Okay, so the “patriot” press is all riled up about some dude named Cliven Bundy. He’s this cranky 67 year old rancher in Clarke County, Nevada, who hasn’t paid his BLM fees for his grazing allotment on Federal lands for twenty years. During the course of that twenty years, he’s been in more courts than the goddamn L.A. Lakers, getting court judgement after court judgement against him until he owes the government more than a million dollars in fees and penalties, until finally the BLM got a court order seizing any of his cattle that they find on Federal land to sell off to satisfy the judgements against him. The BLM could have gone to the court and had him jailed for contempt of court for refusing to pay his fines and refusing to comply with the court order to remove his cows from federal lands. But they decided that since Cliven threatened to kill any Federal agent who set foot on his land, it’d probably be safer for both Cliven and for law enforcement to go after the cows instead. After all, Cliven is 67 years old. He ain’t got many years left. Killing a 67 year old man who’s probably senile and crazy ain’t what anybody signs up for federal duty to do.
Now, here’s the thing: You got all these “patriot” groups pledging to support Bundy, and they’re all out there harassing the law enforcement officers that are protecting the cattle trucks and cowboys that are rounding up the cattle. At which point I gotta say, what… the… fuck? Where were these “patriot” groups when the cops were beating protesters against Dear Shrubbery’s illegal (non-declared) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Oh wait, they were cheering on the cops while stroking their guns lovingly, that’s right! Where were these “patriot” groups when the cops were herding protesters at the RNC into “protest zones” miles from the convention center where the RNC was meeting? Oh wait, they were cheering on the cops while stroking their guns lovingly, that’s right! Where were these “patriot” groups when the cops were beating protesters who were protesting the bankers stealing trillions from cops and firefighters’ pension funds? Where were they when these people’s 1st Amendment rights were getting violated left and right by cops acting without any court order at all? Oh wait, they were cheering on the cops while stroking their guns lovingly, that’s right!
They claim to defend the Constitution? For reals? Well, it sure the fuck don’t seem like it to me. It seems to me that all they’re defending is the right of some cranky old asshole to be a deadbeat stealing resources on *my* land for his own personal benefit. As someone who’s been a member of organizations that *really* fight for the Constitution (one of them has the Federal Government in court right now for violating the 4th Amendment literally BILLIONS of times over the past ten years, discomfiting them greatly), and as someone who has had a Federal minder from time to time because of his actions in support of the Constitution (you don’t know chilling until you get a phone call at work at 4PM in the afternoon from a TLA agent reminding you of some fine point of law), I find these fair-weather patriots to be not only disgusting, but profoundly UN-patriotic.
Look. The Constitution vested the judging (judicial) power in the courts. Not in you. Not in me. In the courts. Courts decide whether something is Constitutional or not. Not you. Not me. Not these fair-weather patriots. The courts decide via due process, as laid out in the Constitution. And Cliven Bundon tried out his novel “federal lands aren’t Constitutional!” argument in enough courts to impress the L.A. Lakers, with appeal after appeal over a twenty year period. He got due fucking process out the yazoo. The courts all ruled against him, as you’d expect since this is law that’s been established law since 1804 when Thomas Jefferson (who *wrote* most of the Bill of Rights) purchased the Louisiana Purchase from the French. The courts ruled that the Federal government bought that land from the Mexicans fair and square in 1848 for $15,000,000, and has every right to charge for use of that land, and that’s that — i.e., Cliven is full of shit. Once the court ordered the cattle seized to satisfy the judgements, and Cliven lost his appeal, that’s end of game according to the Constitution. Everything done by the BLM in this case has been by the book and in full accordance with the due process mandated by the Constitution, and we have 20 years of court rulings validating that statement.
But apparently the constitution that these fair weather patriots follow doesn’t have an Article III granting the judging power to the courts, and instead has some other article that grants *them* the power to judge. Well, that might be a constitution. But that ain’t the Constitution of the United States of America. Which these fucking morons might want to read someday — it ain’t exactly a novel, yo!
– Badtux the Pissed Penguin
Legal update: Cliven is apparently now claiming squatter’s rights because his family has been using the land since the 1870’s. But the law establishing the notion that the Federal government owns lands acquired from foreign powers and that people squatting upon them are merely squatting upon them until they file purchase papers (or, later, homestead papers) is the Land Act of 1796. Which was signed by, err, President George Washington. These people think they know the Constitution better than George Washington?! For realz?!
The controlling land law at the time of the acquisition of Nevada in 1848, as well as at the time that Nevada was admitted to the Union in 1864, was the Preemption Act of 1843. The Preemption Act further called out squatters on federal land as being squatters by giving them first rights to buy the federal land they were squatting upon. The Preemption Act furthermore stated that the Federal government would retain ownership of most of the lands transferred to new states, save for 500,000 acres which would be transferred to the new state. I.e., a) there were no such thing as squatter’s rights in 1870. You had to file either for homestead under the 1862 Homestead Act or for preemption under the 1843 Preemption Act, and b) the land in question was Federal land in 1848, was Federal land in 1864, and was Federal land in 1870.
All of those facts are things the courts took into account when they ruled against Cliven Bundy. Article III of the Constitution says that courts, not Cliven Bundy and his legends in their own mind supporters, make these decisions. Just sayin’.
Die, you graving sucking old pig.
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That’ll happen soon enough. He’s 67 years old, after all, and probably more than a bit senile and crazy. Cliven Bundy doesn’t annoy me, he just gets pity. It’s all those idiots who are shouting “Constitution!” “Tyranny!” etc. when everything’s been done by the book and as laid out in the Constitution who are annoying me. They need to go back home and get back to stroking their guns over DFH’s being whacked by police batons, they’re going to get themselves hurt, or hurt some BLM employee who’s just doing the job that he was assigned to do by his higher-ups. I don’t like dead bodies any more than the BLM, but these idiots seem to be aiming to spill some blood (as long as it’s not their own), and they might get the favor returned. Which is bad news, always.
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Seriously? He’s actually called Bundy? Probably AL’s uncle 😉
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Your point is well made, but will you allow me to enjoy the irony of the Occupy crowd (THE SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING IS MORE GOVERNMENT) getting pepper sprayed by self-same government?
*strokes guns lovingly*
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Especially ironic is that one of the things Occupy was protesting was the fact that bankers stole hundreds of billions of dollars from police officers’ pension funds. And not a single banker has gone to jail for that theft. Thanks, Obama!
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As someone who as seen just what ‘range cattle’ can do to a pristine Forest, I am all for ‘busting’ his cows. He broke the law, was judged to be wrong and still persisted in his wrong doing. End of story to me. I don’t see where he is some 21rst century Robin Hood. Someone I know is sympathetic to him on Facebook and I just can’t agree. He is not one bit better than a “Welfare Cheater” or a corrupt banker, and deserved all the scorn that can be heaped upon him.
w3ski
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I don’t have an oar in the water when it comes to range cattle in desert lands. They can be destructive, but they also create an incentive for ranchers to maintain water sources and trails, so they’re a mixed bag at best. It’s his insistence that he and his “patriot” friends were granted the judicial power to judge what the Constitution said, rather than courts as created under Article III of said Constitution, that annoys me. There are times where the law is an ass, but even Martin Luther King Jr. did not deny that it was constitutional to jail him in a Birmingham jail for disorderly conduct for the “crime” of conducting a civil rights march. He merely noted that it was ethically corrupt and wrong.
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As someone who spends some time virtually every day of the world reading both the Constitution and books of scholarly legal interpretation of the Constitution, I have no patience with these people who make it up as they go along. Fine the bleep out of ’em, I say!
BTW, British courts render judgements; American courts, judgments. FWIW, I’ve known a couple of (American) lawyers who regularly make the same mistake.
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So you would be okay with these “patriots” defending this man if they had stood by your side when they protested things your side found unpalatable? You seem to have a much more complete grasp of situational ethics than I do.
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No, I would have a better opinion of these “patriots” if they’d actually read the Constitution that they claim to be upholding. But it’s clear that they’re not interested in upholding the Constitution. They’re upholding the right of fellow white-wing gun strokers to be thieves.
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Thank you for addressing this. It seems to me that Mr. Bundy falls into that bunch who want free stuff and something for nothing and lots of government goodies for whom the Republicans have such contempt. Twenty years without paying his grazing fees? That’s a welfare king – in my opinion. Of course, I realize that since the free stuff is for him that makes it “different.”
Sheesh!
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And in the Sunday Denver Post, the feds have returned the cattle and walked away.
Now what?
Have the “patriots” won? Do the feds bring in more and better-armed manpower and try again? What happens if the bullets really fly people die on both sides?
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The court order prohibiting Bundy from running his cows on federal land still exists. The question is whether the cows end up on federal land again. If they do, my guess is that the feds will go after Bundy on a contempt of court charge and arrest Bundy and put him into Club Fed until he agrees to remove the cattle. I think the Feds already proved they’re incompetent at cow punchin’, time to make Bundy do what he’s been ordered to do. If Bundy and his family want to spend the rest of their lives in prison for refusing to comply with a federal court order, I’m sure the courts can comply. And since Bundy already made it clear that rounding up the cattle is going to get the same response as attempting to arrest Bundy, the feds no longer have any incentive to avoid trying to arrest Bundy.
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Hey, I’m 67 and I’m neither old nor senile. Remember 60 is the new 40.
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[…] has been covering the the Bundy case in Nevada [post 2 and post 2], so that’s where to look for the background on this rip-off of US taxpayers. […]
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