depending on who is in power.

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The Senate Majority Leader is well known for his creative use/misuse of facts and often laughable rhetoric in an effort to hurt his political/ideological opposition, and has gone on record referring to Mr Bundy and his supporters as domestic terrorists.

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But that pretty much meets the current definition. Occupy was considered possible terrorists by the FBI. The Pentagon for awhile labeled protest terorrism in an anti-terrorism exam. The expansion of the definition of terrorism to label much protest as terrorism when needed has been going on for quite awhile now. This is undersirable but it's not a feature of one person or party, it's widespread.