Oregon Gov. Kate Brown sat in her office Jan. 20 and drafted a letter to the U.S. attorney general and the director of the FBI. She wrote that negotiations with the “radicals” occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge had failed and insisted on a “swift resolution to this matter.”
Local officials, including Harney County Judge Steve Grasty, made similar demands. On Jan. 26, they got what they asked for.
Authorities, including the FBI, ambushed and arrested Ammon Bundy and others on their way to a meeting in neighboring Grant County. They shot LaVoy Finicum dead. He was not holding a weapon.
Awful. Grasty and Brown knew what might happen should the FBI decide negotiations had failed. Few have forgotten the standoffs at Waco and Ruby Ridge and that “swift” federal action often means people die — in many cases, indiscriminately.
It’s ironic, but the behavior of the judge and the governor goes a long way to make the refuge protesters’ case for them. Blind devotion to federal authority is terribly dangerous to lives and to liberty.
The protest in Harney County will certainly not be the last over federal overreach. Here is hoping people find reason next time, before demanding dangerous federal intervention.
To that end, it is time to dispel a few myths about what is going on.
A good read.
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