I hope that anti-Muslim asshole Ritzheimer gets to read that memo, specifically including the names of its authors, which include a woman named Ahmed.
The thing I’m still amazed about is Cliven. He’s been holed up on his ranch for two years, cozy as a June bug in a blanket, pretty secure.
Then he decides to go see his boys, announces it on social media and travels by air. The most intensely regulated type of travel there is, where you’re required to be disarmed, and the feds are in charge.
And of course they nab him in the airport secure area, where he’s got no guns, no posse. And that’s probably it for the rest of his leather-bitten life, given the charges and his age.
Had he reached the point of “can’t touch me, can’t touch me!” or what?
Sure, he should be treated the same as any other inmate who has made public statements about violently resisting Federal Law enforcement. The same reasoning for why they denied him bail is the same reasoning he should be in a supermax.
Pretty much this. He’s been defying the federal government for decades so he must have started believing in himself.
I don’t think he’s either a troll or has a persecution complex. From what I’m reading he sounds like he’s grasping and quite possibly somewhat of a psychopath; not in the sense of “insane serial killer” but in the same sense in which one talks of a “corporate psychopath”.
The linked document describing his cattle husbandry (if one can use that word in this instance) is somewhat hyperbolic I suspect, with it’s talk of cattle “wandering aimlessly” and so on. Cattle don’t wander aimlessly, they look for food and water. However, really what it comes down to is that Bundy has found a very profitable way of obtaining saleable livestock, namely harvesting wild cattle running on a vast area the use of which he obtains at no cost.
It’s a common thing for grasping people to talk themselves into an honestly held (if utterly wrongheaded) belief that whatever they have been doing they are entitled to do, and whatever they physically “have” is theirs. Cliven came to see the BLM land as “his” and when the BLM tried to exert control over how he used the land he probably genuinely felt affronted and aggrieved by the temerity of someone else telling him what he could and couldn’t do on “his” land. Then he lost in court and he has built up this silly system of belief as to why he is in the right, despite the actual legal position, as a shield around his fragile need to believe that he is actually entitled to do what he has been doing.
I’ve actually been involved in a few quite similar legal cases here in Queensland. Many massive, low intensity cattle properties in Australia are held by graziers (ranchers) on various forms of “grazing lease” under which the graziers are entitled to build a homestead and other cattle infrastructure, and graze cattle in return for a tiny nominal rent. Under the lease they are not entitled to exclusive use of the land and certainly don’t own it. But ask any grazing family who have held the lease for a long time and they will describe themselves as the owner of the property and take affront at any suggestion their rights over the land are limited.
The other aspect of Cliven (and this is where the psychopathy comes in) I suspect is an ability to manipulate people’s emotions to achieve his goals and an inability to consider other people as being entitled in the way he sees himself as entitled. He realised that he could talk others into believing in a bogus cause which (in reality) was just about protecting his sweet deal. He does not and probably cannot see that if he has an “entitlement” to use the BLM land with Total Freedom[sup]TM[/sup] then the same should apply for everyone which would lead to an end to his sweet deal. You can bet that if other people started flooding the BLM land with their own cattle (to the detriment of the feed available to Cliven’s cattle) Cliven would not see that as a legitimate exercise of Total Freedom[sup]TM[/sup].
I don’t think Cliven’s a troll. He just wants to be left alone with his sweet deal. I don’t think he has a persecution complex, he correctly perceives he is being persecuted. What he can’t see is that he deserves it.
No need to go that far, we can just look for old North of 60 episodes and movies.
I think these guys are more like enemy combatants that terrorists, they have disavowed their citizenship and are organizing and conducting missions to occupy US owned territory. I think we should send them all to Gitmo.
Other random thoughts
The linked description of the condition of the Malfeur site seems to indicate that there are human feces all over the place. I thought that the place, with its visitor center and bunkhouses and everything would’ve had plenty of toilets, so what’s up with that? These occupiers of the French Vanilla creamer and body wash ilk didn’t seem like guys that would crap in the woods just for the hell of it but you never know.
Now that the Feds are making arrests from the original Bundy standoff …please please please let them go after Sean Hannity and Fox News. I’m sure there is plenty of footage of Hannity lauding Bundy as a true American patriot during the original standoff ( before Bundy mouthed off about Negroes and Fox slowly backed away) and they were instrumental in getting people to go to the Bundy ranch to help fight the Feds.
It doesn’t matter that they think they’ve disavowed their US citizenship. They’re citizens, whether they like it or not. If they really want to abandon American citizenship, then they need to go find a country that’ll have them and, while in that country, appear in front of a US consular official to renounce such citizenship. Their disavowal has the same force that tearing up the rental agreement did: zero.
The two definitions of persecution from Merriam-Webster…
1: the act of continually treating in a cruel and harmful way
2: the state of being continually treated in a cruel and harmful way
The definition of a persecution complex from Merriam-Webster…
Medical Definition of persecution complex
: the feeling of being persecuted especially without basis in reality
Since he’s not being continually treated in a cruel and harmful way, but believes he is, it seems to me to exactly fit a persecution complex.
What he may correctly perceive is he is being prosecuted. What he can’t see is, that he deserves it. Personally I don’t see him as correctly perceiving much of anything…
Perhaps the gifts of sex toys and copious quantities of lube had unintended consequences?
Oh, I know that. I wish we COULD treat them as enemy combatants but that would mean buying into their narrative.
we may wonder about his mental health or what he believes or has come to believe - but I think whatever else is going on is is, at least, not very bright.
I hadn’t thought that until I read the link and reached a better understanding of what happened at the Bundy “ranch” - after that, a man who gets on a plane is an idiot.
Those bags of gummi dicks – were they sugar-free?
If we stopped the school to prison pipeline for young black men that escalates minor infractions (small scale possession, selling weed, shoplifting), we’d have lots of room in our prisons for these guys.
I hope the FBI releases a list of the inventory left behind at the refuge. I want to know if they ate madmonk’s bag of dicks!
If it’s like other rural wildlife refuges, there’s probably only a couple flush restrooms, expecting to support a staff of less than half a dozen and a dozen visitors at a time, not 20-40 occupiers 24/7.
In addition, eastern Oregon in winter is pretty cold, so there’s always the possibility that the pipes froze, even though from what I’ve read the Feds didn’t cut off water to the refuge. Where does the refuge get its water from anyway?
I guess it’s not surprising that they dug latrines, but it really sucks that they did so on or near sensitive Paiute areas. Frankly, the whole affair stinks of the 19th century land ethic of seizing it by force with no concern for the Native Americans who live there - note that the Bundys claimed to be giving a lot of thought to local ranchers, but didn’t ever make claims that the land should be given back to the Paiutes.
I do wonder why the devil they thought building a road was a good idea - where was it going to go to? Was it the notion that whoever ‘improves’ the land owns it?
I can’t say I’m particularly surprised. These people struck me as pigs, who are too stupid to think that their actions will affect others, or the environment.
“What? I can’t just shit in a ditch wherever I want? But but but FREEDOM!”
I did hear a rumor that someone carted the 55 gallon drum of lube away when they abandoned the property en masse.
I did see one of them saying the Paiutes needed to come and get their artifacts.
That, and the fact they likely do not care. I would have said do not give a shit, but obviously that wasn’t the case.