It’s by Vanderboegh, who is of course the hero of the tale so take that with a grain of salt if you wish. Unlike a lot of the threeper hyperventilating from a few days ago, though, most of this sounds plausible.
I do think Vanderboegh might be making too much of the incident’s long-term effect…
The Feds won back all the ground they lost by their direct attack on the Bundys with an indirect campaign of subversion and disinformation. If they destroy the Oath Keepers along with the Bundys’ defensive arrangements it will be a huge win-win for them.
In this regard he may be too close to the forest to see anything but trees. The whole country saw the confrontation between the feds and the militia, and the whole country saw the feds blink. That was huge. But how much coverage have you seen of the intermural clusterf*ck that followed? Because I saw none. The threeper sites are still screaming about it, sure. But Joe and Jane Sixpack don’t read those.
I’m reminded of the repentant kidnapper lamenting that he probably shouldn’t have committed his crime on live radio. Dr. Johnny Fever comforts him with (paraphrased) “Relax. This is WKRP. Nobody’s listening.”
Yep. Mainstream saw the BLM back away from a bunch of armed crazies. Then they saw the leader of those crazies get branded as a racist. They may see follow-ups when the crazies get individually arrested after they leave the ranch, and God knows what at the ranch itself, but that part of the story hasn’t yet happened.
I keep seeing all the elaborate reports on who is or isn’t to blame for whatever went wrong, but I swear I’m still having the damnedest time figuring out the actual thing that they’re all blaming each other about. Um … disinformation from somebody about something I get. And general chaos. But … so?
And damned if I’m going to watch a 50-minute video in hopes of learning what the actual point of contention is. That’ll probably turn out to be just a whole lot more obscure self-justification. And even if it didn’t …. booooooring!
Summary as I understand it from what I’ve read from Vanderboegh, Elias, and the Bundy Ranch Facebook page: Somebody who appeared to be a reliable source reported that the Feds were planning a missile strike and followup, with the intention of killing everyone on the ground at the Bundy Ranch. Stewart Rhodes decided to withdraw his Oath Keepers to a nearby hotel. Somebody left at the ranch accused them of deserting the battle field, a capital offense.
I haven’t watched the 50-minute video. Started it, and decided after a minute that I had better things to do with that hour.
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There is an old piece of advice that seasoned commanders share with young commanders as applies to intelligence gathering.
Every time you gather a piece of intelligence, you have to ask yourself “why is this guy telling me this now?”
The fact is, intelligence sources are as often double agents as they are valid sources of information.
What this whole thing boils down to, in my estimation, is a bunch of threepers, oath keepers, and militia types making the socialists argument for them.
I honest-to-God cannot get over the fact that at the exact same time that these guys were gathering up to prevent a person from being legally evicted from a piece of property by his landlord, a bunch of “Occupy Wallstreet” stypes were gathering up in San Francisco to prevent some people from being legally evicted from a piece of property by their landlord.
When the milita types and threepers are fighting the same fight as “Occupy” something has gone seriously off the rails. Neither one of these groups has a clue what the real rules of property ownership are all about, and neither one of these groups would like a world where their preferred way of dealing with it was actually enacted.
Bundy has zero legal claim to that land. None. Zilch. Nada. He had no right to be there, and when his landlord came to evict him, the threeps pulled guns on the landlord.
It matters not that the landlord was the feds. All that matters is that none of these threepers really want to set a precedent that a person grazing cattle on a piece of land that doesn’t belong to him, gains legal right to that land after a period of time, regardless of grazing agreements in place, or eviction processes that have occurred, and so forth
If that were the new law, then no land owner would ever allow any person to ever graze animals on his land. Ever. Period. To do so would be ceding your claim to that piece of land, no matter what legal agreement you had with the rancher.
My guess is that isn’t what the threeps want, but that is what they’re fighting for.
Goober, bet your the kind of guy with N0 TRESPASSING signs every 100′ and if the ball gets kicked over the fence you keep it.
The Feds do own Nevada but the rest of your argument is BS.
Adverse Possession is not provable against any government.
This has more to do with changing the use of the land and it’s water rights than pulling some cows off the range or a few turtles. It’s also about sending 200 armed agents along with snipers into a situation that didn’t deserve it.
This isn’t over. Ruby Ridge and Waco took a long time for the Feds to start killing.
Goober,
If you check out the last couple of Will Grigg’s pieces, it seems that the fe’rals claim of ownership is in contradiction to that nasty little piece of paper which they claim as the foundation for their exploits in theiving, counterfeiting, bullying and murdering.
Yeah, but so’s everything else they do. It’s routine by now, and so established in federal law. Or something.
And for the record, I didn’t watch the video either. 🙂
Expat;
It’s their ground. Why does Bundy think he gets to use it however he wants to without following the landowners rules?
What part of my argument is BS?
When last I checked both sides showed up with guns and snipers. That makes both sides wrong. How can you say the feds were wrong to show up with 200 armed men and snipers when the protestors showed up with 200 armed men and snipers and threatened armed conflict online?
Goober, not to hijack Joel’s site, but you make it sound as if Bundy was refusing to pay rent on a winter condo in Florida. A Nevada rancher doesn’t have the option of not using BLM land. The Feds control 90% of Nevada and most of the rest of the West. Bundy’s family has been the steward of this property since the 1800’s. The Feds do nothing but collect the fees.
My understanding is Bundy wasn’t allowed to pay the grazing fees because the Feds wanted the change the use rules, after a hundred and some years. To lose his families business and his children’s legacy because LA needs water or Reid and sons need land for their deals is just plain wrong.
As to both sides being wrong; An armed response to tyranny is never wrong. It might be ill advised and get you killed, but never wrong. Were you not the least bit appalled by the Feds use of force in this? Bundy didn’t show up with guns. How can you justify the Feds showing up with 200 armed agents to force some hard working rancher out of business? Oh right. Not his land. Well it’s more his than it is Reid’s – or some bureaucrat at the EPA.
Expat;
You don’t need to explain to me how ranching works. You need to accept the fact that you have no idea who I am and what I do. None of my land is posted. Your ad hominems are falling hilariously flat. I’m from a family of farmers. My family owns a metric shit ton of farm land. So much that I can’t even remember how many acres, but if you include extended family its hundreds of thousands. Some of that is range land o the breaks of the Snake River, where we run cattle, and have since the 1870s. Many of the family are too old to farm their land anymore, so they allow “custom” farm outfits to farm their land – they essentially rent their land to another farmer for a percent of the profit. On one 3,500 acre section of land that my family owns, one of these custom outfits has been farming it continuously for over 20 years now.
By your definition, they’ve been the “stewards” of that land for over 20 years. Just like Bundy.
By your argument, my family should not be able to change the terms of use, or evict them from that land, and that custom outfit should have legal claim to it…
…after how many years now? How many years are you suggesting that they should be able to use my land under agreement with my family before they should have legal claim to it and can come run my family off of it with guns when we try to evict them?
And no, Expat, you need to do your homework. Bundy has not been a steward of that land since the 1800s. His Dad bought the ranch in 1946. Prior to that, the Bundy’s had no presence on the land in question. They had presence on BLM land in Nevada, but not the particular contested plot of land.
As for the comment about ranching in Nevada and not being able to do it without running on Federal Land – doesn’t that seem like a pretty tenuous business proposition? You run a business that relies 100% on another land owner never choosing to do something else with his land?
Maybe ranching in Nevada isn’t such a good idea, if that’s the only way it can be done, and ranchers there need to understand that it was good while it lasted?
Also, I’d like to point out that the BLM isn’t kicking Bundy off because they don’t want his cows there anymore. They’re kicking him off because he stopped paying his rent. Had he paid his rent, pretty much everybody agrees that there would be no issue.
Again, that custom outfit farming my family’s ground stops paying their rent, even though they’ve been stewards of the ground now for over 20 years, you think they should be able to pull guns on me when I go to evict them?
Your entire view on this is so fatally skewed that I honestly don’t think I can help you.
As for the “showing up with guns” comment, I’m appalled that both sides showed up with guns (and yes, Bundy’s side showed up with guns at the same time the feds did).
As for “standing up to tyranny” if you consider a landlord evicting his non-paying tenant a tyrant, then we’re way too far apart to ever reconcile here.
I own a lot of land. If you want to argue that the people that I pay to take care of it should be able to run me off after a period of time, then you and I will never agree.
Keith;
Just to clarify – I do not support the feds owning the property that they own You may have deduced that I live out west from my previous post about owning land on the Snake River. Our property is directly adjacent to lots of federal ground, and we used to run stock on some Army Corps property (we no longer do for various reasons). We actually sold some land to the ACE about ten years ago – regret that in hindsight, big time.
I am a very vocal advocate of the idea that the Federal Government should not own the land that they own, and that all federal land, with VERY few exceptions, should be deeded to the respective states post haste.
That being said, I’m an even MORE vocal advocate of property rights, as the left has been slowly and inexorably whittling away at property ownership over the years, and scoring some huge inroads and I absolutely do NOT like.
So, while I don’t think that the Feds should own this land we’re discussing, I will go to my grave LOUDLY defending their right to do with it as they see fit, within the law, as long as they do own it.
Property ownership is the most sacrosanct convention that we have, because it allows for, and defines, the individual. Abolishing property rights is the very first step towards tyranny, and the elimination fothe individual.
That’s why I’m so shocked at how many of my punitively conservative and libertarian allies are taking Bundy’s side on this.
Because it is two different discussions. The first discussion is “should the feds own the land?” My response to that is “no, they should not.”
THe second discussion is “should a rancher be able to claim ownership of a piece of land that he’s used under agreement since 1946, and subsequently squatted on since 1993 amidst several attempts to evict?” and my answer is absolutely, positively, under no circumstances should he have any legal claim to that land at all. Or it’s water rights. Or it’s grazing rights.
TO say otherwise would be essentially granting the custom outfit that farms my family’s ground a legal claim to it outside of our rental agreement, and that would be basically giving my land away.
it’s stupid.
This is not a case of tyranny. It’s a case of a landowner over-reacting to a tenant that refuses to be evicted, and that tenant over-reacting to their over-reaction in return. Both sides should be ashamed of themselves.
Goober you are wrong about intelligence and double agents. The first thing anyone in Int asks themselves is is this guy just trying to make himself seem important, massaging his own ego, or is he just full of it. Eighty five percent of everything you come into contact with falls into that catagory closely followed by the thirteen percent of how much cash can I scam.
As for Bundy from the legal point of view, as i am informed, he has been unable to pay his fees because he would first have to sign the new agreement issued by the BLM. This would have slashed the number of cattle he could graze effectively making his business unsustainable and forcing him, as it has the other 25 ranchers, out of business. Now a private landlord that does this rapidly finds themselves hit by serious legal action folowed by punitive damages etc etc. They also earn the reputation of being disreputable con artists. Apparently though you approve of your government behaving in such a manner.
As to your comment over the use of force. Any government that uses 200 men, sniper teams, drones, multiple helicopters(for rounding up cattle in calving season no less, where were PETA for that one?) and armoured vehicles against one family really has lost the plot.
As an ex officer who served tours in Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, the first Gulf War I can honestly say that such use would have never been permitted. Indeed any Sandhurst graduate would question the legality of such an operation. I realise the BLM are not military but, I assume, they do actually have to adhere to the law and to be seen doing so.
Indeed in Operation Barras against 223 heavily armed members of the West Side boys in Sierra Leone we only needed 138 men and we knew they would actually put up a fight. When we witness such deployment against lightly armed and unarmed civilians over a number of cows! Well simply put we find it incredible that the land of the free would tolerate such totalitarian acts.
Goober,
I can why you have such strong convictions over land fees. I lease some of my own unused land to a neighboring farmer for free and a few favors. Not “thousands of acres”, just a dozen.
I’ll end my end of this thread with a copy/paste quick internet search answer.
Many people were not impressed by the new conservation plan. “Cliven Bundy, whose family homesteaded his ranch in 1877…………………..
Bundy has repeatedly been fined for grazing his cattle on the protected land, fines he has not paid since 1993. The Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 800 grazing areas in Nevada, responded by revoking his permit. ……………….
It seems this is all over some damn turtle. Hope you don’t have any of those on you property Goober.
Roger;
I don’t know where you get the idea that a private landlord can’t change the terms of lease without legal consequence. Or social. It happens all the time.
As for putting Bundy out of business, I guess that’s the risk you take whgen your business plan relies 100% on using some other guys land forever without him ever changing the agreement.
As for Expats comments about turtles on my land: it’s my land. If the fedgov was telling Bundy he can’t use HIS.land because of turtles, then I’d be on board and out there with guns like the rest of you.
Also, the 1877 date is wrong. Bundy ranch was established in 1946. Not 1877.
“As for Bundy from the legal point of view, as i am informed, he has been unable to pay his fees because he would first have to sign the new agreement issued by the BLM. This would have slashed the number of cattle he could graze effectively making his business unsustainable and forcing him, as it has the other 25 ranchers, out of business.”
I know that. Doesn’t change a damn thing. You want to use my land? Use it by my rules, or get off. Don’t like it? Sorry. Sucks to be you. You set up a busuness that relied on you using my land forever without ever changing the deal. That was kind of risky. Maybe even kind of dumb.
Lets look at it this way. That custom outfit farming my family ground mainly grows wheat. Wheat strips the ground over a period of time of nitrogen, so we farm legumes like lintels every so often to renitrogenate the soil. I say to this outfit “you’re farming lintels this year because the property is being degraded by wheat.”
He says “dude, I can’t make any money on lintels this year, I’m farming wheat because lintels will put me out of business!”
I say “I won’t allow my ground to be degraded any further. Its lintels or GTFO.”
He says “fuck you, I won’t sign your rental agreement under those terms,” then proceeds to farm wheat on my ground and not pay me the rent to boot.
I go to evict him and he shows up with guns and runs me off. Who is in the wrong here? Both you and expat are saying my tenant is right and I’m wrong.
Because my requirements would have put him out of business, he then has the right to use my land without permission, without agreement, and without paying rent.
Really?
Goober, you are making a strawman argument.
“By your definition, they’ve been the “stewards” of that land for over 20 years. Just like Bundy.
By your argument, my family should not be able to change the terms of use, or evict them from that land, and that custom outfit should have legal claim to it…”
Your family has a contract or several contracts with the people farming your family’s land.
Where is the contract between Bundy and FedGov/USA ?
Where is the legal paper proving that the current corporate USA owns the land in question?
“As for the “showing up with guns” comment, I’m appalled that both sides showed up with guns (and yes, Bundy’s side showed up with guns at the same time the feds did). ”
Sure, if by “the same time” you mean the feds had guns there for a week, and after that, the militia showed up with theirs.