Quote:
Originally Posted by MeltingNe0
His family has OWNED the land for 100+ years. The fed has had interest in this land for years for whatever agenda. As a shady ploy to try to cripple the rancher they had environmentalists discover an "endangered tortoise" hence charging the rancher a "grazing tax". As far as I'm no biology major but I'm pretty sure tortoises are not in a cows diet. I don't blame him for refusing to pay this ridiculously bogus tax. It's just another example of how sick and twisted our government is. To show how intelligent our governments decision making is: They go in and coral the cattle, shoot them, then bury them with a large backhoe. Why not use the meat and feed the hundreds of thousands of starving people in our country? I don't blame the locals one bit for standing up. We have become puppets and the fact that OP finds this story amusing really makes me lose faith in our future.
First, they didn't "own" the land, they were just there since the late 1800's. If you want to award ownership to land based on who was there first, Native Americans would technically own all the land in the United States, which they don't. Also, Nevada basically ceded land rights to the federal government in it's constitution, so this guy can't even argue that he's playing by the rules of the state. Apparently all the other ranchers pay this nominal grazing fee ($1.35/head or something) and it's not a problem, but this guy argues for his own exceptionalism and RWNJs run to defend him.
Second, the "desert tortoise habitat" issue came about in 1993. Regardless of whether this is a legit complaint, it doesn't change the fact that the guy was grazing on public land for free. Perhaps this just gave them an onus to bring him to court, but in any case the government was well within it's rights to defend the public claim to the land (meaning it belongs to ALL OF US, not just Cliven Bundy).
Third, they didn't shoot the cattle and bury them with a backhoe. FFS get at least one fact straight before making an argument.
EDIT: For those saying that they had "no intention" of getting into a physical altercation, just remember that there was no hive mind here at work where all their thoughts were somehow coordinated. I imagine that 98% of these people had no intention of dying over this and were just trying to "take a stand" against the federal government. Unfortunately, it requires only one person to pull his trigger a little too hard, leading to a needless massacre with deaths on both sides. I get that we have the right to own guns in this country, but that doesn't mean that showing up with guns at a protest is somehow non-violent or comparable to showing up with picket signs. How to people not understand that the introduction of weapons into a situation immediately increases the chance for violence, legal or not?
Last edited by Jiggymike; 04-19-2014 at 01:00 PM.