Certainly Harry Reid has no shame in calling the Bundy's civil disobedience an act of domestic terroristism, even while his ideological doppelganger Obama is prosecuting Nidal Hasan's "Allah Akbar" murder of 13 Americans at Ft. Hood as "workplace violence".
That someone else, somewhere else, might be doing something worse, is the least compelling defense of law-breaking in history.
Of course, all of this just more Harry Reid cynical theatrics, an extension of the divisive and inflammatory rhetoric that Obama (et. al.) has used quite effectively in his tenure at the oval office. Reid's employment, however, tends to flail randomly, as if he is in search of something more than on 'race' and the 'war on women' to gin the masses anger - having exhausted his venom on the Koch's he now focus's on a minor Nevada rancher.
Bundy's actions are not dependant for their morality nor their lawfulness on the character of those who speak out against them. He is in the wrong; and he would still be in the wrong even if Adolf Hitler and Joe Stalin were to say how wrong he is.
We get that you don't like Harry Reid or Barack Obama; what is missing is a reason why your distaste for them makes them wrong, or Bundy right.
Bundy, of course, is not a terrorist,
No, he is just someone who uses the threat of violence to get his way
but simple a man out of time.
There was never a time when threatening Federal agents with deadly force was acceptable. Perhaps people might have gotten away with it for a time, back in the day; but it was never tolerated or condoned by the general public, nor by the governments they elected.
He is not 9-4, 5 day a week government functionary; he does not get 2 days a month sick leave, 2 days a month comp time, 12 holidays off a year, paid personal leave, 4 weeks vacation, or lavish fringe benefits. He does not get worker's comp for "work stress" or a slip and fall check for a mopped wet floor. If he crushes his fingers or hand in a ranch accident, or explodes a disk pitching hay, their won't be a worker's comp claim to rubber stamp and give him lifetime disability and/or job retraining. His whole life, and security is in the ranch.
This laundry list of things he isn't is not a defense of his actions; No doubt he doesn't watch gerbil porn, eat axle grease, or carve mountains in the shape of dead presidents either; but it isn't what he doesn't do that is at issue here. He DOES illegally use land he doesn't own; he DID threaten federal agents with deadly force. I couldn't care less if he doesn't get free tickets to Broadway shows, and doesn't eat marmalade directly off the spoon; those things are completely irrelevant.
Yes. Yes, we should.
Bundy is not New York City, Portland Oregon, or Palo Alto;
Nor am I. I am not even Paris, Texas; Powercable, Nebraska; or Ouagadougou, Birkina Faso. Should you feel a yearning pity for me as a result? Does my failure to be one of several towns make me a hero of yours?
his peers are not those of dot.com's, UC Berkeley academia, nor of Hollywood.
Thank you for pointing this out, Captain Obvious. But how do these facts raise him above the law?
He and his peers are the rural men of the West - the families that settled the frontier and turned deserts into farms and ranches, who built towns and cities, who made and transformed the American west and built a life.
Or rather, they are the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren of those people. My Great-great-grandad was a Station Master, but that doesn't give me the right to set train timetables, or to boss porters and signalmen around.
They are what is left of old America, the desire to build, live, create, and to be left alone.
No, they are not; but even if they were, being old (or out of date) does not mean the same as being right. Back in the good old days, you could own some slaves, and you could stake a claim to vacant land in the west; Today you can't. And you haven't been allowed to do either within Mr Bundy's lifetime, so he has no excuse for behaving like it is still allowed.
For his kind, he has no more use for Washington DC officialdom than a bureaucrat has for those whose freedom and independence they are trying to extinguish.
If he doesn't like America, he is free to leave. If he doesn't like the government, he can vote against them; he can campaign against them; he can write nasty letters to his Congressman; he can protest in accordance with his constitutional rights. But he can't unilaterally overrule the law; that is not and never has been tolerated. If you don't like the law, you can work to get it changed, but you are not allowed to ignore it.
True, Bundy is a man out of time,
What, was he born in 1680?
he does not appreciate that freedom is only by permission.
No, freedom is not 'only by permission'; freedom merely includes the freedom of others not to be imposed upon by your selfishness.
Burn your trash in your backyard, where is your permit?
What right do you have to smoke your neighbour out? By issuing permits, the right to burn off and the right to fresh air are balanced, so that no one bully can impose himself on other people.
Drive down the freeway with a flapping tarp over your grass clippings, here is a ticket for your trouble.
The people who live near the freeway don't have a right to expect that your trash won't end up in their backyards, homes, waterways, streets, etc.?
Does your son reside in an RV in the back 40 acres? Another ticket for a zoning violation.
And so there should be; the public have a right not to get Cholera or Dysentery because your RV has inadequate plumbing; if you have adequate facilities for public health, then getting zoning shouldn't be too hard.
Is your barn within five feet of a rural property line, then tear it down and move it. Has your well been inspected by the county? No? Here's another fine.
The law is intended to protect the majority. If you don't like it, and most of your neighbours can be persuaded to support you, you can get it changed. But you are not allowed to ignore it with impunity; and you are not allowed to threaten deadly force against people who's job it is to enforce compliance with the law.
But Bundy and his roaming cows is not the real threat.
No; his hooray mates with the itchy trigger-fingers are the real threat.
His own lawlessness in disregarding Washington BLA is inconsequential,
You have so far completely failed to demonstrate this
nothing like the ignoring of law by Washington; the IRS, the AP reporter monitoring, the provision of thousands of assault rifles to drug cartels, the NSA monitoring, the crony capitalist grants, the arbitrary changes to ACA legal requirements, etc.
That someone else, somewhere else, might be doing something worse, is the least compelling defense of law-breaking in history.
Bundy's 'terrorism' would be laughable if it were not so tragic - it is one man's refusal to be 'on the right side' of someone else's history.
It is both laughable and tragic; I would add vile and dangerous to that list, just for starters.
Bundy is the spirit of Jack Burns, in The Brave are the Lonely - a man who does not care if it is the Twenty-first century...
As my Gran used to say, "Don't care was made to care". Bundy is not some mythic hero; he's more like a spoilt child, unable to accept that his freedom does not include the right to impinge on the freedom of others.
a man who does not make concessions to Big Government and corrupt politicians. A man who lives by what is right,
Wait, what? In what sense is illegally using somebody else's property for one's own financial gain 'right'?
and who has the support of a handful of strangers who arrived with rifles - men who are modern Shanes, men willing to protect a fellow man of principle.
And Harry Reid, the leader of the Senate? He rages about a nobody only because Bundy has something denied Reid for a lifetime - the freely given respect and admiration of the real men of the West.
Oh, come on; if you are going to try poetry, you could at least write about a man from Nantucket.
Or you could go with something by Mick Jagger: "Well he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke, the same cigarettes as me". Welcome to Marlboro Country. Where the men are men, and the glory is a fiction created by Hollywood and Madison Avenue.
