I’m sorry Bricker, but this thread is about the consequences of caving in to Cliven Bundy. If you’d like to discuss the OWS situation that ended more than 4 years ago, please start a new thread; I’m sure everyone who wants to discuss that will join you there.
(Also, this is one of your most pathetic attempts to invoke your usual cry of “liberal hypocrisy” ever.)
Leaving you free to adopt deeply felt, pious principles about how terrible it to lawlessly occupy someone else’s property (in this instance) and equally free to valorize lawlessly occupying someone else’s property in the prior incident, changing pious positions with ease.
This is not a tu quoque accusation. It’s an observation that your deeply held principles are flexibly in service to your desired outcome, and therefore you cannot credibly advance any argument that is premised upon your deeply held principles.
I think the Bundy crowd is wrong here and should be dealt with. I also thought the Occupy crowd was wrong. See how that works? My positions don’t change based on who is playing the part of the lawless occupier.
Indeed, there’s this quote from Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail:
Details matter on something like this. It’s one thing to protest something, and to subject yourself to the legal consequences to bring attention to your cause, it’s another to threaten to shoot those who come to arrest you.
Only if they did the OWS consensus jazz hands. Plus the progressive stack. That’d be a short stack, but still. You could mine for further liberal hypocrisy by noting the left hated the media and the right for characterizing OSW as a bunch of unemployed dirty hippies looking for handouts. Now these brave patriots move to tear down the tyranny that is federally protected nature preserves and all the sudden it’s #YallQaeda and #YeeHawdists. Now excuse me, I have to go be outraged about Ted Cruz stereotyping New Yorkers.
When white people violently seize federal property and vehicles and threaten law enforcement officers, the correct response is to wait it out.
When black people protest police violence, the correct response is to deploy heavily-armed police officers and National Guard in military vehicles to forcibly disperse, arrest, and tear gas them.
Basically, the police and these militia guys deserve each other.
If the public is denied use of this property during a good chunk of the upcoming season, I will agree with you. At this point I am glad that prudence is being used, and that no one is shooting at anyone up there, just like I was glad that instead of going in and busting heads, the police used patience against our local Occupiers when a small portion of one of our nicest parks was confiscated during Occupy Wall Street. Even though I objected to their confiscation, I don’t mind at all that the police waited close to two weeks, and then merely gave out citations, since the level of disruption was minimal.
This disruption, on the other hand, is not minimal: [sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com: Black Lives Matters Demonstrators Block All Westbound Lanes Of Bay Bridge](Black Lives Matters Demonstrators Block All Westbound Lanes Of Bay Bridge)
Are you seriously claiming that the freedom of speech should be curtailed if it lengthens peoples commute but is OK when they use firearms and threats of violence?
The news are reporting also that dozens of the protesters were arrested, as they should and as they expected.
Of course it has to be noted that if you want to use that as a comparison I can say then that the Bird Putsch guys are getting a preferential treatment from the authorities and I do think that shit needs to end now.
No one’s freedom of speech was curtailed here. Thousands of people’s freedom of movement was, though.
It looks like they shut the bridge down during rush hour for an hour and a half. Something like 30,000 people would have passed by in that time. How many people-hours of use has the Oregon occupation prevented the public from enjoying out at the bird sanctuary so far? Any?
It’s perfectly reasonable for the urgency of the response to be proportional to the degree of disruption caused by the confiscation of public property by the various occupiers.
Many researchers, conservationists and hunters do want to have a word with you.
But clearly you are just happy to go into Red Herring territory. The point was that it was you who claimed that what the BLM did was bad, and I agree. I also do think that what the Bird Putsch guys are also wrong and they should be brave enough to be arrested, and face the courts like the BLM people are doing.
Every one of them prevented from using public lands and infrastructure increases the urgency of intervening. I was under the impression than few or no people have been denied use because the place was closed for the winter anyway.
But they aren’t both equally disruptive. A more rapid intervention on the one that is far more disruptive isn’t evidence of preferential treatment, but a proportional, level headed response. Every minute that the Bay bridge is closed down is equal to days or weeks or months of bird sanctuary occupation in terms of denial of public access to public lands and infrastructure. It’s one of the busiest bridges in the nation.
Not so, the reports I saw tell us that the people working at Malheur were put on paid leave early as it was suspected that the militias were going to take the facilities. Monitoring many species and the water reservoir need constant checks.
Well, just keep pressing the point I did agree already, somehow it helps… something I think.
In the meantime, the costs are also adding up for actions of the militants:
I don’t disagree with the Bird Refuge occupiers being ultimately held responsible for the costs of the security response, but that is not the same as directly confiscating or blocking access to public property (although it looks like there is a little more of that in Oregon than I was aware of).
As pointed out, many of those protesters were arrested. The situation was resolved in an hour and a half. Meanwhile, these militia are still at it, and are free to come and go as they please? In my view, literally taking up arms against the government is much worse than blocking traffic. I am also glad that the police are not escalating the situation, but I wish their patience and tolerance extended to groups other than crazy white people.
I can’t think of any other group of people who would get this kind of treatment. If the BLM protesters had done this, they would have been arrested or shot. If Muslims had done this, it would have been the same, and we might have declared war on another Middle Eastern country by now.