A Military View of the Bundy Ranch Situation: Why Everyone Should Be Worried

reply to post by Logarock


Hon, I used to raise cattle. I owned all the land my cattle touched, and if they got off that land, I went and got them back... and fixed fence.

I cannot imagine thinking I could graze my cows on land I didn't own. Yeah... its just grass... but, its not his grass... its the owners.

Should the federal government own land? The fact is, the government has ALWAYS bought land. Its usually why much land is a part of America... we the people did purchase the land, through our tax dollars so it can be part of America.

That said, at that point it should be available for sale to American people to purchase, rather than keeping it in the federal purview. This is how many Americans came to own their land, they either purchased it or the government just gave it. In Wyoming you can still homestead. Apparently not Nevada though...

Should we work to change it? Sure!

But I don't see how this is going to change that...

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Opininated I just starred you for this. I too keep thinking he had all this time to move his cattle, why let it come to this. Are we only going to go along with what the courts say when it is our favor? That is not how our judicial system works. I am the first to say our sytem is flawed, seriously flawed. But when things go to court that becomes the final word until appeals overturn the verdict.

This situation has beome circus and I fear for anyone involved in it. With that being said, I think the courts could have worked out something more reasonable for Mr Bundy, maybe some compromise of land use to respect that fact that at some point the government did let his family over the years use the land.

reply to post by projectvxn


A decent government/military should have learned something from Ruby Hill and Waco. If they don't simply cut power, access and communications with the defiant folks on the ranch and wait them out, then that is a time to be concerned about how really bad toward a police state we are headed. Any head-to-head confrontation will be a negative mark for the feds. But if they want to show us that they will be tough, then that means that they care nothing about public perceptions and only about what they want to accomplish.

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Cliven bundys great grandfather sold all this property to his grandfather which in turn sold it to his father who sold it to him. He owns the water rights as long as he can show use, which is the cattle, over half of which are feral and unbranded. He also owns grazing rights. He has never sold any of it or been compensated or even an offer. Now we have environmentalists saving the turtle from these cattle grazing near them on 1600 acres of now uncompensated and disputed land that is grandfathered in for generations. It is still their land and water to use but now that they have all this militarization moving in with snipers...all to protect the turtles that obviously get along with the feral cattle that have been grazing there for centuries, well.....well, what was my point? This is confusing?

Oh, compensation. Well, once the blm gets the land, and water rights after bundy loses them because of no use, because the blm slaughtered the cattle to save the turtle... well they can (blm) then sell water rights to the 29 fracking leases they just gave, water to the solar plant harry reids son is negotiating for and the land to run the lines through. We also have the rare earth minerals the defense Dept. Wants on that land and also the new i15 exit scheduled there soon....snipers you say...

To all of you 'Americans' in this thread saying ' I would never stand with Bundy wah wah wah' wake up people! This is not about Bundy!


And did you just relate American militias to the taliban??? You sir are just as bad as them in my opinion. A trader to the United States and her Constitution.

How do you all support protests elsewhere but not in your own land??


'I dont condone any violence' grow a pair!! The damned feds showed up DRESSED TO KILL as they do best. They got a more than fair response for once.

reply to post by OpinionatedB


And you're the problem with America! There are eminent domain cases of abuse all over America. Look at the couple in Breckenridge. You're a coward. This is EXACTLY the type of response it's going to take to regain control of our country and take our freedoms back. The Fing US government OWNS too much of our land. Ted Turner owns TOO MUCH land. Our government has too much power. Our government could have come up with a much better approach to this rancher and solved this with a lot less intimidation. Just because he lost a court case or the rule of law is in place doesn't make the situation right. I don't know the details but like the other poster said the response of militarily like tactics has been ridiculous. THESE ARE FING AMERICANS OUT THERE!!!!!!!!!! Thanks god for the militia and the protesters willing to stand up to the puke tyrannical LE clowns. Whether this rancher is on the right side of the law or not means nothing. Bottom line is Americans deserve a bigger piece of their country. We need less government ownership of land. Or we do like Norway does. Government wants to own land and make money off it fine……they open up a national sovereign wealth fund that supports all their welfare programs and out of control budgets. Quit taxing to death the American citizens.

And dear god Americans pull your head out of your rear……….land is like freedom……Once they take it away it's near impossible to get it back.

reply to post by DJW001

Really? and if we give up that right who is to protect us from the Government? So naïve, Guns keep us free... If they took all of the guns out of this world and they just disappeared do you know what that would be called? HMMMM "The Dark Ages" where people used other means to kill. Evil people will do evil no matter the laws. Get off the gun grabber routine it does not work here.

reply to post by projectvxn


I just ran a litmus test thread to gauge my fellow ATS members general feelings as to the most likely outcomes and this was the result after two full pages of replies ...

I am getting the general feeling from my fellow ATS members, that this event has a short window of opportunity to become overblown or it will evolve into a stalemate or devolve into an impossible logistical nightmare.

I am also getting the general feeling that if things do boil over, that my fellow ATS members feel the Feds will win the battle!

Finally I am getting the general feeling from my fellow ATS members that if there is a battle and the Feds do win, that the rest of the USA will do nothing about that and the Bundy Ranch Massacre will simply pass into American History as a footnote akin to Waco and Ruby Ridge etc!

And it is the last bit that worries me the most!

How does that general feeling portrayed by ATS, as to most likely outcomes, make you feel

Anybody siding with the Feds over this because of some grazing fees is a true sheep.

To you I say - GTFO! America does not need more submissive sheep willing to bend over to the bureaucracy. You are no American if you side with the Feds and their military tactics on a man's family.

'Grazing fees' give me a damn break just another fine example of a tax which should not exist.

America needs more patriots willing to stand up and say NO to the abuse of power! This country and government WORKS for the people and yet they come at us bearing weapons of war?? If this rancher wasnt so known he would have simply been put down like a dog by a LEO years ago.


As to the OP, I believe you are correct and it scares me the most. I have said it once Ill say it again If they execute those Americans down there in NV all bets will be off. Op you are absolutely correct, they have the hardware but we have numbers and they will NEVER be able to estimate their own number of defectors to our cause while we continue to grow.



Those feds need to lay off. Move the damn cattle already and be gone. Get it over with if that is your only intent.

I'm not siding with Bundy because I believe he is right on this issue. I'm siding with him because of the response and shadiness of the US government. I think Bundy comes off as an idiot old codger. His excuse basically is that my family of Mormons from the 1800s have been working this land since eternity. OK? Things change old man. Laws change. If you don't like them there is a democratic process in place. Just because the past is the way it was doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. That being said I don't like the way the government is treating him and the heavy handed tactics, military in nature being used. At the end of the day he is an American. It is BLM land and he should have kept paying his grazing fees. That was the original deal.

But this is a perfect example. Don't of these LE clowns feel like what they are doing is wrong? I mean that's what I don't get. It's like they are from another country and could give a crap about their fellow Americans. I mean is that how most of these LE guys are? Even these BLM people. No job to me is that important that I Would ever side with the government. Very rarely is the government ever right in my opinion. That's what I don't get about situations like this. It's like these LE people are just robots following orders. Kind of scary. I wish the governor would get his arse in line and call in the National Guard. That would be awesome!

For everyone arguing that these are" federal lands" or" public" which are in dispute, I would suggest the following story:

Driving Them Off the Land 
Eviction of Western Ranchers Amounts to a ´War of Religions´

The question is: what does "public" mean? Do the ranchers have an established property right — a grazing right — just as both state and common law across the West acknowledge private citizens may have legitimate mining or water or right-of-way claims on that land, established both through paperwork "filings" and through years of habit and custom and adverse possession, which cannot be overturned by mere bureaucratic whim?

Or does the federal government — as Judge Johnnie Rawlinson has brazenly asserted in the similar case aimed at driving Clark County cattle rancher Cliven Bundy off his Mesquite Allotment — literally own all this land, with "plenary" rights to kick anybody off, any time they please?

...

Defiant, Cliff Gardner declares he can find "no authority whatsoever" for the federal government to "hold and manage lands within an admitted State" aside from the power granted in Article I Section 8 [of the U. S. Constitution], to purchase specific parcels "by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings," which would hardly seem to apply to the millions of acres of western grazing land.

...

All Americans should be concerned, Gardner warns in the prepared summary, that "more than a third of the land surface of the United States of America is now being policed under Article IV jurisdiction" — never intended for use within the 50 states, and under which the courts will not acknowledge any obligation to grant accused citizens their constitutional rights, including their "sixth amendment right to be informed of the nature and cause of a prosecution ... in order that they may prepare a defense."

...

What Cliff Gardner is insisting on is that - even if we agree the federals are to "administer" all these lands, punishing "trespassers" like Cliven Bundy and Cliff Gardner — we must still ask under what jurisdiction their courts and other officers are to operate as they do so: under Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the Supreme Court "and such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish" ... in which case defendants like Cliff Gardner have a right to a trial by a jury of their peers, a right to due process and equal protection — all the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights?

Or is the federal jurisdiction over these lands in fact a "territorial" jurisdiction, as established under Article IV of the Constitution, which would appear to set no such due-process restrictions on the power of Congress to "dispose of and make all Needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State."

...

Cliff Gardner keeps trying to get Judge McKibben to confirm that. But for some curious reason, whenever Gardner makes a court filing asking for just such a confirmation of his due process rights, Judge McKibben — he just lay low and don't say nothin'.

Motion denied without comment. Motion denied without comment. Motion denied without comment.

all emphases mine

Oh, this is speaking about the second to last free range cattle rancher (Bundy is the last) in the area in very similar circumstances back in 2001 so this isn't anything new.

Is it federal land simply because a complicit judge says it is and if the ranchers don't pay the "grazing fees" (read:protection money), then the goons come in with their tanks and their bombs?

This guy's family has been raising cattle in this area in they way he's been doing it for longer than Nevada has been a state. It's not good for much else.

And the tortoises?

In fact, range biologist Vern Bostic demonstrated decades ago that desert tortoises actually do better on range which is being grazed by cattle -- and managed by ranchers who improve the range for wildlife as well as their own stock with water tanks and the like. (Bundy told me Monday the BLM has also ordered him to remove all his "improvements" from the range, which would include water tanks and the lines that feed them from the occasional local spring.) 

But what's real-world, empirical evidence provided by local yokels with calloused hands and funny western drawls, to "experts" who've got the proper college degrees? 

Bundy Ranch

reply to post by lightedhype


Bundy family owned all that long befoe the blm even existed. According to bundy the grazing fees were to be used to improve the land for farmers use. They were initially set up with the excuse that they were to help with infrastructure for landowner use. The grazing fees money was promised for this. When they stopped using the money to improve the land, Buny stopped paying and offered the money to the county, which they refused to accept. Bundy has since done all those improvements promised out ofhis own pocket.

The core to this is simple. The blm went from friend to adversary over decades. They now take the money from the farmer, do nothing for them, and instead use the money to threaten and extort from the farmer, even by paying hired mercenaries with guns with the farmers monies.

OpinionatedB
reply to post by Logarock

 

Bundy does not contest the legitimacy of the federal government’s existence. He looks right to the constitution for a solution to his problem, and fails to find one. If a government has a right to exist, it has a right to own property, and do with it as it sees fit.

"The government" doesn't "OWN" anything. We do. We are the government. Well it's supposed to be a government for the people and by the people. That has clearly changed and your post proves it. You have been fully indoctrinated my friend.

reply to post by projectvxn


I am always concerned with excessive force and the militarization of law enforcement. The only thing that worries me more in a 'we the people vs the government/law enforcement' are the types of 'Patriots' showing up to 'defend' the Bundy Ranch. For one thing the people showing up to defend aren't armed with the correct information. They believe the land was owned by Bundy's family and was seized by the government at some point and Bundy expected to pay grazing permit fees on his (previously) own land.

It seems you are aware that Bundy or his family did not ever own that land, the land has always been 'public land'. Bundy's original contention is that the land is county and not federal, which ultimately changes nothing as BLM manages county and federal land... and as you stated Bundy lost the court case.This mess has been going on for 20 years before government took any action against Bundy and Bundy has essentially been stealing grazing from other ranchers who have been paying their permit fees.

I can see the reason for the no-fly zone, I don't put it past someone ill-informed and consumed by the paranoia certain people like to spread, to take shots at helicopters and planes. The cell tower shutdown, if true, however, what is even the point of doing that? I tend to think it's not true because it gives LE the perfect tool to listen to them with.

Further I don't the USG wants to martyr any of these 'patriots', doing such could mobilize a whole movement that would sit well with the ideology of the Tea Party, which does hold a not insignificant amount of people and could tilt many fence sitters to think the Tea Party was right all along.

I experienced something of a similar nature with regards to land I owned on a lake. It was vacant lakefront property. I owned the house adjacent to the land and paid taxes on it every year. I had it surveyed, did water perk tests and had a sanitary system engineered and approved for it by the local building department in anticipation of building a house. Then one day the DEC deemed it "wetlands". Well gee, it's lakefront property of more than 1.5 acres. It took two years in court to get the rights back to my land.

I'm respectful of the land and the in fauna, but I had every right to develop the land according to the current statutes in the county. The federal government tried to diminish that right through what amounted to eminent domain of sorts, by claiming it was protected wetlands. It was nothing of the sort and the testing proved it, yet they still held to their cain until a judge told them otherwise.

There needs to be some responsible thinking on both sides. My land was deemed wetlands based on aerial photographs and nothing more. Not one DEC person ever stepped foot on the land to walk it. There were houses to either side. They just made an arbitrary determination.

In the Bundy case, it's clear there are ulterior motives aside from protecting a tortoise that has obviously existed for a long time along side grazing cattle.

reply to post by jadedANDcynical


You bring up some good points. But it's still not a black and white issue. Both sides are culpable not just the BLM. What pisses me off is why the governor and Nevada county government and state government didn't solve this mess years ago. I believe if the state wants they should be able to kick the damn Feds out and take back the BLM as state land. And then decide this issue for themselves.

Double post

reply to post by projectvxn


imho,

TPTB

have been ratcheting up test cases and practice scenarios from at least as long ago as WACO.

The satanic fallen angels and globalist elite love violence and bloodshed. It's their bread, butter and desert.

As the Bible says . . . this era will be worse than the world has EVER SEEN

and

WORSE than EVER WILL BE IN THE FUTURE.