Wednesday, April 23, 2014

So...Let Me Get This Straight

All these folks have rushed to defend the "little guy being picked on by big government" but the basis of his claims to the land might not actually be true?

This makes me skeptical about other things. I don't think this is about cattle or turtles. It's about whether laws mean anything. I keep hearing "sovereign citizen" language that implies that maybe this is a nation of men, not laws. And I keep hearing this promoted by Sean Hannity who I suspect of being a shit-stirrer. And other people notice, too.

It genuinely does remind me of the kind of rhetoric from twenty years ago from ol' G. Gordon Liddy:

  • August 26, 1994: Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests." … "They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches.[1}

There are some people who seem to want to root for a bad outcome. And I don't think they care what starts it all, so long as it starts.

4 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

I agree with you, V.S.

I think the way G.W. Bush and company have treated the Bundys is OUTRAGEOUS, especially when compared to what they did to the peaceful Occupy protesters.

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

Wait, what? Oh.
~

Vixen Strangely said...

True fact, until any right wing millionaire can tell me the color of the bandana they soaked in water and tied to their faces to wield off tear gas when they had their freedoms (TM) violated, I really don't want to hear them out. If people of my ilk get teargassed for peaceable assembly, when theirs can show up anyplace anytime, armed like they want to start shit--where is the fairness?

Especially when Bundy is in decades-long violation of laws--and lots of Occupy folks were law-abiding as shit, they were just too broke to be respected. And that's some pretty telling shit about where we stand today--Bundy can broadcast on Hannity, liberals can't even finger-fuck our way to telling folks that America owns such and such a plot via the Gadsden purchase and means to benefit as surely as toll roads and bridges, and your local property taxes.

It's weird as weird can be to me that the so-called afficionados of the document vesting the powere of the Constitution to legitimize government are feeling a little marginalized.

Anonymous said...

Hi Vixen,
actually I'm rather pleased that the left keeps handing us popular campaign issues. As you know, this conflict has now extended itself to Texas and Oklahoma. However, the difference is that the Texas Attorney General, along with the governor, immediately asserted the authority of private property over the BLM's contention. Nevada did not quickly rally political support as has subsequently happened.

You may be aware that now 10 states are reconsidering the validity by which the federal government claims to justifiably own land in these states.

My view is that alongside many other issues this will sweep even more voters into Republican camps during the midterm.

Still, you know all this already. There is something you may not know as an urban girl in Philadelphia.

Throughout the southwest and northwest people like the Bundys are very familiar to us. They are like our grandparents and sometimes our parents in their sensibility, their dress, and their philosophy.

If you grow up in one of the northeastern cities, you will be unaware of how foreign your perception of these events would be to ordinary citizens in most of the western US. And it would be very foreign to you if you had occasion to discuss these matters with rural people in agribusiness, whether farming or ranching.

I'm content to let the politics on this one run its course. Frankly, a lot of debates, I've noticed, take place among people with entirely different regional perceptions of what reality and government are. I would not expect people from my area to know what is right in Philadelphia. Likewise, the reverse is also true.

(By the way, once I enjoyed your description of your own life talking about your hemp bags and Whole Foods and basic environment.

Where I live when the river is up we have to go the long way around to the nearest town, a large metropolitan area of 6000 people. Staring our of our back window we can look beyond the river and hear the cattle who graze in a pasture. Boots are ordinary footwear, and the wildflowers are currently exploding in bloom, creating beautiful natural bouquets.

However, you have to watch your step -- the top of the food chain is represented by a handful of cougars, and there are the usual 4 types of poisonous snakes out there as well. We also have armadillos, raccoons, possums, foxes, coyotes, bobcats and lots of deer.)

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©, your ire needs to be directed to ex-Mayor Bloomberg and conceivably the NYC chief of police.

--Formerly Amherst

Vixen Strangely said...

Formerly Amherst--you have a point in that, as a local issue, I proably don't have as good a read on local opinions as I could. Here in the northeast, one of the things that can get people riled though are eminent domain issues, which is a similar kind of land grab. They do it for the fracking.

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