Well, they aren’t running around looting and randomly setting shit on fire and they haven’t killed anyone. I’d say that’s one thing in their favor. I’ll be interested to see you describe the next set of riots, or Occupy Whatever as terrorist acts as well.
Also kind of assuming that they are all white Christians as well. Given the media’s inability to show a black Tea Party member on TV, to include cropping out heads and hands, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t avoiding any darker skins with their cameras here either.
Anyway, they’ll get curbstomped, or the feds will lose even more face and this will happen more and more often. Which frankly, seeing how ham handed the government is getting about the regulatory morass, they could stand to be pushed back a bit on shit like this. (The Hammonds do seem to be a miserable cause to back, but I guess it’s just the flip side of defending Micheal Brown.)
I’m not sure how you are making the connection to Occupy.
They are armed. It’s not a question of if someone will get shot, but when.
And I am sure that they all plan to follow laws about hunting, wildlife refuge notwithstanding, considering why the Hammonds set that fire in the first place.
As far as white Christian, they’ve already made references to the “War on Christians”. And the interviews given so far have been pretty straight-forward.
A bunch of mostly white mostly affluent people taking over public land and scaring the shit out of people around them? Seems a lot like occupy, down to the whole we’re not sure what we want but we aren’t happy thing. I bet there are a lot fewer rapes and assaults during this event too.
People seem to have the same attitude when it comes to people who take over public lands when they agree with them. At least these idiots are taking the property from teh people they are saying are wronging them.
The most common response I get when I ask what the police are supposed to do with protesters is just let them alone since they are committing peaceful civil disobedience, why isn’t that the response here? Seems the only way anyone gets shot is if someone goes all Waco on them.
I know in Oakland, the police were reporting rapes as being connected to Occupy when there was no evidence of an actual connection. In one case, the victim came forward saying the rape happened nowhere near downtown and the police didn’t even respond to her report for a week. It was also found that the police were exaggerating some of the “assaults” and making up others. That was one of the reasons that the mayor lost her re-election attempt, other aspects of her handling of Occupy were also a problem for voters.
And the reason there were no assaults in this present situation was the building was empty.
This whole “armed protest” thing is a major problem looking for a flashpoint.
I also think that it is hilarious that Bundy and the Hammonds are insisting that they have been wronged. Yes, it was public land. But public land can not be used for private profit, which is what Bundy tried to do and what the Hammonds tried to get away with.
Actually that’s exactly what grazing rights are. I’ve read up a bit more on this and it’s obvious to me that the feds are over reaching here. These guys were convicted as terrorists for setting what they said, and what other people agreed were fires to in 2001, improve their grazing, and in 2006 to stop an out of control fire. They were arrested for the second fire and the DA threw it out because there was no crime committed. Then 5 years later the feds start fishing for a case and eventually bring them up on terrorism charges for both fires. The jury, which knew nothing about ranching or grazing land practices, after 6 days of the prosecution and one day of the defense speaking called them guilty and the Judge over-ruled the sentencing requirement of 5 years and put them in for 3 and 12 months. Then 6 months after the second one gets out of jail, they appeal the ruling and now they have to go back for the whole 5 years.
Which is bullshit, especially after decades of fucking with this family. They got water rights from the state, and the feds put up a fence around it. In the 80’s they redirected the irrigation lines to flood 32 ranches and force the owners to sell. The refuge was originally created because Teddy made it an Indian Reservation, with no Indians.
I got my information from the creation of “rape free” zones in the camps in some areas, and flyers asking that people not report assaults and rapes because it would give the movement a bad name.
Which is a time honored method of protest in the US, the Black Panthers used to do this all the time. I just wish it was someone with more sense than the Bundys doing it. The federal government is trying to expand to control everything it can reach, which is what organizations do, and no one is stopping them. I’m sure whatever happens to these dudes, it will be “unfortunate” and “unintended”. Given the history of movements like this, I’m sure most of them aren’t planning on making it out alive.
If maintaining the land costs more than the fees they get, then why push private ranchers off the land in the first place? Except for the fact that they don’t have to actually make money since they are the government, and the bigger the lands managed, the stronger the BLM becomes.
Apparently the private users of grazing permits are also expected to maintain the land and irrigation. So comparing it to private land isn’t exactly the same.
Obama has put increases to the current fee of up to 4 times the current amount every year he’s produced a budget. This year it went from $1.35 to $1.69 per head per month. If I bought a product from a monopoly that used strong arm tactics to take over their competitors and then turned around and reduced my own ability to use my own product and raised their fees that much the feds would be all over them.
Why go through such efforts to drive private ranchers off the land and then complain that it costs so much to maintain?
The more I read on this the more I feel bad for the Hammonds getting screwed, and the more irritated I get at the occupiers. This is exactly like a looney left protest. Something shitty happens to someone and all of a sudden all these zealots show up to hijack the cause.
Well, the Hammonds surrendered today, on schedule, while screaming that the Bundies do not represent them.
Also, one news source pointed out that every day in Oregon a bunch of white men take over entire buildings at 9 am, but nobody complains.
I think it’s interesting that the right-wing talking points completely ignore the fact that the Hammonds set one of the fires to hide the evidence of their poaching.
But right now the narrative has gotten so extreme that it’s not worth arguing over anymore.
As testified to by a mentally disturbed man estranged form the family remembering back 13 years to when he was eleven. Who at the age of 16 had the elder Hammond take sandpaper to his chest to erase initials he carved there with a paperclip. Who the hell knows happened at this point, but the state of Oregon didn’t think it was enough to charge them with in 2003ish when the BLM talked the sheriff into arresting them and taking them to the DA.
To have any hope of leniency they can’t afford to even look like they are complaining. The feds are screwing them out of spite at this point. Why the hell else would you wait until 6 months after someone is done with a 12 month sentence to even bring up the fact that they should have been in longer?
I wouldn’t want to be linked to them either, but they are denying anyone that looks like they are supporting anything but them going back to jail.
That basically what the articles I linked to said.
Except private grazing land has the improvements and maintenance done by the owner where public land the renter has to take care of it. I tried to find a study that shows the actual cost of renting public land and failed.
Also, you could make an argument that due to the Feds grabbing more land the private land is being priced that way because of scarcity.
It also went up so significant chunk this year.
The Fed’s have also indisputably been ducking with these people for decades, from flooding them out to when they put up a fence around the Hammond’s new water permit after cancelling their other ones. Also putting up barricades on county roads to keep them from their property.
And not just the Hammond’s, these guys are just some of the last ones left.
Once again smart guns are all the rage on my facebook feed.
Listen asshole. Turn your fingerprint ID on on your cellphone. Now, without looking take it out of your back pocket and have it turned on before you can see the screen and start to dial a phone number in less than 1 second. Do that 1,000 with only one mistake, then we can even start talking about it.
Screw your RFID bracelet. I’m sure the people that don’t take pictures of everyone’s license plate to track people that aren’t committing crimes yet, or the ones that don’t use your SSN for identity purposes will make double sure they don’t look for RFID chips for guns.
Also, I don’t want to have to worry about my gun losing it’s battery charge. I have a couple I haven’t shot in years. But if I go home right now I can pull the trigger and it will shoot.
