commentary by Patrick H. Moore
We really have a “state of things” in Gold Butte, Nevada. In a sense, this is what many members of the “rugged individualist” anti-Fed contingent have been hoping for — an armed standoff with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights.
Nothing these boys like better than to hunker down with the long rifle pointed meaningfully in the direction of the Feds. This is the Lone Cowboy versus Washington, D.C. writ large. And the cowboy has to be the good guy shepherding his cattle, the representative of a fading order fighting the bureaucrats. And like every good-guy cowboy who wants to get over on the system, Cliven Bundy has a bona-fide former Arizona Sheriff named Richard Mack on his side. Richard was sheriff of Graham County, Ariz. from 1988 to 1997. That’s a respectable amount of time the hold down the County fort and although I know nothing about how Mack handled the job, I have no reservations about giving him the benefit of the doubt pending information to the contrary.
What concerns me, though, is that in strategizing about how to handle the Feds in the event they produced a couple of rogue (oh it’s so cool to be a rogue) riflemen who started blasting away, Mack displayed a most unmanly brand of cravenness combined with a startling sexism.
David Moye of the Huffington post writes:
A former Arizona sheriff who supported a Nevada rancher in his land dispute with the federal government says he would have put women in the frontline if officers started shooting.
An armed standoff between Cliven Bundy and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights ended with the federal government abandoning its plans on Saturday to impound Bundy’s cows that roamed public lands.
Richard Mack, a Bundy supporter who served as sheriff of Graham County, Ariz., between 1988-1997, told Fox News on Monday about a planned strategy if “rogue federal agents” had opened fire.
“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” he said on Fox News, according to TheBlaze.com. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”
What makes this a bit scary is the fact that this is not necessarily a small matter. According to some reports, Mack was one of nearly 1,000 people, many of them armed, who mustered in support of Cliven Bundy’s battle with the BLM.
Mack is fully aware that his plan to put women in the line of fire “sounds horrible,” but told radio host Ben Swann it was the only way to get the world to recognize “how ruthless” the federal agents are. That’s not all he said, speaking with fervor and conviction.
“If they’re going to start killing people, I’m sorry, but to show the world how ruthless these people are, women needed to be the first ones shot. I’m sorry, that sounds horrible. I would have put my own wife or daughters there, and I would have been screaming bloody murder to watch them die. I would’ve gone next, I would have been the next one to be killed. I’m not afraid to die here. I’m willing to die here.
“But the best ploy would be to have had women at the front. Because, one, I don’t think they would have shot them. And, two, if they had, it would have been the worst thing that we could have shown to the rest of the world, that these ruthless cowards hired by the federal government will do anything.”
For those of you who may not be aware, the BLM contends that the Bundys have used federally managed public lands for their cattle and have refused to pay the appropriate grazing fees for the past 20 years. The bill adds up to more than $1 million.
Cliven has flatly refused to remove his cattle contending their water and livestock rights were recognized by the state of Nevada long before the federal government took over management of the land in the 1940s.
They also said the government’s action constitutes harassment.
There appears to be strong evidence that the land has been technically been under Federal control since Nevada became a state in 1864. Robert Emmett Murphy Jr., the author of a much-read post on All Things Crime Blog called Nevada Squatter Cliven Barker Says His Battle for Freedom May Escalate into the Next Ruby Ridge, sums up the issue of who has stewardship of the land nicely:
The Federal Authority over the land in question was established when the state officially entered the Union, and this was done by open, and either wholly or largely, Democratic process.
“It appears that the disposition of these open lands was not a controversial issue at the time of statehood. The state accepted from Congress the stipulation in its enabling act that ‘the Constitutional Convention must disclaim all rights to unappropriated public land in Nevada.’ The state constitution accordingly ordained: ‘That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands . . .’”
That was 1864, only a generation after Bundy’s family started grazing in that region.
The ranches were not answerable to an oversight authority until the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, which ended the free-for-all, get-all-you-can-while-you-can, uncontrolled grazing which had destroyed the range resource on the public domain. Cattle grazing is still permitted on public land, but the land use must be paid for, and the proceeds from those fees goes the maintenance for that same land. Moreover, the grazing is regulated to assure the long-time stewardship of the land.
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Last night I caught an episode of The Young Turks in which Cenk bemoans the fact the Feds not only walked away from the confrontation but returned, or rather did not impound Cliven’s cows. I don’t believe his viewpoint stems from any great love for the Feds but rather from his clear distaste for Bundy and his crew’s strong-arm tactics.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) isn’t very pleased either, stating that the confrontation may have ended peacefully, but the conflict isn’t over.
“We can’t have an American people that violate the law and just walk away from it,” he said on KRNV-TV. “So it’s not over.”
As of Monday, some protesters were still at Bundy’s ranch .
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What Cliven is pulling is a little (or a lot) like not paying your taxes. The typical tax evader in this nation of tax evaders (not you or me, of course), however, will not resort to an armed confrontation while declaiming that he doesn’t have to pay his taxes and that the Feds have no right to force him.
The scary thing to me is the deep hatred and contempt Mack, Cliven and much of their crew feel for the Federal government combined with the primitive sexism of being willing to put their womenfolk at the forefront of the line of fire. Sad to say, men/children/sexists of this order need an effective Federal authority to whip them into shape when they step too far over the line.
But that’s certainly not what has happened at Gold Butte. Not yet. At this point it appears the Feds have beat a strategic retreat to ponder their next move. They may be laying odds in Vegas on who shoots first in the event there is another armed confrontation, and Mack has stated in no uncertain terms that he’s certain the Feds are planning to attack.
The Feds, however, like lawmen everywhere, have a deep and abiding love for something known as a Grand Jury indictment. Potential criminal charges Bundy and crew could include Contempt of Court, Making Criminal Threats Against Federal Officers, and potential criminal charges against some of the militiamen who may have illegally transported weapons across state lines To Use in a Civil Disturbance.
Trust me (never trust a man who says ‘trust me’), the Feds are no slouch when it comes to finding ingenious ways to charge folks with felonies and misdemeanors. And in this case they may not even have to look very hard.
Click here to view Robert Emmett Murphy Jr.’s earlier post on the Cliven Bundy standoff:
Nevada Squatter Cliven Bundy Says His Battle for Freedom May Escalate into the Next Ruby Ridge