Rancher's Milita friends begin to worry locals.

[frigidmagi]

Local news

Concerns are growing about members of the militia surrounding rancher Cliven Bundy.

Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford, sent a letter to Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie about the safety of residents in the Bunkerville area. Horsford says his constituents have "expressed concern" over the presence of armed militia groups from out of state.

According to Horsford, his constituents say the militia have set up checkpoints where residents must prove they live in the area before they are allowed to pass and have set up a "persistent presence" along federal highways, and state and county roads. They also claim some have established an armed presence in the community.

Horsford told the sheriff that the militia are making people feel unsafe.

Armed people from across the country arrived in Bunkerville weeks ago to support Bundy in his fight with the Bureau of Land Management over cattle the agency says are illegally grazing on federally managed lands.

Horsford's concerns come at the same time the U.S. Capitol Police confirmed they are looking into threatening statements made against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

A police spokesman declined to give further details Monday, citing an ongoing investigation, but Reid has been an outspoken critic of Bundy.

Reid called Bundy a "hateful racist" after Bundy suggested that African-Americans might have had it better as slaves picking cotton. Reid has called on Republican leaders to denounce what he called Bundy's "hateful, dangerous extremism."

And so we see the Fed's stragety take shape. They will wait and let the Milita types gather. Over time only the most hardcore and most objectionable will be left as others drift back to their lives and homes. When the Fed does roll in... They'll be welcomed as liberators.

[SirNitram]

I doubt they're that crafty. No, I suspect this is just natural. They've convinced they're at war, despite the utter lack of an Enemy. They're inventing ideas to try and hold together(Drone strike is coming!), but they're already starting to fray on each other's nerves. Radio Free Redoubt(Crazy motherfuckers; but handy for hearing the distorted worldview of these seditionists) have had a few interviews, between John Jacob Schmidt(No relation to John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt) of RFR and 'Booda Bear', the apparent 'security chief' of the crazy fucks, along with two of his underlings. Some of my choice quotes, transcribed and checked against others who do the same:

BOODA BEAR: "I can swear on the white skin that covers my ass there will not be an Oath Keeper -- there WILL NOT BE AN OATH KEEPER allowed to set foot on the internal ranch property."

Not my emphasis.

UNKNOWN BUNDY SECURITY LEADER: ...these are things you live by our entire lives. You do not ever leave a man behind on the battlefield. You do not ever turn tail and run in the face of danger. You do not ever leave a man behind to fall into the hands of the enemy and you drive on toward the objective even if you are the last man standing. This is [Oath Keepers leaving Bundy Ranch] is desertion. This is dereliction of duty that was done. Ok. ... Let's put this up to a quick vote. Do we all agree this was desertion?

They obeyed a command that is outside of the command structure that they had volunteered to fall under. Which means they don't owe their allegiance to the objectives here because those objectives create a platform that the leadership revolves around ... and If they obey outside leadership that's called being a traitor.

And this caught my eye especially:

UNKNOWN BUNDY SECURITY LEADER: ".... but this man and the gentlemen that obeyed that order violated my personal creed. You don't fucking walk in and say "I'm sorry' and you're back in brother. You can walk in and say you're sorry and you're lucky you're not getting shot in the back because that's what happens to deserters on the battlefield."

VOICE IN CROWD: Amen

This I found interesting because I recall the only real world instance of it being Orders 270 and 227 issued by Stalin in WW2, gunning down those who do not stand firm.

All this over the Oath Keepers going into a nearby town to get some hotel rooms. These people are mentally ill.

[frigidmagi]

Oath Keepers?

[SirNitram]

Oath Keepers?

Patriots with a heavy seasoning of truther, birther, and conspiracy theorist. And by patriots, I of course mean psychotics.

Link

A good article of a reporter spending some time with some Oathkeepers. Short version: These guys want a second American revolution.

[frigidmagi]

Well I went looking and here's the breakdown. I'm gonna give my own opinion of the list as well.

1. We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.

In prinicipal I don't really have a problem with this. However, in practice? There are times when frankly it's best to temporary disarm people to keep the mess at bloody hindering awkward levels. Of course the question often raised, is how do we know it's temporary?

2. We will NOT obey any order to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects – such as warrantless house-to house searches for weapons or persons.

I can't find anything wrong with this.

3. We will NOT obey any order to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to trial by military tribunal.

Bluntly there are times when American citizens are unlawful enemy combatants and citizenship shouldn't be a magical badge of protection from the conquences of your actions. If you join an organization like say Al Qeada and operate in foreign warzones... Your ass is a target same as Osama. The use of military assets on domenstic soil is however a rightful concern. I think it's also a valid concern about using lines like these as excuses for supression. This is not a habit the government should be encouraged to take up bluntly.

4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state’s legislature and governor.

I am utterly opposed to this. This is open and flagent secessionism! The states are subservient to the federal government and the federal government has the legal power to declare martial law if certain conditions are met.

5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union.

More rank secessionism! States do not have any sovereignty over the federal government nor do they have the right to leave the United States. Once you're in. You're in until the nation falls.

6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.

This honestly seems out of nowhere for me. But frankly if for example a certain city in Colorado was to raise revolt and treason, the manuel would call for the city to be surrounded and cut off (look at the Fallujah campaign for examples, although we likely wouldn't break out heavy artillerty for various reasons).

7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.

I'll remember you said that, given some milita types I've ran into think that Arabs should be given the internment treatment we gave the Japanese (never you mind that it was later admited to be wrong and illegal).

8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control” during any emergency, or under any other pretext. We will consider such use of foreign troops against our people to be an invasion and an act of war.

?!? When has this even come up? Besides which anything this bad would likely leave most of our allies utterly unable to assist. I'm calling this rank conscirpy theory shit. Also I don't recall the Constitution having anything to say about this.

9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, under any emergency pretext whatsoever.

This is another one of those noble in spirit but in practice questions. How will you deal with food horders? People sitting on supplies that could save lives but refusing for their own ends? Seriously how do these guys intend to keep the peace in any massive distubence?

10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

... I'm okay with this. However that said, showing up in an armed gang and menacing federal agents with weapons is not peaceable assembly, it's intimdation.

[Josh]

Fuck their list. This is a bunch of ignorant yokel paramilitary wannabe retards. While a few of their statements actually have some relation to constitutional law, mostly this is a product of the right wing hysteria machine that's been treating the Obama administration as if it's some sort of satanic foreign occupation force rather than another mediocre presidency.

[B4UTRUST]

Frigid, with regard to point 8 "Foreign Troops on US Soil" I think this may be a loose reference to various joint US/UN training exercises preformed in the late 90s/early 2000s. That's about as close as I can come to any sort of rationalization to that and that's sort of a stretch.

[Josh]

They've just recycled a lot of Black Helicopter shit from the Clinton years and updated it to put Obama's picture on it. The theory has been that whatever Democrat is in office is just lusting to loose the military and/or international troops on the good god-fearing public in order to complete their tyrannical plans.

[Lys]

I remain utterly confused as to why these militia assholes rushed to defend a man whose respect of property rights is such that he hasn't paid rent on grazing land that's not his for 20 fucking years. I thought contracts and property rights were like the cornerstone of the foundation upon which right wing anti-government sorts rest their creed. If you take another man's property, then you have to make amends, and in this case the government was taking its amends in the form of the offending cattle. What the fuck is there to object over?

[Cynical Cat]

I remain utterly confused as to why these militia assholes rushed to defend a man whose respect of property rights is such that he hasn't paid rent on grazing land that's not his for 20 fucking years. I thought contracts and property rights were like the cornerstone of the foundation upon which right wing anti-government sorts rest their creed. If you take another man's property, then you have to make amends, and in this case the government was taking its amends in the form of the offending cattle. What the fuck is there to object over?

Property rights of manly, heroic individual ranchers are sacrosanct. Federal property is rightly the property of the people and manly, heroic ranchers should be able to graze their cattle on it for free like their heroic, manly ancestors. Ignore any and all data that conflicts with above myths. Ignore any an all evidence on how much government supports ranching in the west because god fearing manly and heroic ranchers are entitled to every penny and thus what they get doesn't count as government handouts. Repeat until you believe.

[Lys]

I've been doing some reading on what conservatives are saying on the issue. The Bundy family had been using the land for a long time and happily paying the grazing fees. The problem is when the BLM changed the rules, Clive Bundy didn't like it, so he stopped paying. Part of the issue is pyschological, he and his family have effectively worked that land for decades. They were paying rent on it, it was never theirs, but when you work hard on something it feels like it belongs to you at a very visceral level. From having talked to libertarian types, the notion that a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow, that the land you work is yours, runs very strongly with them. I don't know how they resolve the inherent contradiction between that belief and the primacy of property rights (as illustrated by sharecropping), but when the land owner is the big bad government, there's no need, the government is the bad guy by default.

Apparently the Feds only resorted to cattle seizure now because the issue spent well over a decade tied up in the litigation. However, the courts have spoken, and the BLM is well within its rights to alter the terms under which it leases out its land. This brings us back to the psychological angle: The alteration of these terms threatens the livelyhood of the Bundy family. This is unfortunate, really it is, but people are stripped of their livelihoods all the damn time due to circumstances out of their control. It's no different than if he got laid off from his job, or his personal enterprise failed due to market conditions, or his landlord evicted him. We have a social safety net precisely so that people who fall on hard times like this don't wind up homeless and starving in the streets. Again though, because the actor threatening the Bundy's livelihood is the big bad faceless government rather than a heroic captain of industry, it's easy to paint them as the bad guy.

In the end it's more or less what Cynical Cat says. They take it as axiomatic that manly ranchers are good and right whereas the Feds are bad and wrong.



On a related, lighter note:

[Josh]

Yeah, when I first heard the 'my family's been here for generations argument' coming from some asshole gringo in Nevada I had to laugh.

[Comrade Tortoise]

They were paying rent on it, it was never theirs, but when you work hard on something it feels like it belongs to you at a very visceral level. From having talked to libertarian types, the notion that a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow, that the land you work is yours, runs very strongly with them.

If it was just that, I would feel sympathy. He would still be wrong, but i would feel sympathy. But between the original court decision and some of the more recent ones, he started grazing his cattle on different allotments (leased to other Manly Individualistic Ranchers, who dont want him there) and on National Park land (which is categorically not for cattle grazing).

[frigidmagi]

Frankly if he had been doing that on private land, they would have called him a damn thief. He is one mind you, but since he's stealing from a government they despise they don't care.

Frigid, with regard to point 8 "Foreign Troops on US Soil" I think this may be a loose reference to various joint US/UN training exercises preformed in the late 90s/early 2000s. That's about as close as I can come to any sort of rationalization to that and that's sort of a stretch.

You know we've had training ops with NATO and even South American allies on CONUS soil since at least the 1950s. So why is it a problem only now. Although I will darkly note, no one got excited when NATO troops showed up in the US after 911, nor when they were here during the Reagan and Bush I Presidental terms. What these facts suggests frankly makes me tired.

[Lys]

If it was just that, I would feel sympathy. He would still be wrong, but i would feel sympathy. But between the original court decision and some of the more recent ones, he started grazing his cattle on different allotments (leased to other Manly Individualistic Ranchers, who dont want him there) and on National Park land (which is categorically not for cattle grazing).

Wait, seriously? Damn, that bumps him up from asshole to thieving asshole, which is like an asshole only he deserves to have his ass thrown in prison. I dare say the government showed remarkable restraint by only confiscating his cattle.

[SirNitram]

Yeah, when I first heard the 'my family's been here for generations argument' coming from some asshole gringo in Nevada I had to laugh.

Bonus Asshole Points: He's lying through his ASS. Local News on the 'ancestral rights'

Racist thief can't even tell the truth.