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Previously: Militia Occupies Federal Building in Oregon After Rancher Arson Convictions
Russia Today reports:
Ammon Bundy, the leader of the armed group occupying a federal wildlife refuge near Burns, Oregon, and four others have been arrested by law enforcement amid gunfire, according to the FBI.
At 4:25 pm on [January 26], the FBI and Oregon State Police "began an enforcement action to bring into custody a number of individuals associated with the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. During that arrest, there were shots fired", the Bureau said in a statement.
The FBI said one person who was "a subject of a federal probable cause arrest is deceased". He said they are not releasing any information on the person "pending identification by the medical examiner's office".
One person suffered non-life threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital for treatment. He was arrested and is in custody.
The arrested individuals include:
- Ammon Edward Bundy, age 40, of Emmett, Idaho.
- Ryan C. Bundy, age 43, of Bunkerville, Nevada.
- Brian Cavalier, age 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada.
- Shawna Cox, age 59, of Kanab, Utah.
- Ryan Waylen Payne, age 32, of Anaconda, Montana.
CNN, NYT, Washington Post, BBC, OregonLive.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2016, @01:06PM
Guys like these make livings out of grazing and other uses under very heavy Federal subsidies. That blatant irony is lost on them, and in fact lost on most of the "get the government off my back" types that live in the western US. Acreage-wise, a very large part of the US is propped up by the Federal government, but these are the "reddest" states filled with "small government" types. They should truly live up to their principles for a year and get the government off their back by sending back all the subsidies they get, pay fair market value for grazing, etc., and then we can see whether they've gained any more insight into slinging around words like "freeloader" at people who get government support.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2016, @01:26PM
They argue that the government should not own any land in the first place.
Of course, they think they land should belong to them, because their great-great-grandparents stole it from the natives fair and square.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:46PM
Yes, even more lost irony, but that is exactly what they believe. Then again in terms of Historical context, the land always belongs to the person who stole it last.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday January 27 2016, @07:28PM
Of course, they think they land should belong to them, because their great-great-grandparents stole it from the natives fair and square.
Correction, the Federal government cleared the land of natives for them so they could settle in relatively unopposed.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday January 27 2016, @02:29PM
Well, most population west of 100 meridian can survive only on Federal subsides. It's pretty much either desert and/or very rugged terrain.
Yeah, government had to let the pressure out when revolutions were burning everywhere, protect the coast from Japan or whatever - there were big reasons to do it - but the fact remains: West survives sucking East's money.
Water situation is getting worse though and nowadays it does not appear likely another reclamation era is about to start. They will be on their own faster than they wish they will.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:19PM
They will be on their own faster than they wish they will.
Well, they will probably survive longer than the folks in the East Coast metropolises after the food trucks stop rolling in ...
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:30PM
No kidding. From what I've seen in 20 years living in New York City, that time line is about 24 hours. Every time a snow storm hits (a common occurrence in winter, can we all agree?) New Yorkers freak out and grab everything off the shelves in the Gristedes. City dwellers on the East Coast, even the suburbanites, have many fine qualities, but self-reliance is so not one of them. Biggest bunch of helpless cry-baby pansies, actually.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:56PM
Well, actually, most of the big agricultural breadbasket of the US is east of 100W, because that includes most of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and about half of Texas. Also, it's not like there isn't agriculture at all in the east: over half of Ohio and Kentucky is farmed, for example. Even New York is about 25% cultivated.
But really, the dependency goes in both directions: No farms => no food => no cities. But no cities => no farm equipment => no farms.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday January 28 2016, @12:30AM
Quite true, it's a symbiotic relationship (between urban and all the rural dwellers, in the East too). Unfortunately, many city dwellers don't see it that way, or don't understand what it's like to run the farms that produce the food.
Anyway, that's not really relevant to Western state ranchers. Things are so spread out, there's really no farm equipment used for raising the cattle, just enough land to move around a lot. In fact, most of the fencing was put up by the BLM, in order to carve out the land the ranchers are required to pay grazing fees to use (and at what part of the year).
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Thursday January 28 2016, @12:58AM
Well, actually, most of the big agricultural breadbasket of the US is east of 100W
If you're referring just to grains (a literal "breadbasket") [slate.com], sure — but the vast majority of fruit, vegetables, and nuts are grown in California [motherjones.com].
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Wednesday January 27 2016, @05:42PM
"Well, they will probably survive longer than the folks in the East Coast metropolises after the food trucks stop rolling in ... "
Dream on it is easy enough to have the food trucks roll in from a closer distance, you will see how quick all the NIMBYs change their tune when it comes down to a farm next door when they have nothing to eat...
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday January 28 2016, @04:17AM
Food is grown, mostly, east of 100 meridian (and east of 100 is only where it could be grown without subsides). Sure, east coast is dead without farmers, but on the other hand where exactly farmers are going to send their food?
My only point was that we don't need that much population on the west half of the country and it would make sense to discourage dwelling over there by say cutting subsides, which is exactly what those guys want. I find the whole thing somewhat amusing.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2016, @02:42PM
Their arguments were not that the government should not own land, but that the federal government should not own land. They try and justify this opinion by going to the constitution and pulling from a section that says the fed can own seven types of land six being defense and one being the district of columbia. The other justification they used was that the western states were entered into the union against the constitutional outline granted to previous states, states were intended to be entered in as equals but unlike the eastern states and those after the Louisiana purchase.
One of the stipulations to being brought in as equals was equal land ownership. Yet western states can max out at 80% of federal ownership of land. Compare to Louisiana's ~4.5.
The argument I heard against them was a lot of "they aren't from oregon" but this is a western state vs eastern state issue. I reside in oregon and I don't agree with their methods but I can see where they come from. I spent some time in Alaska where there are pretty big land disputes between the state/people and the fed.
One example I always enjoy.
http://www.adn.com/article/cantwell-resident-trouble-helping-troopers-salvage-caribou [adn.com]
Not sure how many of you spend time out in the woods, here in Oregon I always make sure to have a couple different BLM maps on me because of stories like above, and there are many. Boundaries change often and are not always marked, but that wont save you from getting arrested if you arent careful.
But hey I live in Oregon where the fed is not heavy handed, so fuck those cooks right? Good riddens I say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:19PM
In a practical sense, of the western states that have 80% Fed ownership, do those states want that 30% on their books? At the state level, has this been brought up? I'm sure it is an issue when the Fed says something can or can't be done on the land that the state disagrees with and then it is horribly unfair, but what about when there are disasters, fires, floods, earthquakes, etc.? I'm pretty sure the Bundys of the world would regret their position if the states got that land back and charged them grazing fees that are closer to market value. Then what, that the states aren't allowed to own land either?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:47PM
Market value? If they pay "market value" for the feed you will pay for that "market value" in the store. Ready to pay $20/lb for that hamburger? Sure, vegans will smile and say that's mete, but carnivores won't be happy about that at all, and there are orders of magnitude more carnivores than vegans.
There is a common conceit I hear from life-long suburbanites and urbanites, that farmers and ranchers don't matter because they're poor and few and remote and dumb etc, etc, etc. But the veg and meat that magically shows up in their corner delis is produced by those farmers and ranchers, and the suburbanites and urbanites wouldn't last a fortnight without it because sure as shootin' none of them could grow a vegetable or catch a fish or raise livestock to save their lives. Worse, the ones under 30 would cease to exist if take-out stopped working, never having deigned to eat canned food or cook their own meals in their lives.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2016, @04:24PM
So you are one of those snookered into the "family farm" thing, huh? Those farm bills we aren't allowed to question, presumably because of our "common conceit", because it is all about the little farmers, you know Dorothy's family, those two in that Grant Wood painting, you know the ones who look so sad because of those nasty urbanites looking down on them, those farm bills that small farmers opppose [organicconsumers.org] but are told it is all about them? I've seen plenty of your posts decrying the "support the troops" mantra? How is that different? What about the children? The children of the troops? Are you really so callous to be so mean to the little faces? Other than in that vacuous cranium of yours, who the hell says farmers and ranchers don't matter? Pulling out the old GWB "they say" rhetoric, are we ("there are those out there who say we should deport poor women, children, and stomp on puppies, cute puppies, but not me! I say not on my watch!")?
No, I'm talking about market value for the grazing rights. Ones that are 5X larger when it is even state land, let alone private land [biologicaldiversity.org]. But even if we stick to your example, the price of hamburger isn't driven by freeloaders who squat on Federal land, refuse to pay at all, then try to make this into an oppressive government issue instead.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 28 2016, @02:10AM
I don't even know if you're talking to me AC, because you must have me confused with someone else. I never decry the "support the troops" mantra because I never talk about that topic at all.
In case you were talking to me, then I'll point out I was talking about ranchers, not farmers, because the issue is grazing rights. Nobody but a dyed-in-the-wool city slicker would confuse those two groups, because they have much different lives and outlooks. If we were talking about farmers and farm bills, etc., then of course we'd have to talk about Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto, etc, but as far as I'm aware there is no equivalent of ADM for ranchers. But we're talking about ranchers, not farmers, so your point is moot.
You better believe that if the federal government socks it to the ranchers you will feel it in your pocketbook if you eat meat. They don't have margins to absorb that cost without passing it on. If they can't pass the cost along, they will go out of business, the available supply of meat will drop, and the price you pay at the market will anyway.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Wednesday January 27 2016, @06:33PM
I can understand the federal government owning and maintaining the land required to successfully execute the responsibilities required of them by the constitution. Outside of that, land within the state should belong to the state and the federal government should have no say in its use (with the exception of inter-state disputes like water rights).
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 28 2016, @09:06AM
That's how it works in Canada. The Provinces are in control of most all the land in their respective Province with a few exceptions. Though some are a bit weird like railways seem to be solely Federal, possibly written into the Constitution when BC joined under the condition of a rail link.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday January 28 2016, @02:39PM
Yeah, a quick look at this map [worldofmaps.net] will help illustrate why some people are pissed off about it. Only the plain white parts are state land.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:39PM
Jesus, that Alaska story perfectly encapsulates how clueless feds are. They ordered a guy in a boat going down a river to stop, so he pulled over to the bank instead of stopping in mid-stream so they arrested him for failure to comply? Is it any wonder that these guys have a deep and abiding hatred for idiot bureaucrats?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:17PM
I'm from that part of the world and can perhaps offer a little perspective on the subject of grazing. Many of the ranching families like the Bundys homesteaded the land a long time ago before there were states there. There was no federal land per se, just lots of open prairie. They grazed their herds all over. Much later when the federal government came along and started putting up barbed wire fences and allotting itself land, letting the ranchers continue to graze their herds on the land they always had was a compromise so the people in those areas would accept what the federal government was doing. So it's really the opposite of what most people from the cities or the coasts assume, which is that the ranchers only exist because of the good will of the federal government letting them graze on federal land.
That said, ranching is a tough, tough life with razor-thin margins. The only guy who ever really got rich from it was Conrad Kohrs, who sold fresh animals to the wagon trains headed west on the Oregon Trail, at the cost of 2 worn-out animals for 1 fresh. But for the ranchers today, if you cut off their access to the lands they've always needed to graze on, you kill them. It's make-or-break for them.
Bureaucrats sitting inside the Beltway or oblivious city dwellers who get their dinner from the magic supermarket don't get that. But if they drive the ranchers out of existence one thing they will not continue to get from the magic supermarket is steak, ribs, and hamburger at a price they're willing to pay.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:28PM
Bureaucrats sitting inside the Beltway or oblivious city dwellers who get their dinner from the magic supermarket don't get that. But if they drive the ranchers out of existence one thing they will not continue to get from the magic supermarket is steak, ribs, and hamburger at a price they're willing to pay.
And that's exactly what those elites want to happen. They don't want the unwashed masses eating meat at all - they would prefer to feed them bugs. [nationalgeographic.com] They are turning up the heat very slowly, until they have the proles subsisting on Soylent [soylent.com].
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:51PM
Yeah, I read the "trend" toward entomophagy the same way, another way to put the screws to the proles.
But I think driving those people to consider non-traditional sources of food is quite risky. I hear champagne- and caviar-fed plutocrat has a delighful flavor.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Wednesday January 27 2016, @03:51PM
Right on Phoenix. The land should not be owned by the Government, but should return to the original owners so they can live off the land peacefully as their fore-fathers once did.
At that point any White* ranchers can petition to join their tribe so they too can live off the land, too...
*Disclaimer: I am White.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 27 2016, @04:34PM
I'm OK with that, too. But it's not so much about land ownership, but that previously there was no ownership. It wasn't that the federal government came along and took the land away from the ranchers, but that nobody "owned" the land the federal government "took." It wasn't ever an issue until the farmers came along and got upset that the free-roaming herds would trample their crops; that brought barbwire fences, the force that truly ended the Old West, and suddenly all the open land was parceled off and inaccessible.
Only, for the record, those guys you're referring to were not peaceful. Especially not these guys [wikipedia.org] or these guys [wikipedia.org]. They were not morally superior. They were not idyllic natives displaced by the evil white man. They were people, who were displaced by other people, who had better guns.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Wednesday January 27 2016, @05:04PM
True enough, I should not make the claim that the party was peaceful (which was not intentional), but rather I would expect them to be peaceful going forward.
So in the end it's bunch of people (Ranchers vs Farmers) arguing over who has what rights to what land, the outcome being decided by the Government, and then the losers not being happy with the fact they lost. If I were them I would never make the claim that the land had no ownership, there is no such land anywhere, and to expect that to be true is naive. The Government had more incentive to have the land farmed rather than grazed I'm sure, that is why it sided with the Farmers. It may seem oppressive to the Ranchers, but we are dealing with the standard form of Government oppression which only doesn't exist in Anarchy.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 27 2016, @09:49PM
The idea that First Nations peoples didn't have a concept of land ownership is total nonsense. As in, they fought wars with each other and later the US government over it.
The old story of selling Manhattan for a few beads was not about a lack of understanding of land ownership, but because the Dutch who made the deal paid the people who were in charge in Brooklyn, not the people who owned Manhattan. As you can imagine, the people from Brooklyn were pretty happy with the deal, just like you would be if somebody paid you a bunch of money for your neighbor's house. And the people who actually owned Manhattan reacted about as well as your neighbor would if the people you just sold his house to showed up and started moving in.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 28 2016, @02:22AM
I think it's more accurate to say they had a sense of territory rather than ownership in the sense we mean it, whereby you have legal title to it and pay taxes on it. That sense of territory was quite fluid. Even tribes that farmed, like the Iroquois, would pick up and move the whole village every once in a while to give the land a chance to rest.
Nevertheless I was talking specifically about the land in the West that became federal land, upon which the ranchers grazed their herds before the federal government came along, surveyed discrete parcels, and declared it theirs. What obtained for the ranchers before that was much closer to the sense of territory the Indians had, in that there were no surveyed parcels for which you owned a deed and on which you paid taxes. That's what I meant.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Arik on Wednesday January 27 2016, @11:47PM
Is that a medical condition?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Funny) by SanityCheck on Thursday January 28 2016, @02:04AM
I wouldn't characterize it as such, but apparently I "suffer" from it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2016, @10:44PM
You left out the really big part about the territories having conventions to decide if they want statehood and to join the Union whereupon they voted to join. You seem to have this Dances With Wolves view of homesteading where you make it sound like they were just doing their thing and this all happened to them. It didn't. Some of the biggest issues were between big ranchers and small ranchers, between big farmers and little farmers, between ranchers and farmers, etc. It wasn't all peaceful free herding until the Big Evil Gmen came, it was Big Evil and Rich Ranchers who wanted all the land or the herds, etc., that there was a desire to have the resources of the Government to bring order. If the Bundys actually did think along those lines, then they really are dumbasses because you can't just ignore 150 years in-between like they do in the Middle East (or sometimes 1500 years in-between).
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 28 2016, @02:42AM
No, I have a "grew up in the Rockies and have known ranching and farming families all my life, whose ancestors homesteaded; and my own family which homesteaded across America before crossing over into being scientists and engineers" view of homesteading. So I have first-hand accounts from my grandparents, who grew up in homestead households, and my great-grandparents, who lived on until I was 20, first-hand knowledge from friends and acquaintances who still ranch and farm, and formal education in school about the history of "how the West was won."
There were lots of forces that drove the passage of territories into statehood, including but not limited to Manifest Destiny, Gold rushes, the Indian Wars, the railroads, and cultural inertia, but none of them obviate the transition from open grazing land to federal lands ranchers could still graze their herds on.
And for what it's worth, Dances with Wolves was a movie about Indians, not about homesteaders. If you're gonna cite movies to belittle someone's contribution to a conversation about ranching in the West, you'd better brush up on your Westerns.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 28 2016, @10:12PM
Yeah, well apparently your argumentative skills are VERY narrowed down to single-topic. Dances With Wolves reference was about how a remarkably one-sided, idyllic, and over-simplified view of Native Americans vs. Evil White Guys approach is being applied by your remarkably one-sided, idyllic, and over-simplified view of homesteaders vs. Evil Gubmit views. Sorry if it was too nuanced; I included the words "view of" immediately in front of "homesteading" to show that I was applying the tenets of that movie to the topic of homesteading, but I apologize and I will refrain from complicated forms of expression.
And yes, you are right, there were many reasons that drove the population to want Statehood, but quite frankly, your deeply rooted ancestral views going back three generations don't mean shit because they are irrelevant to the subject owing to the fact that they were already living in a state of the US. You see, when the territory became a state, it became subject to the conditions of being a state. Your revered grandparents can't say "50 years ago this is what we did". If you want to take your specific state as an example, they became a state under a number of conditions including:
I don't question whether you have the same misguided, self-serving and selfish beliefs as the Bundys, but get off your fucking high horse with your attitude if those were the conditions in fucking 1876 that they signed on to, and I think it is very easy to say that they've reaped far more benefits from being a state than they lost. So contrary to your myopic beliefs, it isn't an urbanite outlook looking down on ranchers, it is calling out blatant and unabashed entitlement attitude.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 28 2016, @04:55PM
So, because they started using that land when they were territorres, that somehow gives them magic powers? Some asshole from spain stuck a flag in central america and claimed the entire Nrtoh American landmass for the spanish queen. Should we honor that? Should we petition England for readmitance?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Thursday January 28 2016, @12:01AM
The complaint here is that charges were filed under *terrorism* laws for a couple of brush fires, set on their own land but in each case spreading over the line into the commons. There are disagreements as to some of the facts of the case, but no one disputes those basic facts. The first was set to destroy invasive vegetation, grew slightly larger than intended, and was put out by the ranchers themselves, though only after it had crossed that line. The second was a more complicated situation - a wildfire was burning on the commons land and threatening to take out the ranch. They burned fire breaks to protect their ranch. Those fires again appear to have crossed the property line, and they have been accused of endangering the firefighters currently active, though I have seen no evidence that is in fact true. Based on the 'terrorism' charge mandatory minimum sentences were invoked, leaving even the judge to express that the outcome was wrong but his hands were tied.
At worst perhaps a lapse of judgement, but this justifies using terrorism charges how?
Seen within context, the ranchers were in this area long before the government. BLM was given title to the land with the idea that they would conserve and protect these commons for future generations of ranchers. These days, BLM would prefer to be viewed as simply the owner, rather then the curator of a public trust. The terrorism charges were a firecracker thrown into an already volatile situation.
If these guys hadnt happened to be social conservatives the left would have raised a hue and cry in their defense on the issues raised - expansive use of terrorism to trump civil liberties, along with mandatory minimum sentences, both issues many leftists have written on. Instead they advocate lynching. A sad measure of how divided our society has become, and how little either the left or the right seems to have any meaning beyond bare tribal identification.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?