The goofballs are doing their best to escalate things. A group from Idaho is arriving to “secure a perimeter” and prevent “a Waco-style situation.”
We can only hope they learned their lesson and brought some damn snacks this time.
Yeah. Guess you need me to define it for you?
It’s a real Algonquin Round Table out there.
“Hey guys, we brought flour!”
What a coincidence. The wife and I are just this moment sipping an insouciant little Pinot.
Too late, they’ve already got a wacko-style situation.
No, I’m good.
I was going to be insulting, but you really don’t deserve it.
Yeah, that was the problem with Waco, not enough of a perimeter. Sure.
As long as they have a large enough perimeter, I am sure there is nothing the Federal government can do to stop their occupation.
You asked what would be accomplished by mowing them down. Well, as horrific as that would be, it would send a message that veiled threats of violence in the face of continued law-breaking can cost you your life. It doesn’t earn you interviews on Fox, it doesn’t get you your own reality TV show, it doesn’t get you free room and board in a hijacked building, it doesn’t earn you immortality through corny Internet memes.
As far your question about insouciance? We wouldn’t even be talking about Oregon right now if it hadn’t been for federal insouciance. So why bother coming up with another example. One is proof enough.
It’s a pretty well established fact here in the US that LE can kill you. I don’t think there was enough doubt about it that this hillbilly situation not being handled quite the way you want will lead to widespread mopery. We already have jampacked prisons and our cops shoot stacks of people every year. We have federal agencies that spy on us and every once in a while do something appallingly stupid with a high body count. You think maybe we could try slowing down the express train to police state station?
So let’s say this just peters out and these guys go back home. Then what? How are they going to arrest them to charge them?
Again, I ask, why do you keep reducing this to dead bodies?
I’m not demanding the LE shoot anyone. I just want to see them respond to trespassing like they are supposed to do. Do you think there’s no way they could do this without bloodshed?
As heart wrenching as it is to ponder all those super saturated prisons…bwhahaha. Really, dude? That’s the defense for letting this shit circus go unabated? Yes, cops shoot stacks of people–many of whom are black and unarmed–but, you know, it’s these armed insurrecting good ole boys that deserve our bleeding hearts. How crazy of me to think otherwise!
The FBI does have their names and addresses. All the principals, anyway, if not each and every hanger-on.
It is far better for LE and for government in general to wait them out, then take them in to custody. Any ‘decisive’ move by LEO will likely result in gunfire and possible deaths on both sides of the aisle. The government would then look tough, for sure, but what does that get them? The incident becomes a rallying cry and recruitment tool for anti-government nuts. Plus, you’ve got dead guys that have families.
If LE waits them out, they look strong but reserved. The Bundy clan looks weak and foolish. Win\Win.
Has anything changed since the standoff started? Has LE cut off their supplies? Turned off their power? Restricted their movement? Any of these “obvious” things that were suggested days ago?
I don’t think so. The men have had time to stock up enough provisions to last them a while, and all since this mess started. From my vantage point, LE has seemingly gone of its way to make it easy for these men to wait things out.
Where’s the strength that you see?
Yeah…just walk in and put the cuffs on them all peaceful, like. There are armed people on both sides. I keep “reducing this to dead bodies” because that is a not unlikely outcome.
Have you ever considered that maybe our cops should shoot less people no matter what color they are? Will bungling this situation so that some hillbillies and maybe dome feds get shot somehow make up for all the black men unjustifiably killed by police?
Well, if the cops start shooting white people the way they shoot black people, we might actually get something done about police violence in this country.
I’m not saying that’s the best way to address the issue, mind.
But seriously, in a larger social-political context, the best outcome here is that this resolves without any shots fired, and can be used going forward to undercut future, “They were in fear of their lives!” arguments the next time a bunch of cops gun down an unarmed twelve year old.
They’ll probably be armed at home too.
One of my favorite parts of the article quoted in post 648
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oregon-militia-refuge-insight-idUSKBN0UL0DW20160107
is the correction footnote at the end. Apparently an early version of the article referred to their “Director of Security” as Buddha ( we now know that’s Cavalier’s secret name) but it was corrected to Booda Bear in a later version of the article.
That means someone actually read the article and phoned in a correction. I would’ve liked to be a fly on the wall during that conversation. “No, the patriotic American spelling, not the furrin fat yoga dude spelling … That dude was a wimp not a he-man like my Booda Bear”
And something tells me “Booda” (who apparently just wandered off) is not a slender fellow.
Other tidbit from that article is that they’ve been able to go out and pick up pizzas. Maybe the reason they needed people to send them potato chips was financial, not strategic.