The Bundy family’s take on our awful central government’s true nature was more accurate than they’ve ever been given credit for.
BUNKERVILLE, NEVADA—The Bundy Ranch roundup has understandably stirred thin-stretched emotions as the federal government seizes cattle belonging to the Bundy family. The family settled in the late 1800’s and has ranched in the area since. The federal government allowed Nevada ranchers to graze their cattle on federal tracts of land adjacent to their private properties for generations. The federal government later created the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to administer and “protect” the vast swaths of federal land—including the land the Bundy family’s livelihood was—and still is—dependent upon. The BLM began restricting ranchers’ usage of federal lands to protect various species, and the BLM decided to restrict the Bundy family’s usage of the federal land they historically grazed. The federal government told the Bundy family that a tortoise existed on the land and therefore the land’s usage for cattle would have to decrease—thus creating a scenario where the Bundy family could make fewer resources. A 20-year legal battle ensued.
There exist a number of elements to the story that inject shades of grey into the dominant media narrative. Perhaps hundreds of Bundy supporters have already shown up to the ranch area to “protect” the family and their land—which is federal land—but federal land such usage was promised to the family in the government’s efforts to get people to settle the West after Mexico ceded the land to the U.S. Court documents—discussed later in this article—reveal that the Bundy family decided at some point that the federal government was illegitimate and that they no longer had to give heed to the federal courts. The Bundy family patriarch has openly stated his willingness to use force against federal agents if they take his cattle off of the federal lands; the federal agents stand ready to use force against the family or their supporters if they interfere with the cattle removal. Both sides are armed, both sides are frustrated, and the rhetoric and hyperbole surrounding the entire matter has left many onlookers from around the world confused as to what is actually happening.
In the immediate aftermath of the infamous cattle roundup, Cliven Bundy granted a number of high profile media interviews continuing to deny—to the point of absolutely ignoring family history—what the federal courts have twice told him.
“I believe this is a sovereign state of Nevada,” Bundy recently told a radio reporter. “…I abide by all of Nevada state laws. But, I don’t recognize the United States Government as even existing.”
Oh, it exists right enough, I’m afraid. Cliven and several of his compatriots ended up finding that out the hard way. The thing I remember being struck by more forcefully than anything else at the time was the near-universal condemnation of the Bundys from the Right. Even folks whose ideological inclinations might be taken as suggestive of deep antipathy for FederalGovCo, its minions, and its nefarious works were suddenly tripping over themselves to join [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”hw7r99ujes” question=”Comments? Complaints? Thoughts?” opened=”0″]the mad rush to take the Almighty State’s side[/wpdiscuz-feedback] on this one.
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Half, maybe 75%, of the right actually like jack boots…
They are heroes
The Bundys were and are nothing but grifters and bumpkins.
That doesn’t make the feds good guys, and they weren’t. They are, by default, jack-booted thugs, in 99.99% of cases. The rest is accidental.
But at the end of the day, Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks, and the James Gang robbed trains, and most times, a crook is still a crook, even if the feds are all crooks too.
Putting the feds on notice (as at Bundy Ranch) that their crookedness had reached a line in the sand was good, in spite of the cast of characters. Accidental good: I’ll take it. Could just as easily have become Waco 2.0.
Organizing a stupid demonstration (Malheur) with >50% Fed informers and instigators was jackassical, and only succeeded in getting a generally good (but certainly not very bright) man killed. Thus proving my opening sentence.
Randy Weaver was not any great intellect either, but that doesn’t mean that the FBI shouldn’t be prosecuted for killing unarmed wives and babies, just as the ATF agents and director should have been prosecuted for mass murder at Waco.
In all four cases, the idiots on both sides lead to the inescapable directive that one should be careful of to whom they hitch their wagon.
And it’s possible to rightly see the governmental Leviathan as evil, without tagging along or lashing up with every jackass that runs at it headlong.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
“The Bundys were and are nothing but grifters and bumpkins.”
This is completely wrong.
What con are they pulling?
What do you find clownish about them?
They are hard working men that continue to do what the family has always done, and promises were made by the government to allow them the grazing rights.
There is nothing about that that is grifting nor does hard work make anyone a bumpkin.
When you are on Harry Reid’s side you need to think hard about your position.
Since you asked,
Without dredging up all the minutiae, their assets in cattle alone were conservatively worth well over $1M, so they weren’t the poor, downtrodden, put-upon ranchers bent over and raped by the big bad government they tried to pretend.
The feds (as is their right) upped the fees for cattle grazing on federal lands. The Bundys squawked about that, refused to pay, and lost at every opportunity, time and again.
Then tried to play the poor victims, instead of grifters caught using federal lands for nothing, which is what they were doing.
You wanna argue that the feds shouldn’t have any lands that aren’t bases or museums in the first place, go on ahead. That’s a policy discussion, and has nothing to do with the Bundy’s case. But until you get that enacted, there’s what you wish for, and there’s reality.
Meanwhile, the Bundytards got caught robbing Uncle, and Uncle, as is his wont, went straight to the JBT response, after only years and years of court victories against the Bundys. What cheek, imagining that legal authority means anything. Color me shocked.
Pretending they were patriots instead of simple government cheats is a Bundy con, and they grifted off the righteous animus of many people towards government’s Leviathan bent.
There’s a reason I mentioned Bonnie & Clyde and the James Gang in the same breath. The Bundy clan is just a dime-store knock-off of those crooks, and are just petty thieves, pretending to be pure anti-government, when in the naked light of reality they were just looking to get something for nothing, at the taxpayers’ expense, and purely for their own personal benefit. That’s grifting a con.
They became bumpkins when Dipshit Jr. followed up what might have been a minor win in the stand-off, by half-ass “organizing” (and I use the term very loosely) Operation Total Clusterfuck/Eat-A-Bag-Of-Dicks/Mostly Fed CIs at Malheur.
Total ass-clowns who hate the government and just get their own people killed because they’re total ass-clowns are not my tribe, not my monkeys, and not part of my circus.
All of that is public record and splattered all over the internet, from Right to Left.
That all had fuck-all to do with whatever Dingy Harry wants or doesn’t want, which is totally ancillary. Everything the government, Reid, or the Bundys touch becomes a total shitshow, because they’re all simply pieces of shit.
But with the Bundys, the biggest disappointment of the Malheur resolution was that it was Lavoy Finicum who got shot, instead of any of the dipshits in the Bundy Clown Posse clan, who apparently couldn’t rustle up 90 IQ points between them with an entire trail gang swinging lariats, until it was too late to make a difference.
They’re Grade-A fucktards, and always will be.
I don’t need them to know government metastasis and overreach is evil.
When you’re sticking up for proven fucktards, you might want to re-think your position. I think the “Don’t Do Stupid Things, With Stupid People, At Stupid Times, In Stupid Places” Rule applies to anything they touch.
YMMV.
But if anyone wants ’em, they can keep ’em.
I’ll pass.
Lots of hogwash.
“…their assets in cattle alone were conservatively worth well over $1M…”
A cattle ranch with assets at even two million is pretty small potatoes, and I never saw anything where the Bundy’s tried to claim they were impoverished.
“Then tried to play the poor victims, instead of grifters caught using federal lands for nothing, which is what they were doing.”
Absolutely wrong, hogwash in fact:
BLM has also tried to argue that the rules have changed, long after Bundy claims he secured rights and paid his dues to Clark County, Nevada. BLM says they supersede whatever agreement Bundy had prior; they demanded that he reduce his living, his thousand-some-odd head of cattle down to a tiny herd of 150.
150 head of cattle. To put that in perspective my late friend had 125+ head on his small farm, and he didn’t farm full time.
Read the real story instead of hogwash:
https://danaloesch.com/the-real-story-of-the-bundy-ranch/
Do note the Harry Reid connection.