Excellent analysis; thank you. The media "analysis", characterization, investigation, and coverage is utterly disgusting. It only adds to the despair of those that see what is happening and is at stake.

Hello AJAshinoff,
Yes it is tyranny. The problem is that the government has perfected the divide and conquer long game. They will continue to persecute small groups one by one, but never too many simultaneously. It is just something on the news to most folks until it is their ox that is being gored.
I wonder if/when they will falter and start a revolution. I believe it to be true that revolutions are instigated by government malfeasance. One does not start from the grass roots when the public has no grievance. "Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Thomas Jefferson
The oppression must be severe and affect enough of the populace at any given time to overcome their complacency.
Yes, we must spread the word and shake off the complacency.
Regards,
O.A.

More people need to read this link - especially the talk show hosts. "when a long train of abuses and usurpations..." comes to mind.

The government is more than just out of line on this and it isn't just against the Hammonds. It is widespread, deliberate policy ruthlessly and dishonestly imposed. Read the nearby comments on this same page: https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

Even in this case in eastern Oregon there is a lot more to it than Ammond Bundy occupying a public parking lot and empty government building at the wildlife refuge. The general protest there had nothing to do with that and neither do the Hammonds.

The media reports are misleading the public about a severe problem that is not being reported. This is about the government railroading of the Hammonds in a long process of harassment and intimidation, not the Bundy protest. The Hammonds, who have nothing to do with the Bundy tactics, were accused and are being irrationally punished under an 'anti-terrorism law' that is completely irrelevant to them. Leaping to denouncing and/or ignoring them because of one splinter group in a protest only supports the government travesty.

The group at the government wildlife refuge cannot accomplish its goals by the means it has chosen, and those activists are being exploited to divert public attention away from the real problem, but even that group is being misrepresented as some kind of crazies in a "militia" looking for trouble. It isn't true.

When the government keeps pushing people with abuse it is inevitable that some people are going to be pushed over the edge into an impractical lashing out in frustration. Everyone has his limits. This is not a matter of a group of 'domestic terrorists' looking for excuses to perpetrate violence.

Watch this very sad video of Jon Ritzheimer, a veteran who is part of the Bundy group. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...

The left is smearing him -- and the Hammonds -- for it. Decent people can only sympathize with him and wish there were some way to help him, beginning by talking him out of his current futile and dangerous tactics.

Ritzheimer is no "terrorist" or religious fanatic engaged in suicide bombing for "God is great", blowing up abortion clinics, or randomly "anti-government" as an inherent motive. He is distraught with despair in defense of strong personal values and doesn't know where to turn, hoping that a "standoff" will finally bring public attention to travesties being ignored. Trying to take on the government with guns will not solve this problem or any of the others we have, and at worst will only get more innocent people hurt, beginning with themselves, but look at the cause and don't drop context.

The kind of battles in this country today rarely occur along clean lines like a "Britain against Hitler". They are complex and politically mixed, involving people with mixed premises and choices made to employ controversial tactics of all kinds, some of which we disagree with and reject. That complexity is the reality in this war against statism, and we cannot wait for a "pure case" before daring to speak out, while people fighting the same battle in different ways are exploited with a 'divide and conquer' strategy to smear and discredit anyone who dares to speak against the government abuse.

The answer is not to side with establishment smears burying the problems in distractions and evasions, while we leap to denounce those who are most frustrated and unable to cope with it as we ignore the essence, its causes, the victims, and everyone else protesting it in different ways we don't approve of ourselves.

I don't think this is anything new. It appears they would have preferred a standoff like the one in NV, where it was a landowner protecting his land..

Here's an update. These guys have no friends. http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-activist...

I agree that the govt is way out of line on this. However, I stand by my position that Bundy's actions are ill-conceived. Fighting a hopeless battle serves no one, those who engage in it least of all.

There are people all over the country who would agree with your characterization of their being terrorized, and it has been put that way before. The abuse of law in the phony name of "anti-terrorism" to persecute the Hammonds is only the latest in a long string of harassment, pressure and coercion spanning years intended to get their private property and drive them out, getting them off the range entirely. It's not an isolated fluke or even unusual, against either them or many, many others in the west and across the country. The government land agencies are cesspools of corruption and cynical injustice, invoked for an ideological mission mentality of expansion and control, and driven by the viros who are now thoroughly entrenched in lobbying, the media, and inside the agencies.

AJAshinoff: "... how SHOULD citizens approach these situations? Courts? Legislators?"

Organizations like the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Mountain States Legal Foundation (Perry Pendley) have been fighting the abuse for decades, and sometimes win, setting important precedents blocking at least some kinds of government abuse. A small group of Congressman have been fighting legislation in Washington as well (mostly Republicans). The American Land Rights Association has been very active in both legislation and grass roots action stopping travesties for years (and has been fighting for the Hammonds for years). Considering what all of us are up against it is amazing that anyone has held as much back as they have in preventing the situation from being much worse than it already is, but it in my experience the situation is deteriorating over time.

It is becoming worse for the same reason everything else has becoming worse in politics as Pragmatism, collectivism, statism and the viros progressively influence and dominate in the culture and in government. It is still possible for individuals to "win" some of these battles, but only at enormous personal and financial cost, and you never "win" anything -- when you "win" you only get to keep what you already had, or some of it, at enormous cost, and it's only a matter of time before they come back for the rest.

This isn't a problem only in the west. Every rural region in the country is under the same kind of siege by the viros exploiting their undue influence over government at all levels to destroy private property rights. In states across the country the relatively few in rural areas are controlled politically urban areas sympathetic to preservationism with no understanding of what they are doing to wreck people's lives.

It's fueled by the constant propaganda of ideological preservationist pressure groups promoting scenic imagery with carefully crafted photography and semi-poetic rhetoric to emotionally manipulate the public for political support -- with no mention of the onerous coercive land takings, restrictions and land use prohibitions. The preservationists pressure groups in general are extraordinarily wealthy, politically connected elitists, and appeal to the gullible and to their collaborators inside the media. They work their insider connections with politicians and agency officials to maneuver in the dark exploiting enormous power -- all against people who have very little, no access to the media, often have no idea of what is being done to them and why until it is too late, and no way to fight back. It isn't just ranchers, it affects all natural resource industries and use of private property with private homes, businesses, farming, logging, mining and fishing.

This is how people like Ammond Bundy are pushed over the edge, lashing out in dangerous and completely impractical actions. They feel trapped with no where to turn and are besides themselves over the injustices they have seen for years -- such as the current travesty against the Hammonds in eastern Oregon -- and which no one pays attention to, let alone stops. The government abuse of the Hammonds by BLM, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Obama lawyers and viro pressure groups has been going on for many years and only now is it being paid attention to in the media -- after the Hammonds have been railroaded into prison with no recourse and the equivalent of a death sentence for the 74 year old father, and still mostly over sensationalist reporting mischaracterizing it as an inherently violent "Militia" taking over government buildings. The frustration becomes personally overwhelming especially as the media mischaracterizes and whitewashes the problem when it bothers to say anything at all. The perpetrators are very lucky that their victims in this country are so unusually civilized and there aren't more explosions striking back at them.

The next time you see a glowing article about "saving" some scenic area -- anywhere in the country -- ask yourself who is being shafted this time, and remember that it isn't an isolated fluke case. It happens all the time.

things like this will only be fixed when Sheriff's acknowledge that they represent the people and turn on the Feds.

Actually, Oath Keepers is staying out of this one. But, the base insurrection against the crony-capitalist fed monster I support fully.

I agree that is an issue, however the issue is bigger and the equities in this case highlight the absurdity of the government environmental gang better than most. Women who are beaten by their spouse/boyfriend do not want the attention either that is not the deciding factor however. (Men who are beaten by their women really do not want the attention)

Very Interesting. That is good news that they have a better spokesman. The sheriff is a coward.

I think it is possible that this could be a PR disaster if the right issues are not made the focus of attention. That is why I wrote a post on point, and copied it onto the Gulch.

hear hear

The Hammonds wanted the people to stand down. The Bundy gang wants control and attention. Even the citizens in this small Oregon town
Want left alone by outsiders yet the Bundy gang disrespect both the Hammonds and the citizens.

Wouldn't surprise me, its how these animals work.

Yes, Reno took "full responsibility."
If that was true, she would have been executed.

I'm not sure that the 'law' has ever protected the individual. The Founders tried with the Constitution, but the power mongers began immediately defeating that with 'law'.

Yes. Even the true believers, even though some of them may not realize it.

The law doesn't protect individuals when political gangs begin to rule...those "gangs" want to divide the country into 'teams'. This is disgusting.

And anti-human life.

The courts and legislators, either state or federal, offer no relief. Most don't realize that this battle with Western ranchers and sheep men has been ongoing since the mid-fifties. But the gov't goes after the group, one at a time and the vast majority, individually, just fade away. The money and psychological cost are so immense, if not impossible, to the individual that there is no available challenge.

And popular support--no chance. Some 80% of the population lives on the coastal edges of the country and have absolutely no concept of the lives of those Westerners and even resent them.