April 27, 2014
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Cliven Bundy and the age of reason….
Cliven Bundy is a rancher in Nevada who has been in the news lately for a squabble he’s been having with the federal government, specifically the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Mr. Bundy asserts that his family has ranched the land he grazes his cattle on since the 1870s and he apparently resents that the BLM has the authority to assign and collect grazing fees on this land. In addition, an endangered tortoise lives in the area and nearby areas and Mr. Bundy was told specifically to remove his cattle from those areas where the tortoises had nests.
For the past 20 years, Mr. Bundy has been thumbing his nose at the federal government and not paying the grazing fees that he has been assessed by the BLM. There have been several lengthy court cases where Mr. Bundy has asserted that the land belongs to him and not the federal government and he has lost all of them.
The BLM then moved in to the area to round up his cattle which were grazing on federal land with the intention of selling them off to start satisfying the over $1 million debt that Mr. Bundy has accrued. The BLM came with armed individuals, expecting that there might be resistance and that order might need to be kept.
This inspired Mr. Bundy to put out the call to individuals who view themselves as patriots who oppose the overreach of the government. The supporters of Mr. Bundy arrived armed to the teeth and ready to do battle with the evil representatives of the federal government.
Did I mention that Mr. Bundy does not recognize the authority of the federal government but does recognize the authority of the state of Nevada and the county in which he lives, both of which he tried to pay his federal back fees to and who both, wisely, refused to accept them?
There are a great deal of facts which can be found and a whole lot of hot air which is what seems to be being reported. Here’s a capsule of the facts.
Mr. Bundy claims that his right to graze on the federal land comes from a land grant he received from the Mormon church, which, while it did have some authority to grant land in Utah, did not have the authority to grant it in Nevada. His family, who quarreled with the Mormons in Utah, moved on to live in the southwestern corner of Nevada and claimed it. This land was owned by the federal government, who got it by treaty from the Mexican government who apparently claimed it despite the native Americans who already lived there.
Apparently, while Mr. Bundy’s family did occupy the land from the 1870s, they began as farmers not as ranchers and as such were granted water rights to the land. Water rights and grazing rights are not the same thing. Water rights permits the use of the water, grazing rights permits cattle to graze and are granted by the owners who charge fees to use the land. In this case, the BLM.
Mr. Bundy has a history of making the news for thumbing his nose at the federal government and claims that he is a patriot in the same manner as the founding fathers. He even goes so far as to have a Tea Party version of the Constitution in his pocket as he rides around on his horse carrying a large stars and stripes American flag. You know, the one that represents the United States and it’s federal government, the one he refuses to recognize. Try not to rust from the irony of that one.
Mr. Bundy called out the troops on this one and the West has no shortage of independent thinking, government distrusting individuals who believe that the government is coming to take everything they own and enslave them. Right wing might be a little too left for some of them.
As things grew more tense and tempers flared, the BLM and their armed guards and police dogs confronted the family members of the Bundy clan and a dog clamped down on Mr. Bundy’s son. The armed and distrustful rallied around the Bundy’s, set up a camp and were angered when a “First Amendment area” was set up for them to disagree to their hearts content while not being in the way of the cattle roundup. This, to the distrustful, meant that they were being detained and would soon be enslaved. They argued with the BLM guards and the scene was on.
In this instance, the government acted with restraint and common sense. They pulled back and released the cattle. At first, this was seen as a capitulation by the government by the public until more facts came out, facts which were stated by the distrustful group themselves.
The distrustful group was so sure that this would be come another Waco or Ruby Ridge, that they made sure that women and children were there and their plan (from their own leader’s interviews with the press) was to place the women and children in the middle, so that if shooting began, it would be the women and children who fell first. The media, it was assumed, would film it and the rest of the country would rise up and overthrow the government.
When the government backed away to spare the innocent, the Bundy’s and their protectors claimed that the first battle for the West was won by them. They heartily told their story over and over to any media outlet that shoved a microphone in their faces. The people were about to take back the government! (Do you hear the snap of the Gadsden flag in the background?)
Conservative news media had found their darling-Bundy was a symbol of the little man versus the big, bad government and the backdrop of the West conjured up just the right images.
The problem for Mr. Bundy arose when the press, as they so often do, needed something more. Mr. Bundy’s ego was happy to comply. His monologue on wondering whether or not the blacks were better off as slaves than as indolent. broken families blew up the whole image the conservative media wanted to portray. Even the most ardent supporters of Mr. Bundy were in danger of hurting themselves from backpedaling from their support of him. The usual labels of racist and right-winger were applied with a heavy hand.
But here’s the thing.
The basis of this whole issue is that Mr. Bundy did not pay his fees to the federal government-the same government which is managing the land for the citizens of the whole country. This means that Mr. Bundy was not stealing from the government, he was stealing from us. He owes us the money and he should pay us. Immediately.
He can claim all kinds of things, but he’s had his day in court and he has lost.
If reason were stick by which this whole issue were measured, Mr. Bundy would come up very, very short. Because in the age of reason, facts speak louder than opinions. No matter how many times you repeat your opinions.
Mr. Bundy thinks he’s won this battle, but the conservatives who backed him have lost the war. When you back a bad horse, you always lose. That’s what’s reasonable.
