Friday, April 11, 2014

Ruby Ridge Redux?

by Rick Moran

Two hundred armed federal agents have virtually surrounded a ranch in southern Nevada whose owner is defying a court order to keep his cattle from grazing on federal lands.

The feds have set up a "Free Speech Area" for protestors, no doubt trying to keep them out of the media eye - and perhaps remove potential witnesses to whatever the armed feds have in mind to do with Mr. Bundy and his 14 children.

Someone is going to get hurt due to the stupidity and incompetence of the BLM in carrying out the court order. Didn't these idiots learn anything from Ruby Ridge? Then as now, the government had the law on their side. But the criminally negligent manner in which the law was enforced led to a completely avoidable tragedy. 

Bundy is not in the right. He spouts nonsense about "preemptive rights" that do not exist in precedent or the law. He refuses to pay grazing fees while every other rancher who grazes on federal land must do so. Bundy is losing his cattle because he is defying the law and the courts - no matter his reasoning or claims to the contrary. The BLM is enforcing a law passed by Congress, and enforcing a court order that Bundy is not challenging. It's hard to see how Bundy has any kind of a legal case to continue to defy the law.

Beyond that, we have the spectacle of the Bureau of Land Management overreacting in a situation that calls for tact and diplomacy, not snipers targeting his family. I hardly think 200 armed agents are necessary to enforce this court order. It's pure intimidation on the part of the feds. 



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