The BLM and adjoining agencies in this situation are to commended for their prudence and immense restraint shown in the face of outright lawlessness masked as patriotism.
At the standoff in the wash, the true colors of these people was shown when they used for strategical advantage, the presence of women and children while threatening an armed response to the law.
The stand-down was necessary to prevent bloodshed, but it must be recognized that if Bundy and a multitude of his supporters, militia friends, and even family members who broke the law, are allowed to go unpunished, anarchy will follow. Other groups, emboldened by the appearance of **77** a stand-down, will only continue to gain momentum. And furthermore, law enforcement as a whole will be rendered impotent as average people with disputes with current laws begin to wonder if they too can call a militia in to force the police to leave them alone.
In the case of Bundy and the Gold Butte designations, the government did it right. They continued to do it right in the face of the lawless behavior of a rancher and his militia henchmen. They earned and deserve our loyalty.
Dallas Hyland, St George (UT) News, 4/13/14
Even though I live far away from the are in question, and in my entire life have spent less than a month in Nevada, I find that I am still involved in this dispute.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is a federal agency that oversees public lands - those lands that do not belong to any private individual or corporation, state or local government, and are not set aside for other uses (e.g. National Parks). Their basic job is to see that the land is used fairly, so that no single party can derive an unfair benefit from those lands. Mr. Bundy wants to graze his cattle on a portion of that public land, without paying the appropriate fees. Such fees are necessary to both help prevent damage through overgrazing and to balance out the ranchers' profit from that grazing.
As a member of the Public (like every other US citizen who frequents this site), I have a claim to that land. Through our elected officials, we have allowed the delegation of the management of that land to the BLM, since none of us could possibly begin to handle that obligation on our own.
Mr. Bundy isn't grazing his cattle on some "abandoned" land. It's
my land. If you are a US citizen, it's
your land, too.
I want that asshole off my land!
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One more thing....
Mr. Bundy may be a greedy, selfish, nutcase, but one of the fundamental things behind his dispute is older than our country itself. Not the Red State - Blue State divide, but the Jeffersonian - Hamiltonian divide.
Hamiltonians (of which I consider myself to be one) favor a strong central/federal government. Not only can such a government provide "economies of scale" when it comes to things like national defense and basic standards for laws and commerce, but it can also help hold together a widely diverse population (see the Balkans for an excellent example) with a multitude of divergent interests. The Jeffersonians feel that in order to have such a strong central government, individuals give up far too much in the way of individual liberties.
Another way of looking at it is that the Hamiltonians don't trust individuals to look out for the best interests of society as a whole; the Jeffersonians don't trust the government to do so.
This is a debate that has gone on for centuries, and will continue for centuries more. Certainly we're not going to come up with any solutions here.