Posted on 01/04/2016 10:33:31 AM PST by ObozoMustGo2012
Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.) on Monday slammed the protesters who have taken over a federal building in rural Oregon, urging them to lay down their arms.
“Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds,†Cruz told reporters at campaign event in Iowa, according to NBC News.
“But we don't have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence on others,†he said. “And so it is our hope that the protesters there will stand down peaceably, that there will not be a violent confrontation.†Cruz said he is praying for everyone involved in the dispute, particularly law enforcement officials who “are risking their lives.â€
The protesters, led by two sons of the Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, say they are taking a stand against a prison sentence for two landowners convicted of arson on federal property.
They’re also part of a group that frequently protests against federal government's management of Western lands. They protesters have told media outlets that they plan to stay on the refuge for years.
The standoff has put Republican presidential candidates on the spot, with some of them having expressed support in a similar dispute in 2014 between Bundy and the government over unpaid grazing fees.
The support for Bundy eroded when he began making racially charged statements in interviews.
Up until Monday, most of the GOP's White House contenders had refrained from speaking out on the Oregon dispute, but that is beginning to change.
Like Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) condemned the takeover at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, though he told an Iowa radio station that he sympathizes with the movement to shrink federal land holdings.
“You’ve got to follow the law. You cannot be lawless,†Rubio told KBUR in an interview highlighted by Buzzfeed. “We live in a republic. There are ways to change the laws of this country and the policies. And if we get frustrated with it, that’s why we have elections, that’s why we have people we can hold accountable.â€
Rubio lent some credit to the stated goals of the occupation, reported by local media to involve a small group of armed men with very few local residents. The group is objecting to federal land control and ownership and pushing for the federal land to be given to states or individuals.
“I agree that there is too much federal control over land, especially out in the western part of the United States. There are states, for example, like Nevada that are dominated by the federal government in terms of land holding, and we should fix it,†Rubio said, adding that it shouldn’t be done “in a way that is outside the law.â€
Among the 2016 hopefuls, Cruz has been one of the most vocal advocates for reducing federal land ownership, along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Cruz led the charge against the Bureau of Land Management’s claims over property around the Red River in Texas, saying he wants to “protect landowners from federal overreach.â€
Rubio has been less vocal about federal land ownership, but his energy policy platform calls for more local and state control over federal property for oil and natural gas drilling or other uses.
Land management is a major political issue in Western states. Nationwide, the federal government owns and manages nearly 630 million acres, with most located west of the Mississippi River.
Cruz and Rubio have increasingly clashed in recent weeks, with both seeking to overtake Donald Trump in polls of the Republican race.
While Rubio is seeking to gain ground in New Hampshire, the first primary state, Cruz has taken the lead in Iowa, which will hold its caucuses on Feb. 1.
We should be surrounding ALL federal buildings. And dare them to come out!
People are FED fu**ing up!
I don’t know where you live but people with guns is normal where I live.
So they had their guns with them. So? People in our grocery stores have rifles slung on as they shop. That’s called the second amendment.
They probably also have their wallets with them.
You betcha.
Did you ever hear of the Battle of Athens? (Tennessee)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29
http://www.constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5ut6yPrObw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtrsk1HmOKU
Not much different here - just swap federal government and their agents with corrupt county officials.
Thus IS a USSR level threat. That’s what so many here don’t get.
There is an agenda 21 course easily found on Google. You have to understand their goals in order to see them working on them.
Please.
Learn about what is happening.
The federal government has made use of land for conservation purposes for almost 150 years.
It isn't new, and it isn't unconstitutional.
What it is, however, is inefficient and self-contradictory.
A former FBI director doesn’t agree with you.
Exactly this. Fighting doesn’t always mean, “Let’s go in and pummel the other side.” Sometimes fighting means holding back, keeping your powder dry, and waiting until you can be the most effective. Is there an argument to be made here about the government? Absolutely. Is it time to take up or advocate taking up arms? No.
And plenty of Americans remember what happened to the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, and they are still not happy about it.
If you want to persuade people to take a more critical view of the federal government, a bunch of wannabe warriors squatting in a wildlife refuge doesn't make them feel like they're watching Washington and Hale.
The fed buildings in LA and other massive population centers now resemble armed fortresses. Automated vehicle pop up barriers, armed guards, CCTV everywhere, people on the roofs, razor wire and those who enter are sniffed, scanned, x-rayed, scoped, searched, and on and on.
I remember watching them do all these massive upgrades years ago. I’m thinking to myself, what are these guys expecting?
Klamath. :-)
We were closer then and I almost drove down.
The glaring problem with today’s “patriots” and “conservatives” is that there is never “a hill worth dying on” ...
No matter how bad the federal tyranny gets the majority of the “internet brigade” will only go “hurumpf! hurumpf!” - and then slouch off to editorialize against the next egregious act of federal tyranny. It’s all bluster ...
I am willing to bet it will remain all bluster, even as the “staunch defenders of the Constitution” are being frog marched into the FEMA interment camps - or worse.
Agenda 21 is old - as is sustainable development ... They have a whole new lexicon for all their acts of encroaching tyranny. No place is free from it - even in the backwaters of SW Nebraska the local Public Power Districts constantly use all the terminology of the collectivists, w/o even understanding what it is they are advocating. Useful idiots.
Don't just post to the thread - seize the day.
Indeed.
They are expecting a war. They have poked the bear one too many times.
They are scared shitless of an armed populace. As they should be.
I have sympathy for the abstract causes being protested, which appear to be twofold — excessive federal control of land in western states, and excessive legal penalties for anyone who dares to oppose the state.
One would have thought that Ted Cruz would naturally support anyone who was protesting those two trends. He is on record as holding similar views. So he has chosen to take a different stand in order to appear fully committed to the rule of law.
At some point the rule of law becomes the drool of law. These protesting citizens are not taking violent or excessive action. They are holding a little-used (in winter at any rate) wildlife refuge in symbolic protest. At this point their protest is reasonable. It’s not like they are blocking a busy highway into a national park.
However, the best outcome here would be for the federal government to realize that their prosecution of the Oregon ranchers (who seem ambivalent about the support of the protest in any case) is vindictive and excessive, a violation of the law much greater than whatever the ranchers may or may not have done in the first place.
That’s the approach Ted Cruz should take here, to say that he would call off the hounds and negotiate a reasonable settlement with the ranchers, while doing the other good thing he is already committed to doing, reducing the land ownings and powers of the BLM.
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