Bundy’s Critics Overlook How The West–Or Turf Anywhere–Was Won In The First Place

ClashDaily.com ^ | 4/23/14 | Donald Joy

[IChing]

Even among some Tea Party types, there are voices who are saying Cliven Bundy is just a free-loading, renegade rancher who should have been paying the fees to the feds for these last couple of decades, for his herds’ foraging around on “federal lands.” They say Bundy is flat-out wrong in the showdown with the Bureau of Land Management. Such commenters miss an all-important point when arguing about who really owns the Nevada territory in question, who has jurisdiction over it, the right to use it, to demand payment for use, and so on.

In the paragraphs which follow, I will lay out the case that although might does not necessarily make “right,” the prevalence of stealth and superior physical force in acquiring, administering, and defending territory is and has always been the way of the world since time immemorial. To think that preceding tribal prerogatives, treaties, or modern legal arguments can or will ever change this fact is quite naive.

The most strident Bundy-bashers insist that the federal government has a clear-cut case against Bundy, and they point to the fact that multiple courts have already ruled against him–just who does he think he is, anyway, to think he can just skip out on paying twenty years’ worth of grazing fees to a *cough* “legitimate” government administration? Where does the Bundy family get off, rallying these heavily-armed militia types from all over the country to help them defy the feds when the heat comes down?

Well, I ask, in reply–just who did the Sons of Liberty think they were, when in 1773 they conducted a blatantly illegal midnight raid in Boston harbor, boarding ships disguised as Indians and dumping loads and loads of a shipment of tea overboard, in their now-legendary political protest against what they saw as a tyrannical government; a daring act of violence against property which helped spark the American Revolution?

Americans have traditionally seen that episode in our nation’s history, the Boston Tea Party, along with other famous protests and the bloody war which ensued, as an heroic struggle of defiance against corrupt authority, ushering in an unprecedented age of human experience: The birth of a new country and a new society in which government power–with its tendency to grow, encroach, and abuse–is held in check by citizens (instead of the other way around), and based on carefully written documents spelling out the paramount rights of individuals and the specific, strictly limited role and powers of government.

However, before our early leaders could finally, formally codify all of the ideas and principles upon which America was founded into systematized law and courts and agencies–they first had to sneak around, plotting and conspiring against the royal British colonial government, and then they had to openly confront and kill as many of the king’s warriors on the battlefield as necessary to obtain Cornwallis’ surrender, to be able to ultimately say, with triumphant confidence, that the territory “belonged” to the United States of America–not to the crown.

Oh yes, and before that, European explorers and pioneers and settlers and armies had to first cross the ocean and “steal” the land, as conquerors, from the Indians, or Native Americans, aboriginals, redskins or whatever we are to call them. I mean the tribes of once-migratory nations who had also “stolen” this land from whichever tribes held it or used it before them, those wandering tribes having defeated prior tribes, and down through the ages.

By the way, paleface and non-paleface readers, did you know that there’s fairly recent, good archaeological evidence (Google “Solutrean hypothesis”) that white people populated this continent centuries before the so-called “Indians” did, but that those old honkies were eventually genocided out of existence here by later invading tribes of non-whites? Kind of like what’s happening now, with La Reconquista, AZTLAN…”history repeats,” as they say…

I wonder if any of those who say Bundy is wrong for not paying to use property they say doesn’t belong to him, would also look back throughout history and declare all of our civilization’s explorers, pioneers, conquerors, rebel armies, and founding fathers as more or less equally wrong? What about the Israelis, who founded and won their Zionist homeland through incredible feats of agricultural reclamation and all-out battle against foes who insisted (and still insist) that the territory was/is really theirs?

What about the Falkland Islands? What about Ukraine? Cyprus? Taiwan? East Germany, The Balkans, Kurdistan, Armenia, Tibet, Kashmir, Northern Ireland, Kuwait? Grenada? Those examples are just some of the more modern ones; never mind the centuries and centuries of Thermopylaes and Bunkervilles and Stalingrads and Viennas which came before, throughout the globe.

To the victor go the spoils.

There’s no real difference between the supporters of Cliven Bundy and the original Sons of Liberty of America’s founding at the Boston Tea Party (or at the Boston Massacre, or at Lexington Green)–none, that is, except in this case it’s the government, not the rebels, who are violently destroying property–killing Bundy’s cattle and dumping them in mass graves, whereas the Tea Partiers only dumped chests of tea into the harbor. And the feds have held their fire at Bunkerville. So far.

In common, the Sons of Liberty and Bundy’s supporters share an identical Declaration of Independence; specifically, the desire to live productively, free from oppressive micro-management by the dictates of distant, unelected bureaucrats and usurpers.

At the time of our Constitution’s ratification, the federal government was created by the several states to serve the individual states’ united interests–not the other way around. After the Civil War, which was yet another case of sheer, brutal and ruthless armed violent force determining the outcome of all-out conflict over territorial jurisdiction, the federal government obtained massive and heavy new powers over the states, under which the states have been chafing ever since.

My position is that if (and that’s a Mojave-sized if) Bundy and his supporters can successfully hold off the feds indefinitely, then what we are witnessing is the beginning of a bona-fide secession movement, not in theory but in actuality; secession from what even many of Bundy’s detractors acknowledge is in many respects an out-of-control, overreaching, and corrupt federal Leviathan.

If secession takes hold and spreads, we will see an outright revolution. I’m not saying I think it will happen, since the feds could squash it with enough ruthlessness, but who knows? Perhaps there simply aren’t enough willing corrupt-ocrats at the controls to put down the revolt, and ultimately, maybe the ranks of Obama’s minions contain enough “Oathkeeper” types to make revolution possible, given that such conscientious people find the movement sufficiently about more than mere turf to come along.

I wonder of what, who, and where, exactly, a new country on this continent would consist.

[IChing]

When push comes to shove...

[Smokin' Joe]

I just find it fascinating that the selfsame government which goes to such lengths to remove a few head of cattle can’t abide its Constitutional obligation to secure our borders from invasion.

[IChing]

smh...

[Smokin' Joe]

?

[IChing]

shaking my head...

[Mazey]

Smh= shaking my head

[Smokin' Joe]

Thanks! I learn something new every day.

[Tallguy]

“To the victor go the spoils.”

That is not a principle much discussed or favored by Western Civilization these days. All manner of 3rd World Despots still subscribe, but civilized nations are supposed to look the other way even in the Romper Room known as the United Nations.

[NTHockey]

The death of the Bundy’s at the hands of this regime destroys forever the concepts of limited government, its legitimacy and our freedom.

[IChing]

Glad someone gets it.

[Louis Foxwell]

Rarely are the aggreived morally superior. Typically they are reprobates. Their personal foibles do not make their oppression acceptable.
The government’s case is predicated upon their presumption that they own everything.The BLM studiously ignored research that proved the importance of grazed land for the health of the tortoise. Their insistence that Bundy reduce his herd from 800 to 150 precipitated his refusal to continue paying consulting feed to BLM. That is, when the agency charged with aiding ranchers instead began shutting them down, he stopped paying for their services.
Bundy is the last of those ranchers who grazed their cattle on open land. All the others have been shut down by government edict.

[IChing]

Bingo.

[yadent]

Could it be that the BLM isn’t so much interested in tortoise’s ‘rights’ but is actually attempting to force ALL ranchers out of the area in order to obtain their water/mineral rights for other ‘interested’ parties?? Also by Bundy not paying his ‘fees’ he was stating he was not going to acknowledge in any way the ‘contract’ the BLM wanted him to sign limiting his grazing herd, his economic life. By paying but not signing the contract I suspect that, under law, he would have tacitly implied the legitimacy of said ‘contract’ and would have been legally obligated under it’s provisions.

[JimRed]

Even among some Tea Party types, there are voices who are saying Cliven Bundy is just a free-loading, renegade rancher who should have been paying the fees to the feds for these last couple of decades, for his herds’ foraging around on “federal lands.” They say Bundy is flat-out wrong in the showdown with the Bureau of Land Management.

"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." - Thomas Jefferson

[B4Ranch]

In posting this I am not to try to pass myself off as a constitutional lawyer. I am simply writing Stephen Pratt's thoughts on this issue.

A quick background as to why the BLM should not be harassing Cliven Bundy. This issue goes all the way back to the Confederation Papers, prior to the writing of our US Constitution.

Please remember that the Supreme Court has reversed more than 150 of earlier Supreme Court decisions on natural law. Is that what you would consider as someone being consistent and reliable in interpreting the Constitution?

The Resolution of 1780, "the federal trust respecting public lands obligated the united States to extinguish both their governmental jurisdiction and their title to land that achieved statehood."

In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, The Charter of Liberty contained these words, "The new Federal Government is an agent serving the states.", "The delegated powers are few and defined", "All powers not listed are retained by the states or the people", "The Resolution of 1780 formed the basis upon which Congress was required to dispose of territorial and public lands", "All laws shall be made by the Congress of the United States". (not agency bureaucrats!)

That should be sufficient for you to determine who all public lands belong to, hint - NOT the Federal Government!

"The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, it's meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted. it means now". So said the Supreme Court in South Carolina v United States in 1905

Articles of Confederation, Article VI, clause 1 All engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. In Article IX "... no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States."

Formation of a "more perfect union" does not absolve that union of prior engagements, including those obligations establish by the resolution of 1780 and the Articles of Confederation.

Our government system is established by compact, not between the Government and the State Governments but between the States as Sovereign Communities. By James Madison 1821 (This is what make the County Sheriffs the highest law enforcement officer in that County and gives him/her the authority to tell the BLM, the FBI or any other Federal Agency to get out of the County or they will be arrested and jailed.)

What I have written here is but a short piece of the process that the Founder went through to establish our Constitution and system of government.

Please view these videos and see if they don't change your mind about whether or not Cliven Bundy is in the wrong by defying the BLM.

1of3 Stephen Pratt speaking to Sheriffs at WSSA conference

2of3 Stephen Pratt speaking to Sheriffs at WSSA conference

3of3 Stephen Pratt speaking to Sheriffs at WSSA conference

Here's one that shows why the Sheriff of Clark County is duty bound to keep the BLM and all Federal agents from arresting Cliven Bundy.

Steven Pratt, Bound by Oath to Support THIS Constitution,

[IChing]

Äwesome, thanks!

[Monorprise]

In my heart I agree with you, but the fact remains that the land initially owned by Washington in the other States West of the Mississippi river was largely sold off by the same government over time. Be it for meager sums in most cases.

While it is without a doubt good policy and good judgement to hand off the land to the new State Government’s for such disposal. At the very least the money must go back to Washington.

[B4Ranch]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3148136/posts?page=15#15

[cloudmountain]

Thanks for all the information!