Stand-off in Nevada

[peggy]

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.

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.

[stuboyle]

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.

[iris lilies]

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

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.

[Teacher Terry]

That is really sad that he had his land taken

[Rogar]

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.

[bUU]

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.

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.

[ApatheticNoMore]

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.

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).

[peggy]

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!

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?

[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.

[Alan]

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.

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.