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Jeff, thank you for the excellent, well-researched treatise. As always, your ability to describe, analyze and connect dots regarding what would appear to be a complicated situation is second to none. I have forwarded a link to this essay far and wide!

Just a couple of additional observations:

(1) The silence from the republicans in congress regarding what happened at the Bundy Ranch is deafening. Putting on my Pollyanna, pie-in-the-sky hat for a moment ... these are supposed to be our elected 'representatives' ... you know, the of, by and for the people concept is supposed to be in play in D.C. 24/7. Yet the people scored an important (if fleeting) victory at the Bundy Ranch, and our 'leaders' are not celebrating that victory. If anything, they are silently begrudging it.

I believe that even the so-called republicans in congress (with a few notable exceptions) see this people's victory as a threat to their ever-growing power to decide what is best for the rest of us. It's unsettling to them, and is causing them to step back and reassess the relationship between them and us. Whether that reassessment will result in a positive readjustment in their elitist thinking remains to be seen ... but I'm banking on the fact that, if anything, it will strengthen their power-over-the-people mindset.

(2) A valuable lesson that should have been learned from the government's stand-down at the Bundy ranch is the fact that hundreds of American 'militia' members -- honest, law-abiding, gun-owning, patriot Amercans -- showed up to defend Cliven Bundy from the heavy hand of the BLM. They were prepared to use their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms in order to do so, yet, despite the police-state behavior of the BLM, not one of them resorted to violence, or fired a shot. Their show of power and unity achieved their goals of having Bundy's cattle returned and the feds retreat.

So much for the mainstream media's portrayal of the average American gun owner as a violence-prone hothead, just itching for a reason to use his weapon.

They are all modern American heroes in my book, and I would be proud to live next door to any one of them.

(3) When was the last time an armed militia stood in front of the US government and forced them to retreat? Other than the armed militia that stood its ground in the late 1770s, at the birth of our republic, it would be difficult to answer that question. Perhaps this 'incident' signifies the beginning of a rebirth of that kind of sovereignty-of-liberty mindset. We can only hope.

(4) I believe that, aside from its generalized agenda to accumulate more centralized power, two of the major goals of this administration and its cohorts on the hill are: (a) to take the teeth out of the Second Amendment, and (b) to accede control of the internet to 'global entities' so that ferreting out the truth about what our government is doing becomes an eventual exercise in futility. Do we need any more evidence than the small but meaningful victory attained at the Bundy Ranch to remind us that we cannot allow the left to take the teeth out of the Second Amendment, and that the internet must remain as free as it is today?

God bless you, Gail, and the family in these troubling times. Always proud to call you my friend.

~ joanie

Thank you so much, Joanie...and God bless you and yours too! and may He keep you.

As usual, I ad a bunch of typos in my original but have gone back on my site now and cleared most of those out...and corrected a couple of inconsistencies.

As to Citizen Militia facing down Federal/Regular troops AND causing them to retreat...surely we find some of that (as you say) in the Revolutionary War on occasion and probably the War of 1812.

In the Texas War of Independence there may also have been some against Mexican troops.

I would imagine that there might have been some of that in the Civil War in some engagements as well.

But since then, I do not believe it has happened at all.

In this case...it makes a critical point. And it is one that is not lost on the opposition. As I staed earlier on this thread, those militia commanders had best keep in mind that the BLM and other agencies will study and learn from this and attempt to not allow it to repeat...so their own tactics will have to also adjust.

In this case, I believe the BLM was completely surprised by the Bundys taking the offensive and coming to the compound. I also believe that the recognized when they arrived that they were going to be outflanked and that the militia members had taken the high ground on the bridges with a commanding field of view. Their position was untenable.

I am very proud of those people...and pray God’s watch care be upon them. They will need it.

It is very possible...perhaps even likely...that the Federal people will wait a week or two...or maybe a month...and then conduct a helicopter born raid in the early pre-dawn hours one day against the Bundy ranch house to take him and his son into custody...and they will come in primed to shoot to kill if they do.