[Eskhander]

I assume the thinly veiled racial hatred exhibited by progressives has been noted.

I just wonder how many weave shops must be destroyed before the national guard will step in to stop these protestors.

[Grodin]

My grandparents were ranchers in Eastern Oregon, I remember my grandma's ranting about federal overreach and abuse of the locals.

This goes much deeper than just restricting grazing on federal lands. Overeager bureaucrats have taken a personal zeal to imposing their political views on local communities. They've tried to restrict access to private property, built structures on lands that were owned by the county not the feds, flooded private property, and more. These sorts of tactics have been employed across the west, this is just one story of many. The people with roots in the land get pissed because the federal government tries to eradicate their economy and way of life - whether it's mining, logging, ranching, fisheries, etc.

This is also why places like southern Oregon are filled with unemployed drug addicts. Or places like the Appalachians for that matter. Concentrated power in liberal urban centers dictates land use policies based on a disney-land fed fantasy of wilderness and rural spaces.

[porscheguy]

(01-03-2016 08:12 PM)Grodin Wrote:  

My grandparents were ranchers in Eastern Oregon, I remember my grandma's ranting about federal overreach and abuse of the locals.

This goes much deeper than just restricting grazing on federal lands. Overeager bureaucrats have taken a personal zeal to imposing their political views on local communities. They've tried to restrict access to private property, built structures on lands that were owned by the county not the feds, flooded private property, and more. These sorts of tactics have been employed across the west, this is just one story of many. The people with roots in the land get pissed because the federal government tries to eradicate their economy and way of life - whether it's mining, logging, ranching, fisheries, etc.

This is also why places like southern Oregon are filled with unemployed drug addicts. Or places like the Appalachians for that matter. Concentrated power in liberal urban centers dictates land use policies based on a disney-land fed fantasy of wilderness and rural spaces.

I guess I'm wondering why the federal government is taking such an active interest in these lands that are fairly remote and only serve for things like grazing cattle.

[Grodin]

In my opinion it's driven more by liberal naivete about our place in the natural ecosystem, more than some grand conspiracy.

The types of people who take jobs with the parks service, BLM, epa, dec and other government agencies tend to be of a certain political flavor.

Political power is concentrated on the eastern seaboard and the cities of southern california, where there is a lot of support for turning the west into one big national park for people to occasionally visit and go mountain biking or kayaking, or take pictures to post on instagram.

Each successive president takes increasing executive action to reserve another slice of the west as some kind of monument, starting with Teddy Roosevelt

If there is some economic or political incentive for "the elites" to drive the federal buy-up of the west, it's beyond me what that incentive is.

[BortimusPrime]

Ultimately the problem is that the entire concept of the BLM is anti-democratic. By forcing ranchers to rent the land for grazing, the government is behaving in exactly the same manner as medieval feudal lords: laying claim to a large area of arable land by force of arms, but then instead of working that land themselves they "allow" a lower caste to do all the labor to exploit those resources in exchange for tribute.

There are two theories of land ownership at odds here. The first premise is that you only own land over which you can maintain sovereignty, i.e. are capable of violently defending. Having purchased or developed the land doesn't have any bearing on ownership in this sense. By this standard, none of us own property since the government can claim eminent domain and murder us if we refuse to give up our homes.

The second premise is the more libertarian approach that you only own a property if you've either purchased it or gone onto unowned land and developed it to some degree. (You can't just declare "I own the moon!" for example, you'd have to go to the moon and build a little cottage first.) The reason squatters don't apply under this system is because even though the squatter may have been living there a long time, someone else had still payed for that land previously are rightfully owns it.

Obviously the first "might makes right" doctrine is what applies on an international scale. Saddam Hussein being the legitimate leader of Iraq didn't mean shit since he couldn't nuke the US in retaliation, preventing the 2003 invasion. However, trying to use this premise within a nation is utterly moronic. It sets back economic development because no one wants to develop land for productive uses when the government is likely to sweep the rug out from under them. This is why no one did any work under communist regimes. Being productive meant you'd get your wealth redistributed, if you built a large house in the Czech Republic under communism the government would force you to split it into a duplex and give away half to another family.

The BLM will likely eventually succeed and seize the entirely of eastern Oregon and Washington and repurpose it for full-time ecological conservation of all the nasty poisonous snakes and spiders that live out there, but that just proves my point. No economic exploitation will go on out there and the whole area will just depopulate completely through lack of jobs, ultimately making everyone worse off. Beef I would be previously getting from Eastern Oregon will now be from China...until it turns out they're just painting convicts with black and white spots and pushing them into the abattoir.

The worst part is that we've seen this little dance happen in post Warsaw pact countries, I know what happens when the government finally decides that state ownership of everything isn't cool anymore: they end up selling all the land to large agribusiness. There wasn't much in the way of small business in Russia under Yeltsin, all those huge state-owned monopolies just got bought up by gangsters, so a factory seized by the government and made into a "People's Factory", became entirely privately owned by one guy. Fuck the original owner, fuck the people that did the actual work, just give the government their pound of flesh.

[Ingocnito]

(01-03-2016 08:33 PM)Grodin Wrote:  

In my opinion it's driven more by liberal naivete about our place in the natural ecosystem, more than some grand conspiracy.

The types of people who take jobs with the parks service, BLM, epa, dec and other government agencies tend to be of a certain political flavor.

Political power is concentrated on the eastern seaboard and the cities of southern california, where there is a lot of support for turning the west into one big national park for people to occasionally visit and go mountain biking or kayaking, or take pictures to post on instagram.

Each successive president takes increasing executive action to reserve another slice of the west as some kind of monument, starting with Teddy Roosevelt

If there is some economic or political incentive for "the elites" to drive the federal buy-up of the west, it's beyond me what that incentive is.

I heard it suggested (can't find vid, just watched reviewing Bundy case last night) that the land is going to be partitioned if they can get the ranchers off, to bring in foreign businesses, esp Chinese elitist investors.. kind of a shadow Gov't way of paying off the Chinese to not dump our debt into the global market.

Business sectors mentioned were energy (solar esp.), as well as residential real estate development. City-in-a-box type suburbia.. dunno.

I know, sounds far fetched, but nothing would surprises me at this point, esp with a president who barfs out another executive order each month.

[Dr. Howard]

(01-03-2016 08:15 PM)porscheguy Wrote:  

(01-03-2016 08:12 PM)Grodin Wrote:  

My grandparents were ranchers in Eastern Oregon, I remember my grandma's ranting about federal overreach and abuse of the locals.

This goes much deeper than just restricting grazing on federal lands. Overeager bureaucrats have taken a personal zeal to imposing their political views on local communities. They've tried to restrict access to private property, built structures on lands that were owned by the county not the feds, flooded private property, and more. These sorts of tactics have been employed across the west, this is just one story of many. The people with roots in the land get pissed because the federal government tries to eradicate their economy and way of life - whether it's mining, logging, ranching, fisheries, etc.

This is also why places like southern Oregon are filled with unemployed drug addicts. Or places like the Appalachians for that matter. Concentrated power in liberal urban centers dictates land use policies based on a disney-land fed fantasy of wilderness and rural spaces.

I guess I'm wondering why the federal government is taking such an active interest in these lands that are fairly remote and only serve for things like grazing cattle.

its not the 'government' in my opinion. Its people, managers and policy makers in the government. Again, from my own natural resources management experience, some piece of shit graduates from university indoctrinated with some sort of belief that the local white hunters, fishermen, loggers, ranchers are ignorant rednecks that rape, pillage and defile their local natural resources. The squirrels, birds and rabbits only hope of survival is for this newly graduated biologist to save them, and the means to save them is to exclude humans. Its the same attitude that east coast folks have towards the people of the south..that they are idiotic mouthbreathers that need to be saved from themselves. Inside the goverment, these public "save turtle" types aligned with the environmental lobby while those of us land managers working in farm outreach etc tended to align with the business lobbies

Here is the amazing thing that happens though, once they exclude the locals from these lands, once the roads are torn up and blocked off and people can't drive their fishing boat down to the lake on the weekend or graze cattle....they become tourist playgrounds for the rich. The only people who go in are those that can afford to fly in with helicopters are the elite. This has happened in multiple places in Canada.

Another reason, in the US is corporate influence. Here is a specific logging example, but I bet the same exists for mining and ranching. A number of US forestry companies have huge holdings of private land growing timber. Guess what happens to the value of that timber when all of the federal lands timber supply is excluded? Correct, the value of the timber held on industrial private lands go way up. A shrunk market also allows the private companies to push down rates on loggers and increase their margin on harvested wood.

The above being said, the 'elite playground' evidence is more of what i have seen than the corporate greed angle. Private foundations like the nature conservancy have been the ones pushing for 'saving the animals' and taking these lands out of production and access from the local communities. The towns that once supported logging and mining turn into 'resort towns' that beg for service scraps when the rich come in to do something useless like kayak, bike or do a women's retreat.

Its post civil war reconstruction/carpetbagging on rural communities.

[Roosh]

From the government's perspective, the actions of the militiamen are illegal.

From a moral perspective, we can ask if the law the Feds are trying to enforce are just and/or Constitutional. If they are not, then morally we can stand by the militiamen. The justification should be legally and ethically based.

I do agree that we shouldn't justify illegal action by a group we happen to be sympathetic to. Otherwise, we're discarding the rule of law for subjective feelings and identity politics, not unlike what the SJW's are doing.

[Dr. Howard]

(01-03-2016 09:42 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

From the government's perspective, the actions of the militiamen are illegal.

From a moral perspective, we can ask if the law the Feds are trying to enforce are just and/or Constitutional. If they are not, then morally we can stand by the militiamen. The justification should be legally and ethically based.

I do agree that we shouldn't justify illegal action by a group we happen to be sympathetic to. Otherwise, we're discarding the rule of law for subjective feelings and identity politics, not unlike what the SJW's are doing.

This is where I throw up my hands in despair at people taking the race bait so hard, as can be seen on twitter.

all of the 'black lives matter' types that are saying "hey, we got the national guard called in on ferguson, fuck these white people" could see the unity here and say "hey look, the justice system is fucking over people of all skin colors and all lifestyles (rural or urban) so hard that people are engaging in potentially violent protests"

Instead they want more victim olympics, where its who is the most hard done by that wins the prize.

Don't they see the common thread of police/court injustice?

Anyway, the oregon occupiers are definitely breaking the law by what they are doing, but sometimes you have to break unjust laws...just ask Rosa parks....who apparently would be a 1950s domestic terrorist for illegally occupying a bus seat by SJW standards.

If these guys start looting the buildings, torching things and stealing all the wigs they can carry from local weave shops. Then I'll call them rioters like the folks in Ferguson and Baltimore. If they start ambushing office parties, indiscriminately shooting people while screaming "Free range cattle!" then I'll call them terrorists. Until then, they are just armed protestors.

I do also hope that those in oregon know that they are one trigger pull away from giving the president all of the momentum he needs to restrict gun ownership in america. They are one death away from going from "armed" to "illegally armed"

[CamelToe]

(01-03-2016 09:42 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

From a moral perspective, we can ask if the law the Feds are trying to enforce are just and/or Constitutional. If they are not, then morally we can stand by the militiamen. The justification should be legally and ethically based.

I don't believe this Bundy militia is really standing for what is morally or constitutionally right. They seem to be opportunist.

Of course the federal government are tyrants just as nearly every government of the world is but this militia doesn't seem to have the intellectual capacity to actually take on the Feds or create any sort of movement worth caring about.

[nomadbrah]

(01-03-2016 08:48 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

No economic exploitation will go on out there and the whole area will just depopulate completely through lack of jobs, ultimately making everyone worse off.

The government will be better off, because then farmers and small town people move to cities where they are easily taxed, indoctrinated and controlled.

Rural people tend to be hardy and stubborn.

[Habano]

The criminal conviction that prompted the militiamen's conduct is controversial to say the least. The appellate court decision that instructed the district court to resentence the Hammonds to five years can be found here.

The law under which the Hammonds were convicted (18 U.S.C. § 844(f)(1)) reads as follows:

Quote:

Whoever maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehicle, or other personal or real property in whole or in part owned or possessed by, or leased to, the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or any institution or organization receiving Federal financial assistance, shall be imprisoned for not less than 5 years and not more than 20 years, fined under this title, or both.

Notice how broadly this law can be read. The ambiguity is intentional. The language above was passed by Congress during 1996 in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), a law that was quickly passed after Timothy McVeigh used a truck bomb to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City. The public wanted laws that gave harsh punishments to terrorists. This is what they got.

Regardless of the Hammonds' motive (poaching cover-up, invasive species, fire control, etc.), it seems strange that setting a fire on federal land in the middle of nowhere should automatically land someone behind bars for at least five years. The presiding trial judge thought that as well. So when the jury returned guilty verdicts for the Hammonds, the judge disregarded the mandatory minimum on Eighth Amendment grounds.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishment." Under the existing legal doctrine, courts will invalidate a mandatory minimum as cruel and unusual only if the punishment is "grossly disproportionate" to the offense. While the trial court judge concluded that the five years for the Hammonds would be grossly disproportionate, the appellate court disagreed. Consequently, it remanded the case back to the trial court to resentence the Hammonds under the mandatory minimum built into the law.

The remand for resentencing was well within the confines of existing law. If the government believes the presiding judge got the law regarding the sentencing wrong, it is within the government's right to make an appeal, much in the same way a criminal defendant may do so if he believes the judge erred on a matter of law. Appellate courts do have the jurisdiction to instruct the district courts they review to fix what they conclude are legal errors. Otherwise, there would be no system to vindicate constitutional and legal rights after the original decision was made.

All that said, I can see why local ranchers would be upset with the overly broad law, the government's reliance on it in this particular context, and the resulting outcome. I leave it to others to discuss the moral and legal consequences of the militia's takeover of the wildlife refuge that is the response to these events.

[aeroektar]

Pretty insightful video on this whole mess. The Bundys went behind many of the regions militia groups, and many of them aren't in support of the Bundys actions for good reason.

[aeroektar]

(01-03-2016 08:33 PM)Grodin Wrote:  

If there is some economic or political incentive for "the elites" to drive the federal buy-up of the west, it's beyond me what that incentive is.

A concentrated population is easier to manipulate and also control. I believe thats part of how they see it.

[germanico]

Quote:

who were to report to California prison after a federal judge ruled that the sentences they had served for arson were not long enough under federal law.

Without touching the topic of the militiamen legality, motivations or political allegiances, this is a highly disturbing action from the federal government (something that would be expected from perhaps a Latinamerican banana dictatorship or from some ye-haw backwards 'murican sheriff, not from the federal government. Extending a sentence not only after it was handed, but after it was served, is not only against the very principles of the law, but its also against every legal tradition, custom, or morality.

Whats next? Instead of pardoning the thanksgiving turkey they are going to rule that last years turkey wasnt properly cooked and it should stay a couple more hours in the oven?

Ruling that a man should serve more time after he is free and already did his time? Every freedom loving american should be up in arms, whats really troubling is that they are not, and not that a few of them are.

[Tex Pro]

Oregon Standoff: A Terrible Plan That We Might Be Stuck With

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-03...t-be-stuck

[storm]

(01-03-2016 11:47 PM)Tex Pro Wrote:  

Oregon Standoff: A Terrible Plan That We Might Be Stuck With

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-03...t-be-stuck

Quote:

Ammon and team did NOT make clear their intentions to occupy the federal wildlife refuge building except to a select few, inviting protesters to "take a hard stand" without revealing what this would entail until they were already in the middle of it all. OPSEC? No, I think not. Obviously the goal was to lure as many protesters to Oregon as possible to the event in the hopes that they would jump on board with the stand-off plan once they were more personally involved. Numerous protesters were rightly enraged once they discovered the ultimate motives behind the event.

Quote:

Ammon and friends have decided they want to be the "tip of the spear" (his words, not mine).

Quote:

The Oregon standoff potentially forces the hand of the Liberty Movement, not the hand of corrupt government - the exact reverse of what should be happening.

Quote:

If the Feds use brutality to handle the Oregon conflict, it will indeed "kick-off". There wont be any way to stop it. Just don't get too excited, folks. This is no Lexington or Concord. I really don't know what to call it...

There are some elements of the police which are terrified that some sort of civil war is brewing at any moment. I never knew that was so true.

EDIT:

The author mentions "asymmetric warfare" and "opsec", comes from a website called "alt-market" and is named "Brandon Smith". As prepared and intelligent as he sounds, I doubt he is ready for a nation-state level intelligence to turn its eye upon him.

[TonySandos]

(01-04-2016 12:08 AM)storm Wrote:  

There are some elements of the police which are terrified that some sort of civil war is brewing at any moment. I never knew that was so true.

When I provide commentary about what I hear while working around police and testing the political climate at my military unit, I told you, I'm not making this stuff up.

[spokepoker]

Maybe they'll false flag themselves. Setup their own snipers in the hills, take the people out in/around the building, blame the government. Just enough bodies needed to force something, give IR chemlights to the non-targets (Ammon and brood) and later he can come out bullhorn blaring against "government hostility".

[Peregrine]

(01-04-2016 01:31 AM)spokepoker Wrote:  

Maybe they'll false flag themselves. Setup their own snipers in the hills, take the people out in/around the building, blame the government. Just enough bodies needed to force something, give IR chemlights to the non-targets (Ammon and brood) and later he can come out bullhorn blaring against "government hostility".

Or if they don't want to go that route, it might not be too hard to get a government agent to shoot first and then spin the resulting story in your favor. There's a reason why you've probably heard of the Boston Massacre, but not the Incident on King Street.

[Byzantium]

(01-03-2016 09:42 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

From the government's perspective, the actions of the militiamen are illegal.

From a moral perspective, we can ask if the law the Feds are trying to enforce are just and/or Constitutional. If they are not, then morally we can stand by the militiamen. The justification should be legally and ethically based.

I do agree that we shouldn't justify illegal action by a group we happen to be sympathetic to. Otherwise, we're discarding the rule of law for subjective feelings and identity politics, not unlike what the SJW's are doing.

The rule of law is just the ability to exert force over a location for a sustained period, if you can do that, then the law is whatever you choose it to be. And you mention "ethically based," well, whose ethics? Ethics is almost entirely dependent on the group that you are a member of, and the USA has become filled with contradictory ethical systems.

[spokepoker]

(01-04-2016 01:50 AM)Peregrine Wrote:  

(01-04-2016 01:31 AM)spokepoker Wrote:  

Maybe they'll false flag themselves. Setup their own snipers in the hills, take the people out in/around the building, blame the government. Just enough bodies needed to force something, give IR chemlights to the non-targets (Ammon and brood) and later he can come out bullhorn blaring against "government hostility".

Or if they don't want to go that route, it might not be too hard to get a government agent to shoot first and then spin the resulting story in your favor. There's a reason why you've probably heard of the Boston Massacre, but not the Incident on King Street.

Or the government had a man in the group, pushing for the HQ takeover, in order to reinforce Obama's executive orders coming throughout this year.

[Byzantium]

(01-03-2016 11:07 PM)aeroektar Wrote:  

(01-03-2016 08:33 PM)Grodin Wrote:  

If there is some economic or political incentive for "the elites" to drive the federal buy-up of the west, it's beyond me what that incentive is.

A concentrated population is easier to manipulate and also control. I believe thats part of how they see it.

Agenda 21 combined with policies like "The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" to import "diversity" into the whitest and most conservative places (example, hundreds of thousands of Muslim Africans into Minnesota). Which is a tactic used at least as far back as the Assyrians, relocating conquered populations so as to mix them together, making it impossible to unite properly to throw off Assyria.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-11...ally-plan-

Meanwhile, in the land of the free, they give free land to the citizens, instead of driving the citizens off the land, and giving free everything to aliens.

Russia Is Giving Away Free Farmland - Up to 12 Acres per Family: And yes, it is beautiful, rich farmland, some of the best in the world, near the Pacific Coast, close to Japan, Korea, and China:

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/ru...ily/ri9653

The offer is available to all Russian citizens, the only requirement is that people put the land to use.

[storm]

Pointing out the generous treatment of russians by their goverment - as opposed to that in america - immediately following an argument by historical evidence. Delicious irony.

[Beyond Borders]

I'm surprised that none of you commented on the teary-eyed guy in the pickup doing attention whoring or trolling or whatever you want to call it on the news just last month in Arizona with the armed protest outside a mosque in Arizona. Does no one else find that interesting that this guy seems to have some type of agenda beyond this one issue?