What?
Media Matters on Cliven Bundy:
Bundy has been in conflict with the federal government for decades over his refusal to pay grazing fees for his cattle herd’s use of public lands. A recent attempt by the Bureau of Land Management to enforce court orders allowing the confiscation of Bundy’s cattle to settle unpaid fees and fines was suspended due tosafety concerns after armed militias rallied to Bundy’s cause and some militia members pointed guns at BLM law enforcement.
Despite threats of violence from Bundy and his supporters — and the fact his legal claim against paying grazing fees is incredibly weak — right-wing media have praised Bundy as a conservative champion standing against an outsized federal government.
What???
How is that any kind of “conservative” position? Conservatives go ballistic over any kind of waste or misuse of public funds; how is it a “conservative” cause to get behind a guy who helps himself to federal grazing land and refuses to pay for it? Conservatives go ballistic over the possibility that some poor person might be buying ice cream with food stamps; how is it a “conservative” cause to get behind a guy who uses public land without paying for it at all? Conservatives like law and order; a “conservative” cause to get behind a guy who refuses to pay money he owes and then threatens to shoot people who try to enforce his debt?
Why doesn’t the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail do an exposé on that?
… some militia members pointed guns at BLM law enforcement.
IOKIYAW (It’s Okay If You Are White)!
Yeah, but these people have guns and guns (in the hands of Freedom Loving, Anti-Obama people) are good. They’re in one of those amendment parts of the Constitution thingy. Besides these are good, propertied, White Americans, who might actually vote Republican, unlike those poor, moneygrubbing Foodstamp lickers. these good people couldn’t possibly be terrorists. They’re just Good ol’ Boys a little het up over gummint red tape, is all.
How much this sort of narrative would hold with a white Republican in the White House is another matter. But if this can be twisted and turned in any way to make Obama look bad (Big Gov’t overreach, David and Goliath, Freedom vs. Oppression, the weakness of Washington… whatever) then so much the better.
If these guys had been in Pakistan or Afghanistan they would have earned themselves a drone strike by now….
Does the US have laws against sedition?
There is noting conservative about American movement conservatism. Their bemoaning the tyranny of the Federal Government isn’t based on conservative principles but rather on tribal identification, and Cliven Bundy’s actions announce him as a member of the tribe.
This guy’s an embarrassment to the proud name of Bundy.
FIFY
If Bundy was some old hippie living in a trailer, none of the righties would lift a finger for him.
It’s only waste or misuse when it goes to people who are (1) people of color; (2) unemployed; (3) single mothers; (4) any combination of the above. Wealthy ranchers? That’s not misuse. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing with federal money – giving it to the rich, or allowing the rich to use it to “create jobs”.
One of our Senators from Nebraska, Deb Fischer, ran for Senate specifically to make sure Congress didn’t increase grazing fees on public land. She grew obscenely wealthy by leasing her permits for higher amounts than she paid for them. Her opponent referred to her as “welfare rancher”. It didn’t work. She won anyway, because she was a Republican who was standing up for the rights of wealthy ranchers to take money off the tables of little black or Mexican children whose mothers are working long hours to make starvation wages.
How long before Fox and the other right-wingnuts realize that Bundy was equally defiant of Federal authority when Bush was in office?
Wouldn’t that make him an unpatriotic traitor?
Ah, yes, a true conservative hero!
Why? Because government, especially the federal government, is always in the wrong.