Laz, and all...as one who has been on the front line in situations like this here in the west, I can tell you that waiting on the “courts to decide,” at this point, and for cases like this, is almost a guarantee that the right thing will not happen. That’s sad...but there it is.
In this case, for the two ranchers involved, as I understand it, a court did rule and the two ranchers served/met that court’s decision. But the feds, not being satisfied, successfully got a judge to reassess, and now they want the two ranchers to go away for a long time.
The actions at this remote set of building are in response to that.
Quite frankly, living here in the intermountain west and understanding the situation around grazing rights, what the courts determined in the first place was wrong. Wrong headed, and just plain unjust.
Setting backfires to protect your property is something people do all the time...and the federal government does all the time.
Burning off invasive, noxious vegetation is something done all the time.
In this case the land was leased, federal land and they are using that to go after these two.
Anyhow, we waited for the “right thing” to occur at Klamath...and it did not. Ultimately a bunch of us took direct action...which we could have gone to jail for...and it changed things, the public got behind us, and ultimately the court followed suite at that time and the farmers in there were given a chance to retain their water rights.
What is happening t these ranchers, sounds a lot in principle like what happened to the farmers in the Klamath Basin back in 2001...except then, it was the Sucker Fish that the Feds used as the tool to deprive honest US citizens of their rights.
I cannot say that what Bundy’s son did was best...I am not there and directly involved...but I can say that people in this part of the country are sick and tired and full up of an ever encroaching federal government that creates reasons to go after anyone who will not toe their line.
I can also say that I took an oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.
I have learned over the past 25+ years that that does not necessarily mean that someone rising up against encroachment of their rights is the enemy, nay, more likely the enemy is the ones encroaching those rights.
That same oath indicates that we bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution...and oft times that clause right there, when soberly considered, and faithfully followed, lets us know who is on what side of the constitutional line.
That’s what I did before driving over to become involved at Klamath. I suggest that is what people should do before determining where to side, and what to do in this instance.
So, before folks respond by either demonizing these people (which this article does not do), or trying to tell them what they should do (which in a sense this article does do)...folks should get all of the fact they can from sources they absolutely trust, because I can promise you, from my own experience, that the full story is not being told on CNN, ABS, NBC, CBS, etc. and that interviews are cut and edited and presented in the light that those organizations want them presented in.
Anyhow, get that information from the places you know you can trust, and then seriously consider the constitution and what you would do if placed in the situation these people are now in. Then decide.
I we do not do this, then we are very susceptible to responding in the wrong fashion and being led to stand against, or even fight against the very people we should be helping
Our founders did not want to rebel against England. They wanted to be good subjects. Â But a time came over decades, with many of the instances spread apart in time but not forgotten, when the encroachments on their rights were just too much...and so they rose up.
Out here in the west, as you know, the encroachments have been long standing and ever and ever more burdensome and more and more against the constitution.
I pray God’s wisdom to be with these people trying to stand against encroachments, and also with that Sheriff...that he will seek a peaceful and respectful solution that does not involve backing willy-nilly the federal agencies, or allowing them to come into his jurisdiction and ride rough shod over the people he had a duty to.
Anyhow...thought you should all know my take on this.
I appreciate your take on it, and I thank you.
Now for the bad news: Rumor is the Sheriff will be out of the enforcement picture, since the FBI is seizing control of the situation.
Looks like there will be a turkey shoot, and I would wager a dollar it comes on direct order from that Satanic bastard.
Jeff, injustice was done, no doubt about it. But we need to be smart, and not go charging into a field that has been planted with mines and lined with claymores. This just screams setup, rats, provocateurs, and lunatics with martyr complexes who want to go down in history as the next John Brown, the man who triggered CW2.
If there is going to be a fight, it should be on OUR terrain, not on a field that is being stage-managed by our enemies. We need to be the Indians, not the buffalos. Right now, we are being the buffalos.
Jeff, the Hammonds have asked the Bundy’s to stand down.
Whatever the Bundy’s are doing...isn’t for the Hammond family.
Well said...
Thank you, Jeff. I agree with your take on it for it’s mine, too. Living in AZ I totally understand.
Many of us remember Klamath and it was here (FR) about there, that I met you for the first time
Klamath was for a lot of us not so city, but not so mountain man either, got a hint of what it was like to be in a modern Lone Ranger type of setting
Your writing and account(s) were valuable then, and especially, at this late hour ... NOW.
I was just driving home and heard an ABC news report saying , “armed militia have taken over a federal building in rural Oregon in an effort to create armed conflict and overthrow the government. The takeover began as an effort to protect two men convicted of arson. -—( I guess the media has its orders already)
Out here in the west, as you know, the encroachments have been long standing and ever and ever more burdensome and more and more against the constitution.
I am aware of that, My wife's people lost 10 million acres in a Federal land grab, all done legally, where they were given deeds to their land, and at the same time, bills for back taxes. Her take on that is that the government took the land once, what's to stop them from taking it again?
The other side of the family has been fighting to not only retain, but continue to use land in the family since the first half of the 1600s. Little is left, and law after law has stripped riparian rights, established buffer zones in which now nine permits are required to cut down a tree in your yard, much less nearly 20 acres of mature red oak (not happening--there is an egret rookery in there, now and even deadfall cannot be cut and removed).
But the fight goes on.
Most of America will not be able to identify with this as casus belli.
They will look at those who do 'get it' as aberrant and extremists. They don't own land, except as a patch of grass for a house, and they haven't made their living farming, ranching, logging, mining, or drilling for oil and gas. To them, literally extracting a living from the land is an alien concept beyond flipping houses.
In their mind, all else should be available for them to recreate as they choose, to the detriment of the tidewater estuary I grew up on, ecologically devastated for just such a purpose.
Sad, but true.
It is up to us to educate them, despite the psuedoscience being slathered about about endangered species for the purpose of making land grabs.
Thank you for the tremendous work you have done on Klamath, which explained a lot to anyone who would listen or read.
To achieve the proportions the Founders had, 100,000,000 people must passionately understand what is at issue here, and be willing to do something about it.
Jeff heads’ comment,
thanks.