I have never been more ashamed to be a part of the liberty movement than over the past week. Conservatives and libertarians have been rallying to the defense of Cliven Bundy, a rancher who refuses to pay grazing fees to the Bureau of Land Management and grazes on public land he is not allowed to graze on nor does he own this property in question. Bundy refuses to accept the authority of the United States government and says he will only pay fees to the state of Nevada and the county. Federal judges have been ruling against the man’s absurd arguments for years. Cliven Bundy has no respect for the rule of law and he is certainly not someone worthy of defense. The fact that conservatives and libertarians have been defending this man is a disgrace and illustrates of the failures of the right as a movement and an ideology.
I remember when conservatives and libertarians believed in the rule of law. I remember when they believed every citizen, regardless of their background and privilege, had to obey the same set of laws and those laws were enforced fairly and equally. I remember when the right believed that the proper way to change a law was to use the legal and political process, not calling an armed militia. The rule of law is a necessary component of a free society. No person should be above the law, whether it be the government or an average citizen. If we encourage government to selectively enforce the law instead of trying to change it just because we disagree with it, that invites tyranny.
Even more disturbing than defending a man who has no regard for the laws of the United States is the refusal to condemn the presence of armed militias. The Bundy Ranch incident I fear has introduced the gun and the armed mob into American politics just as the Freikorps introduced the gun and the armed mob into the politics of Weimar Germany and we saw where that led. A private armed militia with no public accountability is as much of a danger to liberty as any police force or standing army, in fact probably more so for the simple fact that in our represenative Republic, we can fire the civilians who are in charge of the police in the military. There is no replacing a commander of a self-proclaimed militia through elections or appealing to his civilian supervisors.
Equally troubling are the frequent calls to revolution. We the people have representation through our House of Representatives and Senate. We elect a president every four years. Like it or not, Barack Obama is the legally and legitimately elected President of the United States. I’m sorry to disappoint the far right, but he didn’t steal either election instead he persuaded a majority of Americans to vote for him. The birth certificate is also real. If you want to change the laws and the system and have some legitimacy while doing it, go out and win some elections by persuading the American people to vote for you. To threaten to engage in armed revolution or mobilizing militias to threaten and intimate Federal law enforcement when there are peaceful ways to change policy is not just merely immoral, but is tyrannical as well. This demonstrates that they believe they should be exempt from the same laws that we should follow. Before you engage in revolutionary acts to change the law, you have the moral responsibility to use the political and legal process to achieve your goals peacefully.
I want a much smaller government on all levels. I want individuals and families making more decisions instead of bureaucrats and politicians. I want a lot fewer laws than we have now. I also want everyone accountable to the same laws whether they are a politician, policeman, or a rancher; regardless of their background. In America, no man is the law nor are they above the law, or at least that what it should be. There is no room in a free society for the politician or policeman who abuses the law nor is there room for the vigilante who sees themselves as above the law.
When we as conservatives and libertarians embrace mob rule, we are essentially turning our backs on liberty and freedom. While mob rule can be accomplished by the ballot box through an unrestrained democracy, in history it has more often than not been accomplished with the sword. One of the reasons we create governments is to keep the mob in check.
While we must remain eternally vigilant against tyranny, we must also reject the mob mentality like we saw on display at the Bundy Ranch. Instead, we need to rededicate ourselves to the first principles of individual liberty, the rule of law, constitutionally limited government, a strong civil society, and most importantly, a society where disputes, disagreements, and change are solved and accomplished peacefully. To be frank, this means rejecting the grievance chasing pundits and hatemongers who have characterized the right for 20+ years.
It’s time for the right to return to principle and abandon the hate and the perpetual outrage.
Here are some of the points that you missed – Harry Reid has been trying to negotiate a $5 billion deal with a Chinese solar panel company but they cannot break ground until they get the final rancher off the property – that would be Cliven Bundy. There had been 53 ranching families in that area, the Bundys are the last – grazing fees had been increased and regulations increased in a designed manner to remove people trying to make a livelihood from the land because the government i.e. Harry Reid wanted to line his pockets. Harry Reid’s son is an attorney who has been working for that Chinese solar company. The new head of BLM who was hired in the last few weeks, was previously Harry Reid’s chief of staff. Two weeks ago, BLM shot to death a bicyclist who was trespassing on BOM land near the Bunny Ranch. Upon arriving to collect ‘trespass’ cattle, the BLM who had brought military contractors with them fully armed and a helicopter with a door gunner, enforced in unstated condition of martial law for the 2000+ residents of Bunkerville. They have restricted the airspace so that news helicopters cannot approach. They have made it illegal to step off of pavement and have group tackled people doing so, roughing them up and taking them to federal holding areas without charge. They put up a first amendment cordoned off spot where protesters could congregate, but the ranchers correctly understood that the entirety of the United States is a first amendment area. BLM took private property – the cattle, tried to sell them at auction but the local auctioneers refused to do so. Then BLM started tearing out Wells and threatening to shoot protesters if they did not disperse. In a surprising move, the head of the Arizona senate and the head of the Arizona house both personally went to the Bundy Ranch in support of him, bringing a number of other Arizona legislators who said that the state of Arizona should support Bundy and Sheriff Mack, and the Oath Keepers. BLM has been euthanizing these tortoises for years – the ones that they are now claiming Bundy has been injuring through the use of running cattle on property that his family has used since 1877. The BLM has been systematically dismantling America’s ranching infrastructure, and fighting this in the courts has proved absolutely useless – it costs the ranchers so much that they go broke. It was the BLM who brought guns, trained snipers, a militarized force and started taking peoples First Amendment rights away when they arrived. If they had begun their operations peacefully, without the direct threat of force, they would not have been met with armed resistance, for the Second Amendment is the last guarantor of freedom- a Nevada assemblywoman made a similar statement at a conference at the Bundy ranch on Monday. Harry Reid has been under investigation by the FBI, but these investigations have been blocked most likely due to his string pulling and stature. He used state funds to have a multimillion dollar highway built from Las Vegas to Laughlin, where his father had left him 200 acres of mining claim which he figured he could resell at $700,000 an acre which is the going rate in Las Vegas – making Laughlin a bedroom community. This was mining claim land deeded to him from his father – he didn’t own it any more than Cliven Bundy owned the land that his family has been grazing on for 140 years.
Here’s annesley parroting and perpetuating a ridiculous conspiracy theory cooked up by none other than Alex Jones; the epitome of crackpots.
What’s more is how the leftist mentality has infected Bundy supporters. The claim that he and his kin have been on this land for many years and they deserve to keep land that does not belong to them is…what’s the word…oh, that’s right: entitlement! His family made a living, in part, by freely using land that didn’t belong to them. Now that he is being asked to pay for use, he’s going to strike, picket, and employ other *union* civil disobedience tactics to get his free stuff. It smacks of a bitter welfare recipient getting upset when being asked to put in their share after years of getting something for free.
It boils down to making a profit from free access to capital that belongs to someone else. Imagine your neighbor saying, “Hey, I’m not using the workshop in my garage, so feel free to use it anytime!” You take advantage of his offer for years and earn some money off your carpentry skills when, out of the blue, your neighbor asks you to pay to use his workshop, otherwise you can’t. Heck, he could just tell you not to use it altogether, because he feels like it or just to mess with you, and simply tear down his garage and replace it with a bed of wood chips. Not very neighborly or nice, but what RIGHT do you have to use of his garage? Does it matter that you used it for a long time? What’s more, do you refuse to leave and look on as some of your armed friends show up? What would you say if your neighbor, after listening to you become belligerent and seeing your friends show up, goes out, buys an AR-15 and pokes it into your ribs? (Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t say this about most occasions for the use of force by the government).
Free speech zones make me real uncomfortable, but the claim that the First Amendment applies to the entire U.S. is more like leftist talk. In one sense, yes, the 1st applies, and should apply, everywhere, but not for anyone anywhere. I have a right to fly the American flag in front of my house even if my local government passes some nonsense ordinance banning it. However, you cannot stand on my yard wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt shouting that I’m a fascist. I don’t think that I’d be nice enough to mark off a “free speech zone” in my yard for them to do so. Now I don’t think the government is being “nice” or that the 1st is a privilege when it favors the government, but I do think that in a land dispute where armed wanna-be “Red Dawn” reenactors are doing what they can to undermine the execution of a LAWFUL order, maybe we set boundaries where one side can protest and the other can do their job. Do we think it unreasonable for a bunch of leftists to be told that they can’t just block traffic because “minimum wage!”, “immigration!”, or something else? To say yes puts you in the direct lineage of those yahoos that occupied public university buildings across America to protest the Vietnam War.
And so what if there are “solar panels from China!!!!!1!1!!!”? It’s irrelevant. We call it a free market, unlike the aspirations of the squatters’ “Occupy”-style market of Bundy and leftists. If the Chinese company pays rent that exceeds the fees from grazing, I’d yell at the government if they didn’t take the deal. If you’re arguing that any amount of money a Chinese company invests and makes is that much more taken from an American, sure, there’s some sense in choosing to err on the side of an American. BUT, the Chinese have to build it with a good amount of American labor, materials, technologies and designs. They’ll probably hire some Americans in the nearby town to help maintain the panels. Hell, even slimy Harry Reid’s son probably pays taxes on his corrupt dealings (or maybe not). Do we say no to the Keystone Pipeline because of foreign financing? And if you think this is OK because the Canadians do not pose as much of a threat as the Chinese, consider that if something goes down 1) WE HAVE their solar panels, they won’t airlift them out of the country at the first sign of trouble and 2) if global energy supplies are disrupted by that something going down, THEY GAVE US the means to offset our oil dependency! Pretty stupid strategy for China, but I don’t think that was in consideration, there are a lot of chaps over there that just want to make a buck.
It’s a shame that Bundy stands to a lot. It really is, I feel bad for him. But this was the risk he assumed when he decided to live off of what was effectively welfare, and sure, he did work harder for it than most entitled people. But he could have used his profits to BUY the land in question, and if the property owner wants to charge more than he can pay, or they decide for any old reason that they want a turtle ranch, he has to eat that decision. He sucks it up, goes out, finds suitable land for the price he’s willing to pay and buys it. Once he’s bought the land, IF the government then comes to intimidate, confiscate and kick you off your PRIVATE land, then a royal uproar is in order.
[…] also create many annoying ambiguities for libertarians, especially those who pay fealty to the "rule of law" over a kind of screw-you anarchism. A huge show of force against citizens attempting to peacefully […]
[…] create many annoying ambiguities for libertarians, especially those who pay fealty to the “rule of law” over a kind of screw-you anarchism. A huge show of force against citizens attempting to […]
What gets me …It doen’t matter how many laws the Republicans pass. A leftist judge will come in and rule it unconstitutional. So I believe we are going to have to use the same tactics the crooks on the left use, If not they will soon have the votes for a 1 party sytem for-ever and as soon as they take our guns it will be time to abandone America.
[…] create many annoying ambiguities for libertarians, especially those who pay fealty to the “rule of law” over a kind of screw-you anarchism. A huge show of force against citizens attempting to […]
[…] over unpaid grazing fees has turned into a political disaster for the right. As I pointed out in my last post, Cliven Bundy has no case and he should not have been the recipient of conservative and libertarian […]
The whole ordeal was a touchy subject among Conservatives. I hate the division. I too believe in law. But I see a group of people that are tired of being pushed around by bureaucrats that do not represent their interests. At all. People are frustrated. If the leftist agenda continues to stray from the freedoms set in place by our founders, we are going to have to take a stand. Was Bundy Ranch it? Was that the time & place to draw our line in the sand? Probably not, but the reaction of the feds, the presence of militias, and the media’s effort to take down Cliven Bundy serves as an eerie precursor to potential future conflicts. WHEN do we need to take the stand? Will we (conservatives) be able to stand together in time to preserve our freedoms? Thus far, we aren’t even able to unite together behind a single electable candidate to represent our collective ideals. Divided, we will fall.