Its good they are got getting media attention. Thats what they want. Just like the loony Westboro church clowns. Ignore them all.
While I like the idea of just ignoring them, what will happen when they start ranching and mining the park? Still ignore it? Or don’t we believe what they are saying? Unless I’m mistaken, the elder Bundy has taken over hundreds of thousands of acres of public land the last 20 years and he is getting away with it so far. I find that rather unbelievable.
Sorry, I say remove their a$$es pronto! Why should they get to live off the land freely under the notion something is owed to them. I’m with @alh why has bundy not paid the grazing fees?
Turn off the water and electricity. And internet/ cell access.
I wouldn’t be surprised if such a remote location had a generator and a well, so it wouldn’t be so easy to turn off the power and water.
"Wrong! The space that the protesters “seized,” Zuccotti Park, is not a municipal public park. It is and remains a privately owned space; a plaza actually. That is one of the reasons why the police did not attempt to clear the demonstrators from the plaza. The owners, who certainly wanted the OWS crowd to go away, declined to give the NYPD authorization to actually go in and remove the protesters, likely for fear of bad P.R. Zuccotti Park is in fact owned by a real estate company that owns nearby office towers. Also, the NYPD record in handling the OWS protesters on the adjacent streets and sidewalks was not sterling, despite the rambunctious behavior of some nitwits among the OWS crowd. "
Here in L. A., they took over a public park in front of City Hall. In other towns, they took over other public areas.
Oh well, CF. My idea is an epic fail. Back to plan A: Build a wall.
I forgot they also mentioned logging in CF’s transcript. I hope if they start cutting timber that someone will step in quickly. I don’t want them using any taxpayer timber to stay warm or selling it to a mill.
They can probably live off (our) land for a while. But there will be damage to the land and they don’t have that right.
Or rather, they have no more right to those resources than the rest of us.
There was a very bad precedent set when the authorities essentially gave in to letting Bundy Sr use the land (illegally) as he pleases. But it’s not surprising. We don’t deal with right wing/white/Christian terror groups the same way that we deal with others.
The fact that a school had to call off for a whole week is disgusting. I’m sure many of those parents can’t afford that extra blow to income- whether it be from missing work or for paying for more child care. Plus, that’s a week of school that the students are missing which isn’t insignificant.
I’m not a fan of violence but this isn’t a peaceful protest- it’s a hostile takeover and should be treated as such.
OWS didn’t have guns, and weren’t threatening to “defend themselves” using force. It doesn’t matter what kind of land they were on – these nut jobs are in the act of armed sedition, and there is nothing “peaceful” about their protest. When you arm yourself against the government, you shouldn’t be surprised if the government turns their big guns on you.
We don’t know the details of why they closed the schools other than the administration must feel there is some sort of threat they don’t want to impose upon their staff, students and families. While the school itself may be 30 miles away, a lot of time in rural areas, kids are bussed in from distances that far (and more). We don’t know if bus routes would have to go past this park where they are located. Or maybe law enforcement resources are being stretched right now that has a domino effect on the school system. We don’t know where the school staff has to drive in from to get to this school; it may be down roads that are being closed off to contain this mess.
I was kind of hoping someone who has posted here who is more familiar with the area could clarify this.
For those comparing these guys to OWS–I’d honestly like to know what you think would happen if authorities went in there and cleared them out in the same way that Occupy was cleared out. Do you think they’d allow themselves to be arrested and led away, or do you think they’d resist with guns?
I think the only way you can begin to compare this to OWS is if you can honestly say that the Oregon occupiers would behave the same way.
I don’t think they’re carrying those guns for no reason, personally. (They aimed them at federal agents at the Bundy Ranch). Maybe you think differently.
Why is there an assumption that the guns they have are legal or allowed on the federal property? AFAIK, no one but marshals and other authorized people can have guns on any federal land. It doesn’t matter that the state or city or county had issued a concealed weapons permit or has an open carry law, as soon as you step on federal land federal law applies (yes, I realize the group doesn’t recognize the federal government’s claim to the land). I worked in a federal building and no one but the security force could have a gun. Most of the people who worked there (and yes, I mean MOST) had carry permits, but we could not (legally) bring guns to work and there was even a rule about them in the cars as the parking garage was government property. Rather ironically, we had 4/5 of the building, the other 1/5 rented by the Florida Dept of Wildlife, and they ALL had guns, strapped right to their belts, so the building was full of guns. If we wanted to kill an alligator, we had to go across the hall and get the guys with the guns to do it.
But if you go camping in Yosemite or hiking in Rocky Mtn National park, you don’t get to have a gun without a permit. You can’t just go take a stroll on the mall in DC with your permitted gun. National Parks, forests, buildings are publically owned, but not available 24/7 to the public. Some have fees, some limit the number of visitors. The public doesn’t have the right to treat public property as its own.
As to the schools closing ‘30miles away’, please realize that those kids might live much closer to the occupation site than to the town. This is rural living, and it is not unusual at all for kids to travel an hour or more each way to school.
These groups do not think the same way we all do. They use government ‘methods’ to interfere with ownership if it suits them ,file cases in courts, file liens, petition the sheriff to give them protection, but won’t recognize government agencies or ownership or rights if they don’t want to. I’ve dealt with the ‘Posse’ filing liens against all the property in a county. Sure, the lien is illegal and if I filed a suit to remove the lien it would be removed (and the suits would have to be file one property at a time since there is no standing to file against the entire lien), but that takes time and money and it usually held up the sale. Sometimes the title company will insure over it, sometimes they make your pay for an endorsement. $$$ We had a group in Minnesota that kept filing liens against the personal homes of the lawyers in our group. Illegal, but once filed we, the law following group, had to get them removed. Legally. $$$
Much of the hunting here in the west is done on federal land. Some wildlife refuges allow gun possession, some do not.
We would bump into kids from Burns OR back when the boys were wrestling. Their high school draws from 60 miles around, but I don’t see a reason to drive past their encampment. Maybe it messes with one of the bus routes and the feds are trying to keep traffic off of the roads in the area. It makes me wonder if they know it will be resolved by next Monday.
The high school and some of the federal buildings in town (such as the Court House) are closed right now. There haven’t been any actual threats but I think our local law enforcement is just trying to be extra cautious.
As other posters have said, lots of kids come from miles out of town to come in to school. This actually is less common in Burns and more commonplace in Crane, which is another school about thirty miles away. Still, I think the threat is less from the “militia” currently here and more from the idea of any more armed outsiders coming in who may have different intentions.
Yes, in some towns.
Glad you think they should be prosecuted, then.
You may hunt on federal land, but you need a federal permit to do so. Your state permit won’t work unless the feds specifically allow it. You can’t even cut down a Christmas tree on federal land without a federal permit.
It’s likely that some federal buildings in the area are closed because they need the security from those buildings covering the occupation. You need a lot of cop cars just sitting on the access roads.
Love this so had to share.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/oregon-considers-wall-to-keep-out-angry-white-men
I think white people should build the wall surrounding Oregon because white people are clamoring for this type of work. The pay should be minimum wage. No benefits. The work should be done during the heat of the summer.