Wolverines/Militia vs the U.S. Army/Federal Marshals
It is still early hours in the confrontation between the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupiers and the ‘jack booted thugs’ but one thing has always been clear. When it comes to a armed confrontation between ‘patriots’ and the forces of government the ‘Patriotic Wolverines’ will lose. Until or unless they subvert the military and the federal police forces over to their side. Which to their ‘credit’ is the premise of the Oathkeepers.
But otherwise this is a dream punctured by Ike in 1957, the year of my birth. The President doesn’t even need to federalize the National Guard. Though Ike did to integrate schools in 1957. The fact is that no amount of appeal to ‘Posse Comitatus’ is going to prevent the President of the U.S from suppressing armed sedition. I don’t care how many rounds you have in your basement gun safe, unless you have the U.S. Army and Marines on your side you are going to get (in a technical term often utilized by professional soldiers) fucked sideways and backwards. This isn’t 1776 and those are not Red Coats trying to reload muskets.
It may be true that The Tree of Liberty Must be Refreshed from Time to Time with the Blood of Patriots and Tyrants. But these days it is the self professed ‘patriots’ who are likely to do the watering. Because you got Play Soldiers and real Soldiers. And it take a LOT to get real Soldiers to go against lawful orders issude by their superiors.
And occupying a bird sanctuary isn’t going to trigger Lexington and Concord against the frigging U.S. Army and Marines. Or for that matter the SWAT teams of the FBI and the U.S. Marshals. Life isn’t a video game. Some folks in Oregon just learned that lesson.
Bruce:
I do not believe we ever needed the Army to accomplish our assigned mission. All of us were trained to shoot from the beginning of our enlistment. When I tell people who run around with their bullet-spewing-weapons the likelihood of their getting past the military is nil, they insist they could. They would be mopped up in minutes (if it took that long) as they all clump together.
At 19, 20, and 21 years of age, we would just look at them and laugh. Most of us had already been in field by then.
If I were not a complete pacifist…… I shoot .30 hunting rifle very accurately, I practice!
To get the US military to defect the oathkeepers would need as good a pension system as the current DoD. Which is funded by a $300B trust fund similar OPM, no cash input!
There is a reason that tea party snake flag is yeller!
They never thought they could win such a battle. The point is to get attention. They got it. And that attention leads us to ask, Why has the U.S. government worked so hard to get these people off their land?
Some landowners were forced to sell when the U.S. government diverted water to flood their land. Others when the U.S. government diverted water so that they could not water their herds. (No, we’re not talking about people leasing grazing privileges on public land.)
This was the last landowner left. The U.S. government closed the only road to one portion of his property, just so that he could not get to it.
Why?
Warren,
I live in NH.
I want to use that BLM/federal land in Nevada for free! Like the Bundy guy wants.
I know people who keep “roads” open on government land b/c the government cannot get taxpayers to pay to keep them open!
That poor “last owner” benefitting from BLM his entire life, who inherited the land which was “homesteaded” can pay to keep the road open!
Bundy and his posse could have done something productive and worked the road for that needy land owner.
These guys insult all the soldiers who keep ISIS from making them bow to the east 5 times a day.
While growing up my dad was a cop and a WWII war hero. He was a fair and caring guy who always did much for many others. He had a gun but did not let the power of govt. or gun go to his head. Today many people on both sides let the power of gun and govt. go to their heads. Nobody is or should place themselves above the law. We should not attempt to settle our differences with violence or guns. Power hungry govt. agencies and individual groups are on the rise along with the ever present fire arms availability, it’s easy to see how and why so many dispute situations can easily turn deadly as many choose not use the court system to settle their disputes and differences. Perhaps they would like to bring back gun dueling once again like back in the old west shoot outs. But I though we were a more civil society than that.
Ilsm, you are missing the point. There was nothing wrong with the road. it was not a lack-of-maintenance issue. The government simply blocked off the road so that he could not get it a significant parcel of his property.
“That poor ‘last owner’ [benefitted] from BLM his entire life….”
How so?
Warren: “How so?”
These ranchers were allowed to graze their herds at rates subsidized by us the US taxpayer. What did he do he instead broke the terms of the contract, threatened government employees, and destroyed plants place there to counteract the years of overgrazing by ranchers.
These ranchers are not victims they are thugs that are incapable of understanding how society works or even how to properly raise cattle.
Yes, the government cut off access from one part of his land to the other. But why did you neglect to tell us the reason. Because he would access land he was not supposed too and caused considerable damage. The government would be negligent in its duty to protect public lands and interests by continuing to allow this rancher access.
Wrong guy, Turtles. You’re thinking of the fellow in the southwest, not Oregon. The Oregon guy was only on his own land.
That “last land” owner built the road…..
for about 30 years I kept the Red Army away from that poor set up “last landowner”.
I am now aware none of those “last landowners” is worth my sweat on an easy morning PT.
Warren: “Some landowners were forced to sell when the U.S. government diverted water to flood their land. Others when the U.S. government diverted water so that they could not water their herds.”
I hear there was some water diversion happening up in Michigan, too. Did the white supremacist patriot militias come to the defense of the people of Flint? No? Was that because they weren’t landowners?
Those western ranchers are mostly not ‘landowners’. Under the various Homestead Acts you can be GRANTED ownership of land in 80 or `160 or ven 640 acre chunks. And my own family still has framed Land Grants signed by U.S. Presidents as far back as Monroe that gave us OWNERSHIP of prime Indiana farmland. And my great-great grandfather put together pieces of that and became a prosperous farmer and his son sent three kids to college with only Uncle Russ kept back to run the farm.
So I get this. But all the acreage put together by Alexander Hamilton Arbuckle and his son Ulyssees Grant Arbuckle (born in 1865 why do you ask?) in Indiana wouldn’t have supported more than five cows and two calves out here in Southern New Mexico. People here grow chiles and pecans on parcels they own, and they run cattle on parcels they don’t. Those instead are leased ‘allotments’ and are managed by how many ‘lifestock units’ they can handle.
It is not “ownership” it is “use”. Very, very old differences in land law, with “use” having much deeper historical precedence. So yes these people have “rights”. But unlike my farmer ancestors in Indiana those “rights” do not equate to “ownership” but instead to “use” and in many cases “conditional use”. Which means that a lot of people who bloviate about the relation between “private property” and the “federal goverment overreach” need a combined course in property law and Western history.
Because mostly those ranching “landowners” were never “owners” at all.
In Roman Law the difference between “ius” and “usus’. Sounding so much the same but oh so different. And not quite captured in English between “legal right” (ius = judicial) and right to use (usus = prescriptive use). But close.
These guys obviously never studied land law at any level. Fascinating stuff, both my academic and professional careers kept coming back around to it. Plus my lifelong interest in family history.
BTW Texas is different. Legally. Rather ironically because land title there doesn’t run back to Public Land Law of the U.S. Government. Instead landowners there have ultimate title insured by the fucking King of Spain and his Viceroys in Mexico.
That is Texans can curse away the Feds while still blaming the Mex’s for everything because legally they don’t owe Uncle Sam for their land rights. Unlike say people who now live in States carved out of the Nevada and Oregon Territories. Damn History is a Bitch. And often my Bitch.
And no that is not particularly PC. I am not feeling the Kumbaya this week. Long story.
You seem to be saying that it does not matter whether people THINK they own the land or not, the U.S. government really owns it all, and can do whatever they want to any people living in the western states.
“.. But all the acreage put together by Alexander Hamilton Arbuckle and his son Ulyssees Grant Arbuckle (born in 1865 why do you ask?) in Indiana – ”
Bruce, On a lighter side, any relation to “Fatty” Arbuckle?
Very distant cousin. There are literally thousands of Arbuckles descended from the first Captain James Arbuckle who was born in 1714 and settled most of his progeny here before dying back in Scotland. And his many kids had many kids. Mostly farmers but including a fairly famous General Arbuckle who has mountains and a fort named after him. The ancestral link between me and Fatty is back that far, in the late 18th century. But yes he was my Mom’s cousin in some eighth cousin, three times removed sense. And he was framed for the murder anyway. So all in all we are not that upset with the “But Fatty?” But it is a funny name. My Mom still goes by her first husband’s name (my Dad) because reasons. And obvious ones.
I guess these people have never heard of Shay’s rebellion, Whiskey rebellion, Matewan, and so on and so on.
“You seem to be saying that it does not matter whether people THINK they own the land or not…”
Also does not matter whether people THINK they are Napoleon Bonaparte, Jesus Christ or Paul Revere. They are NOT.
@Warren: “Wrong guy, Turtles. You’re thinking of the fellow in the southwest, not Oregon. The Oregon guy was only on his own land”
First your comment does not really help you. It simple points out that these crazies are all over the place.
As for my comments you may want to recheck your info.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/oregon-ranchers-who-sparked-standoff-threatened-to-wrap-officials-son-in-barbed-wire-and-drown-him/comments/
“Marvin Plenert, 80, who served as Northwest regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1986 to 1994, says the agency tried to accommodate the Hammonds. “We gave them a day to cross through the refuge and they took two or three weeks to do it. They were in your face about everything. They kept pushing the envelope, cut fences, cattle wound up in the refuge illegally.””
lol, “Bundy” is a globalist shill. Tied to globalist organizations. Militia for the elite. Their whole want is to destroy America and create a plutocratic dictatorship. They use sleaze bags(and self admitted sleaze bags) like the Hammonds, who poached and left drug party messes as cover for their real goals. I like how the media “condones” them. All scam.
Sorry, but all ‘private property” is statism Warren. Without the government, it would not exist. Then the Bundy’s would have to fight for land. The bigger fish will gulp up the little fish.
Warren, you are mistaken. The Hammonds were fighting over access to federal BLM grazing land and Malheur Refuge land. In 2014 their grazing leases were not renewed for improper care.
You can read about some of it here.
http://wildfiretoday.com/documents/Hammond_grazing_decision.pdf
The Hammonds did have some isolated land of their own and they had permission to cross the refuge to access it, with certain restrictions. But they repeatedly violated those restrictions. For example they were permitted to drive their cows across the refuge to their own land, but instead of taking a day or two, would spend up to three weeks grazing on refuge land, an old trick to get free grazing. They also tore down fences on the refuge along the way protecting stream banks for habitat restoration. They destroyed vegetation planted for restoration on refuge land.
So contrary to your statement, they disregarded the laws and trespassed on land they did not own.
But there is worse stuff. They repeatedly set illegal fires on refuge land, threatening the lives of firefighters. They hunted coyotes on the refuge from their airplane. The issued death threats to BLM employees. They even called up the wives of BLM workers, cursed them and threatened the lives of their children, saying “I know where your children are and I know what rooms they sleep in.”
These are the people you are defending? Five years in jail is not long enough. Nobody in town is safe when they are on the loose.
Bill:
It was strange way to attract attention. The little cattleman is being crowded out by the manufacturing cattle farms as their costs are higher. I got the article somewhere; but, it may be closer to the truth of what was the bur under their saddles. Unfortunately they took the wrong way to make their point.
As my son-in-law once said of these militia-types who think they can out-gun the US military – “they’ll never hear the drone that takes them out.”
Sandi,
Their sorry butts ain’t worth expending a $100K hellfire on.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/01/08/im-an-oregon-rancher-heres-what-you-dont-understand-about-the-bundy-standoff/
Welfare recipient bitching about eligibility rules. What else is new.
What welfare? We’re talking about rules that the feral government makes about how those people can use their own land.
It is mostly not their land. Look up the concept of “lease” and examine the per unit cost of grazing a cow and calf on federal lands. It is a straight out subsidy, i.e. welfare. http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/grazing.print.html
Though I do love “feral government”. Sometimes our inside voices say things out loud. Oops. Or maybe it was intentional. Revealing either way.
I just wish there was as much angst and anger toward the corporatocracy that is not only getting huge subsidies, it is writing the rules of how this ‘free market’ runs – which is mostly for their benefit. Contract law, labor law, patent law, you name it, they’ve rigged it.
Well, Bruce, the meaning of the word “federal” has changed as the U.S. government has changed, but the U.S. government no longer fits the original definition of “federal”.
“Feral” does fit.
You are spot on, Sandi. The problem is the notion that we need to make government bigger to combat Big Business. But the more powerful we make the government, the more cost effective it is for Big Business to buy it.