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: 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.