You must admit, it is an attractive picture. Grizzled old Nevada Rancher standing off the might of the federal government – complete with 200 armed soldiers with automatic weapons, dogs, snipers – surrounded by ordinary men, women, and children. Not to mention a corrupt, unsympathetic Senator known for his dodgy land deals and crony capitalism.

But, overlooking the ineptitude and incompetence of the Bureau of Land Management, headed by the corrupt Senator’s hand-picked crony, and their armed response to an issue that could have been settled in the courthouse with the filing of a government lien on Cliven Bundy’s property, what is the reality?

The facts as they have been presented in the news media …

• Cliven Bundy, 67, owns an approximately 160-acre cattle and melon ranch in Clark County, Nevada, located near the town of Bunkerville, which itself is located on the Virgin River, nearby to the Nevada-Arizona-Utah border.
• Cliven Bundy grazes his cattle on government-owned lands. Whether the property is lawfully the property of Clark County, the State of Nevada, or the federal government depends on who you ask.
• Cliven Bundy refused to pay the grazing fees to the Bureau of Land Management on the theory that his property rights predate the formation of the Bureau of Land Management and have been in his family for over 100 years.
• The Court has twice reaffirmed the position of the federal government and ordered Bundy to vacate the land or seek an accommodation with the BLM.
• Due to political maneuvering, the government has declared a portion of this land to be a desert tortoise sanctuary – even though the desert tortoise co-exists with cattle, is not endangered, and might be used by politically-connected special interests as mitigation for commercial solar power operations elsewhere in the state.
• The event that made Cliven Bundy a media symbol was the heavy-handed actions of the BLM, under the direction of Harry Reid’s former aid, that spent millions to attempt to resolve an issue by a show of force that was demonstrably unnecessary. The fact the the government spent more than it could recover from Bundy speaks to the ineptitude and incompetence of the Director of the Bureau of Land Management.
• The fact the the BLM asked the FAA to create a "no fly" zone to keep out news helicopters and created a "First Amendment" pen to contain protesters is extremely troubling.

What makes Bundy's position untenable is that he claims not to recognize the federal government and wholy supports states' rights. And, who among us is willing to tell the IRS we refuse to pay taxes because our ancestors did not pay taxes prior to 1862 when an income tax was imposed to pay for the Civil War.

Asshole magnet …

It appears that Cliven Bundy’s media profile has attracted camouflage-clad, gun-bearing wannabes who want the attention of the media. Perhaps to burnish their reputation as a patriot. Along with media types that have made this a cause célèbre and the politicians, most of these people have their own interests in mind and Cliven Bundy is no more than a symbolic tool to be used to pursue their own agenda.

Asking his neighbors …

We are not hearing from his neighbors and the other ranchers who quietly pay their fees and go about their business.

Damaging the Conservative Cause and Sounding Racist ...

According to the progressive New York Times ... 

But if the federal government has moved on, Mr. Bundy — a father of 14 and a registered Republican — has not.

He said he would continue holding a daily news conference; on Saturday, it drew one reporter and one photographer, so Mr. Bundy used the time to officiate at what was in effect a town meeting with supporters, discussing, in a long, loping discourse, the prevalence of abortion, the abuses of welfare and his views on race.

“So let me get this straight. If you are a white man stealing from the federal govt, you are a patriot. But if you are a black woman legally receiving benefits from the federal govt, you are better off as a slave?”  

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” <Source:  A Defiant Rancher Savors the Audience That Rallied to His Side - NYTimes.com>

I have now seen Cliven Bundy baited by the progressive socialist democrats in the progressive mainstream media to pontificate on issues of civil rights – with which he appears to have a sketchy and vague history; reaching for the name of Martin Luther King and calling Rosa Parks, Rosa Fark.

Having the progressive media confusing and conflating conservative causes with Cliven Bundy is troublesome. While Bundy might be an expert in raising cattle, he appears to be less swift when it comes to general knowledge of the greater world.

In considering Bundy's outlook on civil rights, one must remember that the 67-year-old Bundy is the patriarch of a large Mormon family with 14 children and over 50 grandchildren. And, from the mid-1800s until 1978, his Mormon Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ) excluded most blacks from participating in church affairs, especially being ordained to the church's lay priesthood. Only accepting Blacks after an elder's epiphany just prior to the Church losing its tax exempt status.

Bottom line …

This is not the Ponderosa and the Bundy family bears little resemblance to the fictional Cartwright clan. And, let us not forget, those armed officers standing up to Cliven Bundy are not the enemy, but fellow Americans performing their sworn duties. If anyone is to blame it is the leadership that gave the orders that pitted American against American.

And, about the asshole who suggested that they were going to put women in front of the men to be shot first to create bad optics for the nightly news, what the hell is this -- Bagdad or lower crapistan where the enemy hides behind women and deliberately places weapons near schools, churches, and hospitals in the hope that collateral damage gives them a "public relations" win?

There is no doubt in my mind, as a conservative, that the government is too damn big, too damn intrusive, too damn corrupt, and out-of-control. The politicians are corrupt and self-serving with their tax-and-spend policies that benefit themselves and their special interests. That being said, I no longer think that Cliven Bundy is the cowboy patriot standing up to the highbinders in the federal government. I am not sure what to make of Cliven Bundy and will watch with interest as this Kabuki theatre plays out in the Courts and the media.

-- steve

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