Posted on 04/20/2014 12:54:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We don’t know who’s right in the case of the Nevada rancher vs. the federal government. But we do know that the government is losing the public relations battle, and for good reason.
When the government moved to seize Cliven Bundy’s cattle for his failure to pay grazing fees on public land, a growing group of supporters came to his defense – literally. On April 12, after a tense and heated standoff with them, heavily armed federal agents released the cattle back and retreated.
The situation was eerily reminiscent of past ill-fated federal standoffs, such as Ruby Ridge and Waco, where federal agents raided the Branch Davidian compound and 76 people died.
This situation is different, though.
Whether right or wrong in their actions, the Bundy family can’t be caricatured as a cult or a danger to anyone. And the family’s predicament has ignited a firestorm of anti-government fervor, particularly in the West. Bundy backers traveled miles to show their support and face down the feds. Conservative locales in cyberspace and on the radio dial crackled with anti-government rhetoric.
The thing is, we suspect the government and media elites, if they’re paying any attention to this powder keg at all, likely don’t get it.
The West, thanks to geographic and ideological distances, has always had an arm’s length relationship with both government and media. But the flashpoint in Nevada can’t be dismissed as cowboy rebelliousness. There’s plenty of sympathy for their position around the country.
The Eastern elites probably have no clue why, either.
They doubtless have no idea how poorly the federal government is viewed today – despite all the evidence in polls and surveys. After being spied on by the NSA and targeted by the IRS and having jackbooted federal agents show up to tell them how it’s going to be, folks – good, hardworking, taxpaying, God-fearing people – are tired of being abused.
As a practical matter, whether the Bundy family is in the right has ceased to matter. Like any other civil rights hotspot, all it needed was a spark.
Nor does it help that the Obama administration is so loath to deal with illegal immigrants in such a manner as it has the Bundy family. The government can’t secure the border – and is even insisting on amnesty for the illegals already here. But they send armed officers to crack down on American ranchers? Outrageous.
And the manner in which they’ve done it is just as galling. As The Las Vegas Review-Journal noted in a recent editorial, to tamp down protests, government officials “closed off hundreds of square miles of public land. They’ve closed roads. And they prohibited protected assembly and expression across huge areas of Clark County. They even took the step of creating ‘First Amendment areas’ – where no federal official or contractor directly involved in the roundup would ever have to see protesters.
“You see, even peaceful protests can be intimidating to government types. If government types feel slightly threatened, they arm themselves to the teeth. When they arm themselves to the teeth, they’re far more likely to view a peaceful protest as cover for an attack on the government. And if they believe someone holding a sign or a camera might also have a gun, agents are more likely to hurt someone. Thus, the government suspends the First Amendment as a public safety measure: Citizens are denied their rights to peacefully assemble and engage in political speech because the content of that expression might be ‘intimidating’ enough to make government agents overreact and hurt them.”
The problem is, inside the government it is impossible to consider the possibility that the government can ever do any wrong.
We don’t know if the Bundy family is the best rallying point. But the support they’ve gotten from angry citizens is evidence that the government has a much bigger problem on its hands than a few head of hungry cattle.
Glen Beck is troubled.
from Augusta, Georgia
My wonderful state of Georgia, where even liberal editorialists are more conservative than most East Coast ‘conservatives’.
They could get away with it on the Branch Davidians because there was a veneer of religous fanaticism surrounding them.
But calling Bundy the Ranch Davidian while cute is inappropriate - how can he be smeared with a fanatic label?
Being stubborn about your rights is a virtue in America.
And Rights are clearly something the current government pays only lip service to.
I don’t think they were calling Bundy a fanatic. If you read the article, you will see that they said precisely that he did not fall into any of those groups, and that the government was risking setting off a serious conflagration among already PO’ed groups by attacking him. Very true, IMHO, which is obviously what the government realized and why it backed off. For now.
John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court just told G. Stephanopolous on TV that he wants to change the 2nd Amendment to:
“....the right to keep and bear arms WHEN SERVING IN THE MILITIA shall not be infringed...”
Nice, huh?
Wow.
Yep, someone, or some group is about to git David Koresh’d!!!
We are due for that somewhere, sometime soon...
*ping* for later...
“Nor does it help that the Obama administration is so loath to deal with illegal immigrants in such a manner as it has the Bundy family. The government can’t secure the border – and is even insisting on amnesty for the illegals already here. But they send armed officers to crack down on American ranchers? Outrageous.”
Best point ever being brought up about this issue!!!
I would stress we NEVER let up about this irony!!!
The BLM kept jacking up grazing fees to drive the local ranchers off “their” BLM Federal land. The Bundys are the last left of 21 ranchers. The others quit due to BLM pressure via higher grazing fees.
The distrust comes from being ripped off by greedy robotic Federales. Many of whom don’t give a rip about Bundy or anyone just so long as they are getting paychecks
“we do know that the government is losing the public relations battle,”
WE need to seize the occasion.
Ok, sure, sounds reasonable...
We are all in the militia anyway...So that sets up a necessary provision that would force even the anti-gunners (anti-Second Amendment forces) to posess and carry firearms for duty in the militia...
It would be an irrefutable Constitutional necessity, one not open for any obfuscation or legality to oppose...It would be against the law, like not paying your taxes...
See, you can twist it anyway you want to then, according to the numbnut Justice Stevens...
Wow, I kinda like stretching this all out like a big piece of taffy!!! Even if I might be a “little” wrong...The concept suits my knee-jerk thoughts on the matter...
;-)
FUJPS.
And even if you did that - I serve in the Militia every day I draw a breath - as do we all!
The Militia is everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Yes. There shouldn’t be any association or comparisons to Branch Davidians.
This shameful episode in U.S. history is a result of the Obama Regime’s contempt for free enterprising Americans. It is these Americans that keep too many individuals off the Big Government Feed Trough. The use of he Desert Tortoise is an effort to destroy the Bundy Ranch and the open range cattle raising concept. This is about is more than just preserving a species. It is Big Government being used to make or break the free enterprise of Americans with a whim unconnected to common sense. It is about Big Government doing whatever it wants, when it wants. It is the sacrifice of Liberty and the Constitution and the ends justifies the means. We were warned about this uncontainable government by our Forefathers. It is in their writings that our government schools have removed from our children’s view. It is the cheapening of the state of the individual.
In my opinion, it is also about destroying the means of cheaply delivering beef to the consumer. Is this a quiet effort to remove beef from the diet of Americans? Is this the next tobacco to be demonized? At a time when beef prices have doubled in a year, what next? We have watched the the use of corn for ethanol drive up the cost of beef. Big Government knew exactly what it was doing. It is an effort, by stealth, to remove something it deems as unhealthy as determined by the anti-meat special interest groups. Now the removing of grazing lands from federal lands will be another in the effort to drive up beef prices so that only the elite can afford it. For the ordinary citizen, the effort to make synthetic beef will bring a protein product, at a lower cost, to replace the enjoyment of a beef brisket, slow cooked in a mesquite cooker.
Yeah, some of dem Crackers be gittin’ a mite uppity.
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