Matt Taibbi has assembled all of the absurdity of the Bundy militia. From weepy oath taking to begging for snacks to their delusional belief that taking over a federal building will have no consequences, it’s all there.
The Bundy militiamen are an extreme example of a type that’s become common in America. Like the Tea Partiers, they seem to not only believe that they’re the only people in history who’ve ever paid taxes, but that they’re the only people who were ever sad about it. What they call tyranny on the part of the federal government just means putting up with the same irritating bills and regulations and other crap that we all put up with, only the rest of us don’t whine about it in the front seats of our cars while posing in front of tripods.
Again, these people may be dangerous, but their boundless self-pity, their outrageous sense of entitlement and their slapstick incompetence as rebels and terrorists are absolutely ridiculous. Sure, it may not help, but how can we not laugh?
These guys have done a wonderful job of making laughing stocks of themselves.
Take out the word “terrorist” and the same can be said of MRAs.
America’s “American Values Team/Crowd/Mob/Rabble™” has a new sect: Bundyists.
Angry Militia Leader: Stop Mailing Us Dildos
Their belief isn’t that delusional. These folks
http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/uploader/image/2014/04/18/bundysniper.jpg
taught them there would be no consequences. BTW they were aiming those rifles at federal law enforcement there to arrest daddy bundy for being a deadbeat who owes you and I north of a million dollars.
Me, I’d have had an A10 drop a few dozen 30mm on their asses just to point out what happens when you think you can play soldier..
One of the enduring lessons of Prohibition was that the rule of law disintegrates when people ignore it. In the case of Prohibition that was probably correct, In the case of sedition, theft, and assault with a deadly weapon, not so much.
Funny how we don’t see any supporters of the clowns turn up in threads like these. We see the occasional MRA or religious crank show up for posts on their pet subjects, but the “patriots” seem to have no clue a place like this exists.
timgueguen #5
Just as well.
PZ has enough to do.
The Bundys last stand, the Weepening.
Fascist are always ridiculous… Until they get tanks.
laurentweppe @8:
Or rental trucks.
laurentweppe: My thought, too. If you read the things fascists said before they gained power in the 20s and 30s, it seems impossible to believe they ever gained power, and yet they did. These clowns are more than clowns, because they are heavily armed. The folks who support Trump are not laughing, and though they may not make a majority of the voters, there are enough of them to be scary. The things that are now being said, not just be Trump, but even by the supposed ‘moderate’ candidates, would have been mind-blowing not so long ago. It’s like they’re seeing who can leap the farthest out the Overton window. I laugh at them, too, but I also worry.
And everywhere I read about the Bundy crowd — including in the linked article — it seems to be accepted that they’ll be arrested once they leave. I hope it’s true, but Bundy Senior is still free, so who knows? One of them was arrested yesterday when he drove a USFWS vehicle to buy groceries, but he went with another man, driving a different vehicle, who was not arrested. In the article I read about it, they said the second man was not arrested because he had already entered the store when the police arrived on the scene…. They couldn’t wait for him?
My greatest fear is to see a tinpot tyrant taking over a western nuclear power, purge the bureaucracy and put toadies in every important post, and finally loudly proclaim, “I can nuke Humanity into extinction, so don’t you go thinking about overthrowing me, because I’ll kill everyone if you try.” while his supporters applaud his “manly” sociopathic stance.
I was listening to a reading of Guards! Guards! And they reminded me of the Elucidated Brethren
timguegen
There have been a few “freedom lovers” turning up at The Grauniad on this topic. They’re about as pointless and weird as usual, but not quite as persistent. Even they know supporting this crowd of numpties is not a hill worth dying on.
Humor is the weapon of the powerless. These guys are winning, not the least because the government is unwilling to do anything about them.
As others up thread have said, they will be funny until they get power.
Well it looks like I may have posted,
Unfortunately I am not certain that this belief is delusional. The federal government has decided to leave dealing with this militia to the local law enforcement. The sheriff, while clearly not happy they’ve taken over the building, seems unwilling or unable to force them out.
I don’t want violence to be used. I’m not interested in another Waco or Ruby Ridge. But it seems like if these militias don’t get some kind of consequences they will be emboldened.
Taibbi opens that piece with a question about cowboys crying. I have news for him, Mormon men cry all the time. They cry so much that it is irritating. They consider it a virtue. Weeping is also the universal Mormon sign for sincerity. Glenn Beck is a tremendous cryer. YouTube link. Beck is a mormon.
Comments from ex-mormons:
Link
Mormon apostles set the example. Here’s apostle Henry B. Eyring choking up:
Youtube link.
He also talks about how sensitive he is, and how he can sense when “someone is not settled.”
atheist@16, the local sheriff probably doesn’t have the manpower to take these guys on. I think his department has a grand total of 7 officers, including him.
Interesting Lynna, thanks. It’s useful to consider the folkways of different American groups. Even small groups can have influence that is hard to see until you learn about them in detail.
timgueguen @18, agreed. Given this lack of manpower, it seems unlikely that anything will be done about the militia unless the federal government steps in.
I hope the reason that the FBI has not even talked about this yet is that they don’t want to give these guys anything. The FBI won’t even allow reporters near their command station up the road from the refuge, let alone talk to them. This is not normal, since the FBI loves attention and news conferences. But I worry that they just don’t have an actual plan. That’s pathetic, since these folks and their ilk have been pretty open about their intentions.
Nothing’s been done about Papa Bundy, and they’ve had well over a year. These kooks are just the kind of folks who are emboldened when one of their groups gets away with this kind of thing, and they’re also the type to crawl back into their holes when they see their pals face consequences. I’m not for violence; I’m usually not even one who likes the idea of sending most folks who commit crimes to prison. But the coming and going to the site, the collection of mail, the continued allowance of supplies to be delivered, the fact that power has not been cut*; these all say ‘Okay, what you guys are doing is not that big a deal.’ Maybe the FBI is even allowing all of that to not give these guys anything, but it does give them something: the ability to claim victory, especially if they’re allowed to walk away, as some of them have. The only one arrested so far was nabbed by local law enforcement. Did this piss off the FBI? They’re in charge out there, and they’re pretty notorious for not liking their toes stepped on. Or were they okay with it because it didn’t give the kooks anything to use against ‘the Feds’?
*I read that the reason power has not been cut is that it would also cut power to nearby ranchers. There are pretty simple ways around that, like portable generators. This rationale is another thing that the media seem to accept without any apparent raising of eyebrows, just like the letting go of one of the terrorists when another was arrested because he had ‘already walked into the grocery store’.
The point I meant to make but forgot to mention is that, if these guys do walk away (as some of them have), I’m convinced there will be an escalation, as this event has been. There is a whole lot of craziness out there amongst the gun-toting conspiracy theorists. I usually laugh at their idea that they can defend themselves with their AR-15s against tanks and missile launchers, but right now it looks like they may be right. I sure don’t want another Waco (a major clusterfuck in so many ways, and a pretty good indicator for why it’s sensible to worry about what the FBI will do in this case), but just letting these guys drive away is a big mistake.
Paul K #22
You’re first instinct is correct. They can’t defend against tanks and missile launchers, or even a well trained force of actual soldiers/operators who only have AR-15s themselves.
However, the problem isn’t simply winning the fight, but doing so without civilian casualties and really bad PR. These types have already made it clear they’ll use human shields, and, even if they didn’t, it would still at base come down to the big bad gob’ment killing a bunch of god-fearing, flag-waving ‘muricans in the eyes of some (many?).
I can assure you most reluctance to engage a group of insurgents of this type, at all points of the insurgent group’s level of violence/criminality, are due to collateral damage, legality, and political considerations, rather than hesitance about whether or not these guys could win a fight, or even stalemate.
Your*
Basic fail.
Part of ‘winning’ this situation from the government’s point of view is to have control of how the public perceives this event and the people instigating it. While main-stream news outlets often automatically present events in government-friendly form (e.g., the unflattering descriptions of Occupy protesters presented to the public), use of ‘unofficial’ sources often feeds agency or executive branch views to the media. Surely they are afraid of another Waco, but they seem to be paralyzed unnecessarily in this case. They could say publicly that they will not storm the wildlife center, and that the militia can stay there as long as they like, but when they do leave they will be arrested and will be charged with every applicable local, state and federal law that has been violated, from the beginning until the time they leave, including conspiracy. Then the public knows that (1) the federal government will not create or allow creation of a situation where a gun battle occurs, (2) the charges and penalties against Bundy, et al., are known by all (including Bundy) and can be discussed in public, (3) escalation of the standoff will be seen publicly to be the fault of the militia.
tkreacher @23:
But that’s sort of the issue: these guys think they need their rifles to stand up to the inevitable New World Order/ Red Dawn Tyrannical Regime that’s going to use military force to crush all opposition to its Evil Plan under the heels of its jackbooted thugs. But the only reason they’re able to stand up to the government is precisely because that’s not the kind of government we have.
I’m in complete agreement with Broken Things at 25. Again, I don’t want anyone physically hurt in this situation, but if the folks supposedly in charge of this situation, the FBI, do nothing, then the kooks will see it as a victory. After so much time with no response at all, as far as I’m aware, this may hasten other kooks to do something similar even before this stand-off is resolved.
I do understand that the FBI may have reasons for what they’re doing. Maybe they conclude that any statement they make could be used by the terrorists as an excuse for escalation. That worked really well with Papa Bundy, didn’t it? The ball was dropped there and it led to this. Sure, no one has been killed or shot, but people are afraid and intimidated, and that’s just what these bullies want. They’ll keep upping the conflict until something is done. It just makes no sense to me unless there’s some kind of politics involved.
@microraptor – 17 January 2016 at 4:30 pm
If you assume that the “New World Order/Tyrannical Regime” actually means unarmed neighbors, that might make more sense. Or… maybe I overestimate them. Maybe they really are that delusional.
I don’t know, but that’s the general scenario that they always give when asked.
microraptor #26
Yeah, I get that, and I agree. The almost no-response from the government is exactly the opposite of the response these guys claim our dictator-FREEDOM hating-FEMA camp operating-socialist-marxist-communist-godless government should be doing.
I was just clarifying that they couldn’t defend themselves from real warfighters if the government actually wanted to resort to violence.
The reason they’re not doing anything is because they’ve learned the lesson of Ruby Ridge and Waco, which is that there are political consequences for killing right-wing militia types. If this was the American Indian Movement, or some Black Separatists and they went in guns blazing, the worst thing that would happen was that Rage Against the Machine or maybe Bruce Springsteen would write a song and/or hold a fundraising concert for their legal defense. The mainstream media might cover it for a few days, then ignore it. But, shoot a bunch of right wing nut-jobs and you’ll find yourself in front of a Senate hearing so fast it’ll make your head spin. Best to just wait them out and not give them the martyrdom they’re looking for.
The thing in my mind that separates these Y’all-qaeda zealots from the real thing is that they don’t believe in getting 72 virgins if they die in battle. If someone were to spin off a Christian sect with a somewhat equivalent promise (if you die fighting the government, angels will blow YOUR trumpet!), they might be more of a problem.
@mykroft:
I disagree. What we have hear are a bunch of rich, entitled assholes, and they’re not the ones who go out and martyr themselves for any cause. Martyrdom is a poor person’s game.
@microraptor:
So, the 9/11 hijackers were poor?