They took up arms against the US and occupied (and vandalized) our government facilities. They are lucky to be alive, should have been shot dead, all of them. I have no more sympathy for them than for BLM or others that might take up arms or urge armed insurrection against our United States. Since they are alive, let them rot in jail. Respect for the U.S. demands no less.
Vandalism = shot dead?
That lacks proportion.
Illegal occupation,?, so any protest, as this was, should be illegal? They had arms, but they did not use them or threaten anyone. They were protesting the unjust jailing of the Hammonds. If vandalism is the measure, there should be a lot of folks in jail who protested the pipeline. This is also about the inappropriate taking of public lands, and there seem to be some financial interests driving the FBI reaction to that.
The Hammonds were trying to protect their “facilities” as in their land from “vandalism” as in fire.
And the feds jailed them as terrorists because their backfire touched the federal lands.
There’s a pecking order out West and wherever the Feds own the land its Federal rules and regs, especially environmental ones plus big business use of land under federal auspices come first.
The small farmers and ranchers get the short end of the stick just like black people did down south during the “Jim Crow” Era of segregation and marginalization.
I have no problem with non-violent protest to stop the wrongdoing by the federal government.
Its needs to be as good and better protest than Martin Luther King and others inspired down South in the early 1960’s.
It has to evade crazy people who show up and FBI informants who also come to create notions of violence at protests as was proven during the Oregon Standoff and during the Civil Rights Era the FBI informants were in the CR protests and inside the KKK creating turmoil and violent tendencies.