A Good Man Died

Lavoy Finium Killed, Ammon Bundy Wounded

Last night some federal agents killed some folks.  Well, they got one, anyway.  Yawn.  No worries, it was just some back woods, white, gun-loving, sovereign citizen type, militia member crazy ranchers who got whacked.  Er, killed.  Resisting arrest, you know.  Anytime you're caught in an FBI staged ambush on a dark and narrow rural highway late at night and get yourself killed, well, you were resisting arrest.  The dash cam video will verify that, your honor.  No, we guarantee the public will never see it. You can just trust our word on it, we're the government, and you're not. That is and will be the narrative of this story of yet more Americans being killed and imprisoned by the all-mighty federal government.  There's compelling arguments for both sides of this story, but you will have to dig deep to ferret them out, and the misrepresentations and outright lies will be stacked up higher than an Iowan grain silo.  On that you can bet.

And all of this has come about because of cows.  A battle between those who raise them and those who regulate them.  Specifically it's all about grazing rights.  Last summer there was a standoff in the southwest between some ranchers, the Bundy clan, and the Bureau of Land Management, who disagreed on whether the Bundy cattle could graze on BLM land, which is "protected" from the ecological damage supposedly done by heavy cattle hooves.  The Bundys, for generations, have paid a federal fee for that privilege, and at some point decided it wasn't constitutional for the BLM to extort - I mean extract - a fee for the right to graze cattle on public lands.  There was a standoff, as both sides made their case in the No Fees For Grass debate, and at the end of the day, some Bundys went to prison.

Much earlier, in 2001 and again in 2006, some ranchers in the northeast, the Hammond clan, did a controlled burn on BLM land upon which they paid the grazing fee, to clear it of underbrush and invasive plant species, so grass could again flourish.  Now this type of controlled burn occurs every day in parks and forests all over the US.  It's beneficial to overall land management for a number of reasons.  But because of this, the Hammonds were charged with arson on federal lands, and after lengthy legal proceedings, got minimal prison time: four months for Dad, a year for the son. But in October, a liberal environmentalist wacko judge decided that that the court's sentence was too light, and sentenced both to four years each.  For the unimaginable crime of managing land in order to feed the nation.

Well, ranchers everywhere were left in disbelief about how the BLM could just arbitrarily execute or imprison folks who had a legitimate beef  (pun intended. sorry) with the feds.  Cattle grazing and environmental protection need not be mutually exclusive, lest the government makes it so.  And in certain pockets of western states where land is considered ueber alles, ranchers and government officials regularly clash over land usage rights and restrictions.  So Bundy's son Ammon and some others occupied an abandoned building in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon to support the Bundys and Hammnds and other ranchers, and to protest the irrational and selective BLM enforcement of public lands policy.

Heavy Handed and Armed Feds

When leftist totalitarians like Muslims, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, Students for Democratic Society, Black Panthers and other lunatic fringe left wing groups occupy public or federal buildings, all we see is compassion and support for their "concerns".  When white males who feed the country, please note (and liberal environmental wackos love their free-range, grass fed beef), want to air their grievances in the same way, what you get is dead white men. The last time America had a wacko Attorney General, one Janet Reno, we got dead white people all over the country. See Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas. Now with this panting lap dog Attorney General Loretta Lynch, we are back to the same mindset.  But there's never been any disagreement of the hypocrisy and double standard when it comes to the fed's selective enforcement.

So last night a good man died, but with the strength of his convictions. Some will vilify him, to others he's a martyr.  And sadly, we're one step closer to the inevitable confrontation with a hateful, totalitarian, tyrannical government.