Oh No, The New Awesome Primary Thread

I haven't been following this story this time around but as I read your post the questions come up:1) Isn't part of the argument on the Bundy side that they've had grazing rights for some very long time, over a hundred years or something like that, and their reaction now is to the government's taking those away? Correct me if I'm wrong.2) Their last protest was in Nevada where some huge percentage of the land is "public" BLM land, which has always been controversial. Why should the government own so much of the land here? What motive do they have except power over the people? Why do you treat the "public" land as some kind of sanctified entity at the expense of the people trying to earn a living off it?

I do not know how long the Bundys have held the grazing leases, but when they refuse to pay the fee, then they should not be able to continue grazing. They owe more than $1 million in back fees. The fee is about $3 per month for each cow with a calf.It costs $20-30 per cow to graze on private land so the ranchers are getting a very good deal from the hated federal government.The fees are not enough to pay the costs of managing the program. The BLM makes improvements to land, like improving water sources and riparian zones. These particular ranchers let their cattle graze the riparian zones which interferes with water flow and contaminates the water. Once the vegetation in the riparian zone is grazed off, the water table drops and water flow stops. "Public" BLM land has only been controversial when individuals want to exploit it for their own benefit without any cost to them.The government does not own the land. The people of the whole United States own that land, every one of us. The government manages public land for all of us and you may not believe it, but we are getting a great deal. If it wasn't for the BLM and other federal agencies managing the land and providing infrastructure there would not be a single ranch in any of the desert west. The government subsidized all of the managed water systems, subsidized the railways that took the cattle to market, subsidized the highways that are used today, subsidized ongoing programs to control invasive weeds that in many cases can make grazing impossible, subsidized predator control and ironically then subsidized rodent control.Good management of "public land" should treat it as a sanctified entity, because once it is contaminated or degraded it is worthless for generations. In many places in the west we can see land that is still damaged a century after it was over-grazed.Public land is held in trust for all Americans and future generations and no individuals should be able to confiscate it from the rest of us. Not the Bundys or anyone else has a right to be freeloaders at the expense of the rest of us.The amount of public land in the western U.S. is pretty large alright, but in the east there are hardly any places you can just go out and walk around without asking permission. I am grateful that past generations in the government had the foresight to buy and manage as much land as they did, so that a few wealthy individuals don't own it all.The Bundy led take-over of The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is a criminal act that cannot be allowed to succeed. They say they want to return the land to the people, but the people already own it. What they really mean is they want to steal it from the people, by force of arms.

That was very informative and if true draws me to the antiBundy side. Only I have to wonder if such a totally one-sided presentation can be the whole story? Is there nothing at all on the Bundy side?

Well, these guys are advocating the armed overthrow of the U.S. government. They have threatened the lives of federal employees. They ally themselves with white supremacists and other anti-government heavily armed nutjobs. They threaten unarmed people with firearms. They break into and conduct an armed occupation of federal offices. They refuse to pay their debts to the American people. If you can find anything nice or admirable about the Bundys, I would like to hear it.They call themselves a militia, but the are certainly not "well regulated."My family were ranchers and grazed on federal land, but only for a relatively short period each year. They respected the land and believed in good stewardship. People like the Bundys give all ranchers that graze federal land, a bad name

Oh.

Trump bullies protesters in Burlington:

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Trump Tells Crowd To Steal Coats From Protesters Before Throwing Them Out In The Cold (VIDEO)

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Donald Trump showed reason number 40,058,212 why he would be the worst president in American history today, when he ordered his violent goon supporters to steal the coats off protesters at a rally he was giving, before throwing them outside in the below-freezing cold.

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Trump had arranged his rally in Vermont to be a private event which meant that he could physically remove people from the building by force if he felt inclined to do so. He also had his security guards screen attendees, making people either swear that they were loyal Trump supporters or refusing them entry. Imagine a policy like that at the white house.

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Donald seemed to be positively giddy at the thought of theft and idea of these people being tossed out in sub-freezing temperatures. There were a series of interruptions and some of the comments Trump made during them were as follows:

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Throw them out into the cold!

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Don’t give them their coats. No coats! Confiscate their coats.

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It’s about 10 degrees below zero outside You can keep his coat; tell him we’ll send it to him in a couple of weeks.

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You know it’s sort of fun. Isn’t this more exciting? You know, you go to a Hillary thing. It’s like, boring. You go to a Jeb thing and you fall asleep.

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Are there any remnants?
There’s a remnant. Throw him out.

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The front-runner for the 2016 Republican Nomination for President of the United States was ordering his supporters to literally steal the coats from people, along with any items like money, car keys, or cell phones they had inside, then throw them out of his speaking event. It’s freaking ridiculous and literally criminal what he did to these people.

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And he wanted the confrontation, having his "rally" across the street from the Bernie Sanders headquarters in the town where Bernie was mayor before becoming senator. Trump gave out free tickets for 10 times as many seats as the place holds in order to fill them and to create a mob.This is the way bullies behave, not leaders.Yikes

It's a fair question.Well, the ranchers do get free stuff (or, to be accurate, very cheap stuff) from the federal government. On the other hand, times are hard for ranchers, it's not like they're using BMWs to herd up their cows. Maybe the government should be doing more for them. But then I don't like their presentation of themselves as small-government libertarians who just want the government to get off their backs when what they're actually asking for is (in a sense) more socialism.

1) Bundy is a liar.

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The Cliven Bundy family owns a 160-acre farm southwest of Bunkerville, which serves as headquarters and base property for the family's ranching operation on nearby public domain lands. The farm property was purchased by the Bundy family in 1948, after they moved from Bundyville, Arizona, and Bundy has claimed that he inherited "pre-emptive grazing rights" on public domain land because some of his maternal grandmother's ancestors had kept cattle in the Virgin Valley beginning in 1877

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Bundy standoff - Wikipedia
There is no such thing as pre-emptive grazing rights.2) Who do people think were the first owners of the land under US jurisdiction? How did this land end up part of the USA? Hint. What happened in 1848?
Ok you probably can't do the research. Mexico ceded those lands to the US under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Why should the Bundy have more of a claim to this land than anyone else?

If this is the caliber of individuals camping out up there, I'm concerned about their mental health. "LaVoy Finicum, one of the known occupants of the weeklong Malheur Wildlife Refuge standoff in Oregon, turns out to be a novelist.

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Finicum's 241-page apocalyptic cowboy thriller titled "Only By Blood and Suffering" is a how-to on surviving after a electromagnetic pulse or nuclear attack when your Escalade stops driving, the government has bought back all of your guns, President Bill Clinton signed away your country's missile technology to the Chinese, the Supreme Court is loaded with lefty judicial activists and you don't have an adequate amount of gold and "junk silver" to get by when the stock market implodes, interest rates balloon overnight and the value of the dollar collapses."Also, it seems "the book also alludes to a third party — the Independent American Party— which emerges to fill the void felt by Libertarians and tea party voters. A party of the same name, which has been linked to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, actually does exist."Sounds like a page-turner.I Read An Oregon Militiaman’s Post-Apocalyptic Cowboy Thriller So You Didn’t Have To - TPM – Talking Points Memo

One of them sits in a lawn chair with his gun. He's primed and ready!Oh, and all the while he is covered by a tarp.Some of them are definitely many sandwiches short of a picnic.Oregon Militia Gunman Hides Under Tarp on MSNBC

And why should Ammon Bundy think he has any right to act as an agent for the people (us) to steal public land in Oregon from the people (us) to give it back to the people (us), like a brain-damaged, ignorant of history, Robin Hood.These guys, every one of them, are traitors, not patriots, to our country, are guilty of sedition, are advocating the armed overthrow of OUR government.Can you imagine these guys in charge? These crazy people and the other crazy people they align themselves with are right at the top of the list of people that should not be allowed to purchase or own firearms.They are making threats of armed rebellion and are acting out those threats against OUR society and OUR government. They should be disarmed, tried and if convicted, sent to prison. This is one of the few cases that I think they should be sentenced to more than the mandatory minimum sentence. There should be no bail for any of these yahoos, because they made threats of armed violence against those who oppose them.

Oh, and they have put out a list of stuff they hope people send them. Seems they forgot the tampons, french vanilla creamer, bratwurst, sandpaper, ... Worker threw exception | www.rawstory.com | CloudflareThis is a standoff?If someone had predicted this they would have been put away.

There can be a legitimate question about how land should be divided between US and the states. On that question alone Bundy draws some support, particularly from proponents for a small, powerless, central government. But even answering that question does not get Bundy the right to graze on state held property. Perhaps he thinks that if the property were locally owned he would have a chance to get the legislature to let him graze for free using your tax money to take care of the place.Bundy's theory is that US ownership is illegitimate, and because the state of Nevada does not exert its ownership, Bundy should be able to step in and use public land for commercial profit for free. You might just as well claim the right visit an aircraft carrier and demand your free plane ride.Bundy's purported legal claims that attempt to get around the fact that he is a trespassing, thief have all been adjudicated in court and Bundy lost. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Any chance this stuff will get delivered? I expect that the feds will put the place under siege.

Writing a novel is difficult.Wait, writing a good novel is difficult.Actually, now I think of it, if a liberal ever wrote one of those apocalyptic political novels, it would read pretty much the same: The difference is that liberals don't think it'll ever happen and conservatives fantasize about the day that it will.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.