lotus503
Diamond Member
- Feb 12, 2005
- 6,502
- 1
- 76
Is this black family receiving (i.e. not paying) thousands of dollars over decades in an analogous situation? In this case, the BLM holds these lands in trust, with their original and continuing purpose being to ensure grazing by preventing overgrazing. The sole question to Bundy's legitimacy is whether the BLM acted in good faith when it first drastically reduced, then ended his grazing rights.
At the moment, regardless of my deep suspicion of the BLM I must conclude that the BLM did act in good faith simply since I've seen no evidence to the contrary. But that does not reduce the question to the level of anyone taking government resources.
I too support our citizen's rights to stand up against inappropriate government force or tyrannical government, or a host of other ills. But that carries with it the responsibility to judge when such armed resistance is justified, and there the bar must be very, very high. To date I've seen no such evidence at all, let alone enough to be convincing. I've not even seen any attempt to provide such evidence. That government has attempted to wipe out his means of living is not in and of itself evidence of tyrannical government simply because maintaining his means of living, while being the BLM's original reason for establishment, is not now the BLM's only reason for existence. For that matter, we can't even be absolutely sure that the BLM's original reason for establishment, preserving the open range, isn't the true reason behind the BLM restricting, then closing his grazing land; the twenty year gap between closing and acting argues for this, but not I think definitively. Similarly, if the BLM's reason for closing his grazing range is legitimate, then the force used to remove his cattle is legitimate.
As suspicious as I am of the BLM, as part of the federal government it must have the presumption of legitimacy. Even the BATFE must have the presumption of legitimacy. As such and considering that we've seen nothing presented to the contrary, I must agree with DVC that Bundy et al have the status of domestic terrorists and should be treated appropriately.
Well said, I think at the end of the day you had an old rancher that lost a 20+ year battle, wanting to make it about tyranny, tyranny would have been running his ass off the land 20+ years ago without his day in court.