Ranchers vs. Regulators: The Clark County Range War

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Truth, Justus, and the American Way: Cliven Bundy invites a five-year-old to try on a cowboy hat.
Bunkerville, Nevada 
War came to the Western Range that April, a conflict pitting the forces of order and respectability against a restive band of extremists accused of cheating the government of what it was due. The prohibitively stronger side consisted of regulatory agencies allied with powerful non-governmental organizations determined to control the land and expel small private interests who made productive use of it. The unyielding demands of the political elite were met with the unflinching defiance of rural ranchers, leading to talk of a “range war.”
Eventually the ranchers exhausted the patience of the government, which deployed dozens of heavily armed Regulators to the county under orders to put down the rebellion. This would mean arresting – or shooting – anybody who resisted. Rather than submitting, the rebels – with the support of the county sheriff and the aid of several veterans of the most recent war – mobilized to confront the threat. Citizens coalesced into a militia and rode out on horseback to confront the invaders at their staging area.
To the consternation of the government and the respectable media, the rebels held their ground, forcing the Regulators to retreat.  MORE

19 COMMENTS

  1. @Tor – Said “Which do you believe to be true? Overall mankind does more good than bad, or more bad than good?”

    A very small percentage of humans are violent sociopaths who feel the need to harm others. The majority of mankind acts in what they feel is their own best interest. Even if that means taking your car or TV because someone thinks they want or should have it for whatever reason. The words good and bad are relative, or as Shakespeare said in Hamlet, “There is nothing good or bad, only thinking makes it so”. Because we have been taught from a young age to differentiate good from bad we learn our culture, and act accordingly. These terms are subjective. What is considered good for one person can be bad for another. In India, killing a cow and eating beef are considered bad because Indians worship cows. However, outside India, eating beef and killing cows is common and not considered bad. In the dark ages not believing in Jesus Christ was bad and punishable by a fiery death to correct the bad behavior. Clover thinks going faster then he feels is correct is bad, Eric doesn’t think so. Is Eric good or bad? Is Clover good or bad?

    I think that beyond some simple agreed upon rules of behavior (initiating harm to another, taking anothers’ rightful possessions by force or trickery, and being held liable for your actions) the more laws the more “bad” is created. Then necessitating more laws jails and penalties that require more laws ad infinitum. All that now creates “rulers” of some sort, who materially benefit because things are declared bad, so they want more control for their own personal benefit. An example is the Penal Code of California. First adopted in 1872 it pretty much laid out everything society considered “bad”. It was a very thin book. Since then it has grown to many sub volumes and thousands of sections declaring what is “bad”. Every year they add more. In fact last year the Calif. the Governor signed 800 of them into law. Is mankind better off then in 1872? I can’t say so.

    When mankind is free of others suppression of them beyond the basics is when we get a free society and the resulting benefits and life improvements they create. If mankind tries to create a perfect loss-less world by ruling it so, well…because everything is interrelated and cyclic (like day and night, winter and summer) it cannot be done.

  2. Garysco-I imagine you’ve seen some bad people doing some bad things in your line of work. Which do you believe to be true? Overall mankind does more good than bad, or more bad than good?
    – – – – –

    Previously, environmentalists objected to human actions that harmed whales. But now, human actions that help whales also evoke horror. Clearly, it’s not about whales at all. It’s about prohibiting human activity, which is seen as intrinsically evil and therefore in need of constraint regardless of its content or intent.

    The ultimate question comes down to this: Are humans creators or destroyers? If it is accepted that we are simply agents of destruction, consuming or ruining resources that existed before we came, then it follows that human activities, numbers, and liberties must be severely constrained and that someone must be empowered to do the constraining.

    On the other hand, if it is understood that humanity is fundamentally a creative force, that we invent resources and improve the world — unleashing abundance, lighting the night, ridding continents of pestilence, and bringing barren oceans to life — then it becomes clear that the essential mission of government is not to limit liberty, but to defend it at all costs.

    The Pacific’s Salmon Are Back — Thank Human Ingenuity
    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376258/pacifics-salmon-are-back-thank-human-ingenuity-robert-zubrin

  3. BundyFest, Man!
    Sept 5th-Oct 4th
    Bunkerville, NV

    Come celebrate TOTAL FREEDOM at BUNDYFEST, just across the street from the Cliven Bundy Ranch, in Bunkerville, Nevada! 240 bands, 24 hours a day, for a SOLID ROCKIN’ MONTH!!!!

    *NO PERMITS REQUIRED
    *CAMP ABSOLUTELY ANYWHERE
    *FULL NUDITY NOT A PROBLEM

    BACKGROUND: For years, we paid permitting fees to hold Burning Man on the beautiful Playa in Northern Nevada. But now, Cliven Bundy has shown us a NEW WAY! ABSOLUTE FREEDOM! Bundy has declared the entire area surrounding Bundy Ranch as a TOTALLY RULES-FREE ZONE! ANYTHING GOES! WOO-HOO!!!

    Why should Burning Man end on September 1st? Swing down to Vegas for a few days for some R&R, a few good buffets, and then HEAD ON UP TO BUNDYFEST!

    All 50,000+ Burning Man participants are invited to attend — and as many more as can make the trip from anywhere in the world! 100,000? 250,000? THE SKY IS THE LIMIT AT BUNDYFEST! The desert surrounding Bundy’s ranch is LIMITLESS! 🙂

    BUNDYFEST! 2014
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSsf8iEIdEc

    Militias Pledge To Defend BundyFest!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGSCQBlkoJo

    Carpe Fucking Diem! – Your Daily Assignment
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpw82v0EzcE

    • What a bad joke from the Burning Man holier-then-thou promoters, who charge $400.00 each for a permit to run naked at THEIR annual event.

  4. A libertarian-minded attorney, Larry Becraft, has a brief on his web site that explains the history and practice of federal jurisdiction, which is more limited than most people realize:

    http://home.hiwaay.ne t/~becraft/FEDJurisdiction.html

    Also, in 1956 and 1957 the U.S. Congress had a 2-part report prepared entitled “Jurisdiction Over Federal Areas Within the States” that is interesting to read:

    http://www.constitution.org/juris/fjur/fj0-0000.htm

  5. This was a bit of a spooky read, and seems likely:

    What’s Next for the Bundys?

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/04/david-hathaway/whats-next-for-the-bundys/

    This was an interesting take on things, one I had not considered before:

    Martin Armstrong Asks “Do The Feds Really Own The Land In Nevada?”

    “So in other words, once a territory becomes a state, the Fed must surrender all claims to the land as if it were still just a possession or territory.

    Sorry, but to all the left-wing commentators who call Bundy a tax-cheat and an outlaw, be careful of what you speak for the Supreme Court has made it clear in 1845 that the Constitution forbids the federal rangers to be out there to begin with for the Feds could not retain ownership of the territory and simultaneously grant state sovereignty. At the very minimum, it became state land – not federal.”

    http://www.infowars.com/martin-armstrong-asks-do-the-feds-really-own-the-land-in-nevada/

  6. I believe that one takeaway from the recent events in Nevada is that the State’s goons are entirely interested in paychecks and pensions. Once it is made obvious to them that ‘office safety’ is not even close to being assured most will bugout on their bosses. The money is just not worth their lives to them.

    • I think – I hope – you’re right about that, Mike.

      They have the numbers. And the equipment. But what’s their motivation? They are just hired guns. Mercs.

      The people they’re abusing, on the other hand, have their backs to the wall. It’s their lives, their liberty on the line.

      People will fight for that.

      • They are government thugs, through and through. They claim it’s all about grazing fees that are owed. If this were so, they would file a civil action and obtain a judgement.

        Just how much stolen, tax-farmed plunder is being spent on this ill-considered adventure? What’s it’s really about is the king’s men and mercenaries flexing their muscle and having their way with the peasants. Our own little ‘Game of Thrones’ in Nevada.

        Sometimes in life one is put in the position that all one can do is take as many of the bastards down with you as possible. I fear that Bundy is being put in that position.

      • The people they’re abusing, on the other hand, have their backs to the wall. It’s their lives, their liberty on the line.

        Literally out of the Art of War. Sun Tzu would be proud.

        Men will fight when put on death’s doorstep, specifically because if they do not – they WILL die. And so will their friends. So they will fight like demons.

        That’s been documented on Omaha Beach and Sword Beach, and… (all Normandy beaches, really.)

  7. NGOs are the silent killers.

    C4BD has 625,000 members
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Biological_Diversity

    http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/gold-butte-roundup-04-12-2014.html

    “In April 2012 the Center for Biological Diversity filed a notice of intent to sue the BLM for canceling a planned roundup of the Bundy trespass cattle at the last moment.”

    I advocate raiding these NGO’s office buildings and stripping them to the foundations and returning the stolen loot to the victims.

    CBD Tuscon – Meet the Staph
    http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/about/staff/index.html

    • @Tor – Center for Biodivirsity (lawyers out of Arizona). I tangled with them when they moved their offices into Idyllwild, CA and tried to take over the mountain for their Agenda 21 masters. I was head of the local Fire Safe Council and with the help of some good leftover National Forest Rangers and Div. of Forestry people we eventually ran them out of town on a rail. They use the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (http://www.epa.gov/compliance/nepa/ ) and various state laws like CEQA: The California Environmental Quality Act (http://resources.ca.gov/ceqa/) to get rich in the name of saving the environment.

      They are a group of lawyers masquerading as animal and land lovers and make over 30 million dollars a year in taxpayer money suing the govenment (which they never show on their annual $$$ report), and a few million more from their NGO grants and stupid people donations (like the other phony outfit called the Sierra Club). Their main intent is to run people off private & public land using bogus biologists. They are true assholes with law degrees and hire stupid dolt college kids that have no clue what their bosses are doing.

      • These smug envirofucks piss me off to no end. There’s human beings being raped in cages and trying to survive on 2000 calorie diets, and these assholes want still more people to go to jail for non-crimes like animal abuse.

        From 2012 Annual Report:

        “we stopped sprawling developments in California,
        launched new initiatives to save the oceans from pollution and acidification, distributed 150,000 free Endangered Species Condoms and spurred our online activists to take action more than 1.5 million
        times on behalf of wildlife and our planet”

        1 misleading pseudoscience: endangered coral reefs. They act like there’s only a few reefs. The whole ocean is full of reefs, many of which are many miles deep beneath the surface.

        2 non-profits spend most of their money on salaries and personnel expenses. Here are CBD’s categories of expenses, you can be sure 80% or 90% of the money spent goes in the pockets of the people “working” on these issues.

        Climate, Endangered species, Oceans
        Population, Urban wildlands, Wildlands

        The Earth is always in motion. A new Arctic center is developing over northern Canada. The Persian gulf is becoming more and more shallow, reefs will die because at some point it will become land.

        http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/publications/reports/AnnualRpt2012_small.pdf

        • @Tor – Oh it is worse then that. You know all the REALLY BIG forest fires that are happening all over the West (like Yosemite last year)?

          Thank C.B.D. and their parallel organizations. They actively put a stop to any fire mitigation work to prevent them. Big bucks billed at $500.00/ Hr. + in federal court lawsuits for time and effort charged in preventing any management of public lands. It is for the non-existent and never existed endangered lizard (true story in the San Jacinto mountains of So. Cal.) or some such excuse. The only projects that get by are the ones the District Rangers (the few real ones still left) declare as an emergency need. And even then it is a fight the District Ranger has to be willing to take on against their office dwelling higher-ups in DC.

          But the CBD website never mentions any of those details and is so warm & fuzzy with animal pictures and all. Right out of Atlas Shrugged bro.

  8. Who Are Those Guys?

    “In the famous words of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who are those guys — that is, the cowboys hired by the U.S. Politburo of Land Management (BLM) to steal the Bundy cattle for them in Nevada? Why aren’t their names printed on the front page of all the newspapers in the state? According to news reports, the Politburo paid them $966,000 in taxpayer dollars to conduct the theft of Mr. Bundy’s cattle, killing some of them (including two bulls) in the process. You can find facts like this on the Web, but no names. Why not? What kind of “journalism” is this?” …

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/who-are-those-guys/

    • Pravda called us on this OVER A DECADE AGO.

      When the Voice of the People tells you you’re being lied to, and the whole story is just that, a STORY – no basis in fact …

      Maybe it’s PAST time to sit up and notice, and DO something.

      I’m going on 40. I have no past, no future.
      Not much time left to make a mark.

      It would be GOOD to live up to the old Boy Scout’s credo, “Leave the place better than you found it.”

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