"I'm a sovereign human being, I stand under common law only" - Thread of Freemen

What is a Freeman-on-the-land? Well, it isn't someone who remains outside the law. No-one is outside the law, so this is not a proposition for anarchy.

But - it all depends on what is meant by 'law'.

And that's the catch. What you have grown up to assume is 'the law' is not, in point of fact, the law.

That's The Grand Deception. Hitler was right: "If the lie is big enough, the People will fall for it".

Once you know the deception, and what the law actually is, you'll realise how the wool has been firmly and deliberately pulled over your eyes, your parent's eyes, and those of everyone you know.

You will realise that, while you do not cause harm or loss to another, while you never breach the peace, and never employ any mischief in your promises & agreements, you SHOULD (by Rights) never, ever, end up in court - whatever else you may do. And that, if you do end up in Court, you can stand on your Rights to get any case withdrawn, BEFORE IT EVEN STARTS! Start reading, and take control of your life, because the real Truth can, indeed, set you free.

http://www.fmotl.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDMcmGng4vs

i may have noted that i may have dealt with the hibernian version of these thuggish cunts professionally bytimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YmPD8bs7X0

are they the millenial version of yerman who used to make CITIZEN'S ARRESTS only writ large due to internet societal cloggery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMjPbbM5fPU

woah i just watched that entire thing and it changed my life

part conspiracy theory, part semi-literacy, part sad bastards with too much time on their hands

"You will realise that, while you do not cause harm or loss to another, while you never breach the peace, and never employ any mischief in your promises & agreements, you SHOULD (by Rights) never, ever, end up in court "

Just tried to apply this axiom to whether or not it's ok for me to eat the ham and cheese sandwich I've prepared for myself on returning from the boozer, level of recursive thought involved in spangling my brain

woah i just watched that entire thing and it changed my life

― sleepingbag, Tuesday, November 26, 2013 7:17 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in a new york minute, everything can change

What is Common Law?
It's the "law-of-the-land". And the Grand Deception starts when you do not realise the implications of the apparently insignificant word "land". And the very real difference between "the land" and "the sea". There is "law-of-the-sea". It's sometimes called Maritime Law. Or Admiralty Law, and so on. Other terms, meaning the same thing, are Civil Law, Commerce Law, Fleet Law, etc. Statutes are the "law-of-the-sea" and, if you committed the (apparent) violation on dry land, then you are only subject to the law-of-the-land. And the only "law-of-the-land" is Common Law. Statutes, passed by any Parliament, are the "law-of-the-sea"

no joeks lads but the freemen of the land would soon get their arses felt if they ever tried any of their fast talk with the freemen of the sea

i'm a bit bemused as to why these dudes feel that having number plates on your car and buying a TV licence are the two greatest instances of state oppression in history

*is spangling my brain, xxpost to myself, ffs

because one can be used to trace your parking tickets and you have to pay the other

"Actually I'm very, very, rich. Because I have a lot of good friends - both local and cyber. And that's all I need, and will ever need."

This particular line of reasoning otm, refusing to read further for fear of spoiling it all

some of the videos make it look like the police are being alerted to the existence of these eejits now

the first time i ever came across this phenofreemenon was regarding a parking ticket, dotty aul wan owned a crumbling mansion north roscommon way (great aul anglo/anglish country, that, all dotty as fuck) and she challenged me over the course of 15 scribbled pages to prove that she was a person and really there's nothing in the manual about that tbh

obv when i made my move into the great new excitement of property taxes in 2012 i recognised their workings immediately

the best lark is the stickers that, affixed to any notification/demand of payment, LEGALLY RENDER THEM NULL AND VOID

these genius little beauties basically say "nothing to do with me guv"

'Lawful' is what it is all about. 'Lawful' .vs. 'unlawful'. Do not get trapped into discussing 'legal'/'illegal'.

finest minds of our generation

ime they're still a huge improvement on the cult that sign their names with a big angel graphic

if i to guess which way the property developers went after the fall it's prob 30 legal route to freedom/40 freemen/30 angel cult

16. "I feel 'guilty', because I owe the money". No, you don't owe a damn thing! When taking out the loan, you were 'loaned' back what was yours in the first place. You created the 'money' when you signed the Loan or Credit Application. By doing so, YOU gave THEM a Negotiable Instrument called 'the money'. They cashed this in(*), and then used that to loan you back your own money. You don't owe a damn thing! THEY owe YOU - an apology at the very least - for applying this confidence trick on you - AND FOR CHASING YOU FOR SOMETHING YOU ALREADY GAVE THEM.

(* Actually they just could have walked away with your cash. But they didn't, because they are greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy. They knew they could get you to pay everything back, and also to pay them INTEREST on top of that. Thus they had already been paid in full ONCE when they cashed in on your money, took a risk by offering it back to you, and reckoned on being paid TWICE OR EVEN MORE via the 'interest'. Are you just beginning to feel slightly less sympathetic? If not, I don't know what else to say.

"Can this really be true?" Answer: Yes, because there is no other way. Banks are not allowed (by LAW) to lend Depositor's money (which is held by them 'in trust'). Loan Companies and Credit Card Companies (etc.) have no Deposit Money in the first place! Do they? So how else could they do it, then?)

now i like to think of myself as a literate, tolerably intelligent bloke but

by all means bring other comedy cults into the party, i was not aware of this angel stuff

The FBI considers "sovereign citizen extremists" to be part of a domestic terrorist movement

cogent approach this imo

Angry at you for sending me down a youtube rabbit hole when I really should be going to bed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdY6EYzhT2I

suggest me a site i can draw a graphic online and post it and i'll show you- nothing coming up on google

Elizabeth Watson, aka Elizabeth of the Watson Family, who came to public attention in 2011 as a self-styled legal adviser in the Victoria Haigh child custody case, was given a nine-month suspended sentence for contempt of court. She had written "no contract" on court documents, denied the lawful authority of the proceedings, and used the "of the ..... family" format when referring to Ms Haigh and herself. (The custody case had concerned false allegations that the child's father was a paedophile.)[3]
Mark Bond, aka Mark of the Family Bond, a Norfolk, England odd-job man, was arrested in 2010 for non-payment of council tax, despite handing police a "notice of intent" stating that he was no longer a UK citizen. He told police that the notice had already been delivered to the Queen and the prime minister. He told the local paper: "Today I asked the judge to walk into the court under common law and not commercial law. If I had entered under commercial law it would prove that I accepted its law. I was denied my rights to go in there." He was sentenced to three months custody, suspended on condition that he pay off the debt at £20 a week.[4]
Bobby Sludds, appeared in court in County Wexford in Ireland charged with various motoring offences including two counts of no insurance. Before the police began to give evidence, the accused handed in a letter stating he was not Mr Sludds but Bobby of the family Sludds and questioning the use of the word 'person' in the charge. He was given two suspended sentences and a fine of €670. (He had 24 previous convictions for motoring offences.)[5]
Wilfred Keith Thompson and two others were arrested by police in Guelph, Ontario (Canada), charged with break, enter and theft as well as firearms offences. Thompson had previously made headlines for informing City Hall, local police, Guelph MP Frank Valeriote, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other officials he is "an autonomous being not controlled by others". One of his co-defendants, Trevor “Red” De Block, refused to identify himself to the court, though it was said that his criminal mug shot, computer records, tattoos and other information confirmed his identity. "I object," De Block said, adding that he was not the "rightful owner" of his name, but refusing to clarify or participate in legal proceedings. "I don’t bow down to bail [sic] . . . to false gods," he said, and rejected assistance from the appointed lawyer. Thompson and De Block were denied bail.[6]
Dean Marshall, of Preston, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, was taken to court after he was found to be growing 26 cannabis plants in his garden shed. Claiming he was a Freeman on the Land and therefore not guilty, he then attempted to call up Queen Elizabeth II and David Cameron as his witnesses, although he was told that neither were available to attend. A jury at Hull Crown Court dismissed his claims and convicted him of conspiracy to produce cannabis for which he was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work. [7]
Doug Jones, of Pembroke Dock, Wales, spent 22 days in prison after refusing to take a breath test. Jones questioned the authority and jurisdiction of the court, asking to see the judge's 'Oath of Office' which resulted in a sentence of fourteen days for contempt of court. He was sentenced to a further seven days after failing to attend a second hearing, but pleaded guilty to the original charges, receiving an endorsement on his driving license. His interest in the Freemen on the Land movement started after watching documentaries on conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 and 7/7 bombings. His solicitor, Phillipa Ashworth, stated “On this occasion, in hindsight he appreciates it was not the time to test out philosophical theories behind this approach to life, and in hindsight it isn’t something he would do again.”[8]
Gavin Kaylhem, of Grimsby, England, wilfully refused to pay his council tax debts of £1,268.54 accrued between 2001 and 2008 and was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment. He had claimed that he was a "Freeman" and thus had no contractual duty under Common Law to pay. He refused to co-operate with magistrates' questions.[9]

Oh yeah

ownership of the name

if we wrote out to these lads they sent us back in a charge of one pound of gold for use of their name, which they owned the rights to

great bunch of lads, tho. gave us many's the laugh, and never sent us dog shit or whatever

Dennis Larry Meads of Edmonton, Alberta, stormed out of a Court of Queen's Bench hearing on June 8, 2012, related to his divorce and matrimonial property case. In response, Associate Chief Justice John D. Rooke wrote a lengthy and comprehensive 185-page judgment rejecting various freemen claims, grouping them with other pseudolegal arguments as "Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments" (OPCA), specifically, in this case, Meads' Freeman on the Land claims, arguments and documents,[11] saying that:
The bluntly idiotic substance of Mr. Mead’s argument explains the unnecessarily complicated manner in which it was presented. OPCA arguments are never sold to their customers as simple ideas, but instead are byzantine schemes which more closely resemble the plot of a dark fantasy novel than anything else. Latin maxims and powerful sounding language are often used. Documents are often ornamented with many strange marking and seals. Litigants engage in peculiar, ritual‑like in court conduct. All these features appear necessary for gurus to market OPCA schemes to their often desperate, ill‑informed, mentally disturbed, or legally abusive customers. This is crucial to understand the non-substance of any OPCA concept or strategy. The story and process of a OPCA scheme is not intended to impress or convince the Courts, but rather to impress the guru’s customer.[10] [emphasis in original]

thats the stuff judge

i am sort of mildly amused by them but mostly they are too stupid and po-faced to be delightful

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodolphus_Allen_Family_Private_Trust

oh yeah i've dealt with these guys you'll want to read this

that lad from Preston in East Yorks, i wonder if he is one of the guys in that first vid i posted which also comes from round our way

i'm kind of amused how at some point (usually fairly early) in these shenanigans the police or court officials don't even bother explaining why the freeman is so wrong, they just bust out the handcuffs and violence inherent in the system

soref on the money tho i shd save this nonsense for tomorrow

tbf a powerful challenge to the very heart of the ruling system must be smacked down before the ring of truth be heard from every rooftop (repossessed)

If you think creating a Notice of Understanding and Intent and Claim of Right is the hard bit, then think again. You've only just begun, to quote a '60s song by The Carpenters.

riddled with inaccuracies, like i thought

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLgnpb1XmW4

I was looking at the youtube channel of one of these people he was on the crystal maze in the 90s, he has videos of him and his team in the pub with Richard O'Brien:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvSVKWwsInA

Oh wow, he was on the team that only won one crystal! I remember this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LgOPl4the4

http://www.awakeradio.co.uk/

lots of conspiracy stuff i find really boring but i love this sort of shit

when i say "love it" i don't mean like "i love crazy anti-semites" just i am entertained

I'm so excited that you have these people too! I thought it was an American peculiarity.

he then attempted to call up Queen Elizabeth II and David Cameron as his witnesses, although he was told that neither were available to attend.

l. ol. ol. ol.

i didn't realise at first that they originated in the US, the legal mumbo jumbo sounds like it wd be very nation-specific, but then i found out of course internet quackery mutates quickly enough

I'm a U.S. criminal defense lawyer, and I represented one of these guys. It was a hoot. He simply refused to accept reality as it solidified around him. Nice enough fellow, but batty as all get out.

From the OP:

Once you know the deception, and what the law actually is, you'll realise how the wool has been firmly and deliberately pulled over your eyes, your parent's eyes, and those of everyone you know.

Um, "everyone you know" is a pretty good definition of the society you live in, and coming up with a definition of "the law" that is at odds with the entire society you live in is as good a way as any to bring the judgment of that society down on your head. The law isn't some magic incantation known to the few, like Mephistopheles summoning the devil, and when you learn it you can command it to do your bidding.

Now see that's where you're wrong. All you have to do is refer to yourself in all caps and you can redeem your true self back from the government. That'll show 'em.

correction: Faust summoning Mephistopheles

clarification: correcting myself, that is

Good stuff:

Some people have decided they will not surrender their fingerprints - it's none of their business, they say. Some have been successful in making this stand and have not been harmed. Others have been beat up for refusing. One of our citizens shared this story of refusing to give his fingerprints:

"We're taking your prints."

"Oh no you're not, they're my property."

Then four big troopers were brought in and this poor fellow, who is only about 5' 7" tall and weighs about 130 pounds, was thrown to the ground and all four of them began beating on him. To defend himself, he rolled up into a ball. He pulled in as hard as possible while these guys kicked him. Finally he cried out, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

http://goingtojail.embassyofheaven.com/

Our greatest conflict has been with State driver and vehicle licensing. We have spent many years perfecting our Church documents so that we will not be a stumbling stone to the world. We would like the world to receive us, but we will not compromise our Heavenly citizenship and ambassadorial status.

Today, many police officers have recognized our Church traveling documents. Some have seen the Heaven plates on our vehicles and have said they will never cite us. We have ambassadors who travel from State to State preaching Heaven's message in Church vehicles. When they stop at State border inspection points, the officers might notice the Heaven plates, but they flag us on through. Ambassadors have even gone into Mexico and back. There's been three border patrol officers studying the front plate and two on the back, wondering how these Heaven plates could be, yet they flag us on through. They apparently recognize the Church as having been sent by God.

Every once in awhile we end up with a community that will not accept one of our ambassadors. They see him traveling in a Church vehicle and they cite him or throw him in jail.53 Luke 21:12-13 "But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and rulers for My name's sake. But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony." They may stack the charges on thick and turn the furnace up seven times hotter. This gives us an opportunity to testify of another authority, one called Jesus. The city officials may get jealous, but as they practice their wickedness, eyes are opened to the light. We are grateful for the conversions made as we humbly suffer in their courtrooms and jails.

Sure is a shame for being persecuted for merely vomiting your incoherent message all over an unmasking public.

...they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the... prisons

To their way of thinking, god promised them they'd go to prison for doing this shit. Then they do it and sure enough they are put in jail. Therefore, it confirms that their god is indeed a powerful god, who knows what's what, and the Bible is OMG ALL TRUE!!

and they'll know we are Christians...by our guns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNhsRjsw4Yc&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL5BED8DBAD7C515EF

conclusive evidence that if you talk bollocks in a magistrate's court you are outside of the law

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iWCCBhDZlc

cycling vigilantes, this is a new one

This is amusing and frightening that it's somehow become more prevalent than just America

i love the way they backslap each other on these videos showing how the police are powerless to deal with them but i desperately want to see the bits they haven't filmed where they get a proper kicking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xuv_AOC1nQ&feature=c4-overview&list=UUE28F7WMG2mqpbLokfIKsJg

seriously this guy is wonderful tho, he appears to go round on his bike looking for drivers to have a fight with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzjv20sC5CY

yay, Canada bringing the FREEDOM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9yqBD8i07E

tbh winding up rozzers is fairly lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkM3Hc9Opxg

full on donnybrook, no idea what it's about tbh, lot of shouting about oaths and unlawfulness

Hitler was right:

Could have stopped there tbh

Not had a chance to look at vids cos I cant play them on this phone.
So may be missing ones talking about Irish alternative scene. I know that this Freeman thing was becoming popular a couple of years back. I heard of a few instances when I was on the Solidarity Camp. I also know that some people were aware of its origins and were trying to enlighten those interested in following the creed to its folly. So I'm surprised it retains popularity since I thought people had copped onto its flaws.
Otoh you can see why it would be attractive if it did work. Autonomy and self-responsibility are very attractive traits. Creeds adopted from right-wing Xian separatists shouldn't be. Unfortunately there is a major overlap.

i'm as sympathetic to anarchist politics as the next layabout but really if you want to devolve from the State you don't need a pseudo-legal fairy tale to justify it

And doing it cos you owes phat cash is a cunts yarn

^^^

again i am sympathetic to fucking with banks but

Guelph MP Frank Valeriote

Incidentally what's this? You have Ghibellines as well in Canada?

Some of these clowns tried to glom on to the Occupy movement(s) iirc.

Wd like to see a sentencing judge use the formula You're not a freeman of the land, you're a very naughty boy.

Specially if its a woman defendant lol

there's a broader truther/Icke-y/homeopath movement that's always intersected with radical activism

The cancer curers are the most saddening/maddening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7V0GtUpsck

taking a brave stand against a cathedral raising money for hospices.

this guy is a real piece of work huh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agD3TNYHyDQ

things take a pretty bleak turn

which leads us to this

http://www.cpexposed.com/

Common Purpose is a political charity using Behavioural Modification

Common Purpose (CP) is a Charity, based in Great Britain, which creates ‘Future Leaders’ of society. CP selects individuals and ‘trains’ them to learn how society works, who 'pulls the levers of power' and how CP ‘graduates’ can use this knowledge to lead 'Outside Authority’.

Children, teenagers and adults have their prejudices removed. Graduates are ‘empowered’ to become ‘Leaders’ and work in ‘partnership’ with other CP graduates. CP claims to have trained some 30,000 adult graduates in UK and changed the lives of some 80,000 people, including schoolchildren and young people.

But evidence shows that Common Purpose is rather more than a Charity ‘empowering' people and communities’. In fact, CP is an elitest pro-EU political organisation helping to replace democracy in UK, and worldwide, with CP chosen ‘elite’ leaders. In truth, their hidden networks and political objectives are undermining and destroying our democratic society and are threatening ‘free will’ in adults, teenagers and children. Their work is funded by public money and big business, including international banks.

max has written some good stuff on these guys iirc

i have seen soooo many Guy Fawkes avatars in the last 24 hours

she challenged me over the course of 15 scribbled pages to prove that she was a person

Touch of the Myles na Gopaleens about that story

He made up less than youd think i guess, as i do myself

fondly remember some of the letters i got back when i worked for the Inland Rev, especially one that made repeated reference to THE TRIALS by FRANK KAFFER

max has written some good stuff on these guys iirc

― creating an ilHOOSion usic sight and sound (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, November 27, 2013 3:41 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the american ones i mean

i found a piece by max about illuminati nuts, not the Freemen yet tho

i say this like that isn't 2 largely overlapping sets

yeah, if anyone has a link to max writing about these guys, i'd love to read it.

this one's sort of related: http://gawker.com/5729241/why-was-jared-loughner-obsessed-with-grammar

love these guys. ive never written any at length about them tho

Are these ppl actually mildly mentally retarded or something? Their logic is so selective and tenuous as to be non-existent. Their understanding of common law is thoroughly defective and unhistorical enough as to render their judgment essentially null.

I wonder what their wergild is?

They tend to be ppl for whom chancing it has worked thus far ime, or else ppl who feel that everyone else is chancing it and theye been left out (ime this is down to a total lack of appreciation for how societal rules actually operate)

in the vids i've posted some of the guys seem to be hippie/anarchist types, some of them are obv as darragh describes, some of them strike me as being a bit neurodiverse

I wish these guys would get into D&D or Pathfinder or something for a more productive channeling of their energies and need for explicit rules and structure written out in manual form

this thread has presented me with a variety of british accents I never knew existed

my favorite british accent is from ulster.

how many people got killed by people into the 'freeman' movement ?

the Anti-Defamation League published a report that described the so-called “sovereign citizen movement” as “one of the most problematic domestic extremist movements in the United States,” attracting mostly middle-aged or older men who are financially stressed, angry at government regulation or who want “something for nothing.”

The report cited the 2010 shooting deaths of two West Memphis, Ark., police officers during a traffic stop. The suspects, a father and son who were later killed in a shootout with police, belonged to the sovereign citizen movement.

2 at least.

It seems sorta like morgellons to me.

my favorite british accent is from ulster.

Brits out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_West_Memphis_police_shootings#Background

The day after the shootings, Arkansas State Police identified the suspects as 45-year-old Jerry R. Kane Jr. and his 16-year-old son Joseph T. Kane. Jerry Kane had expressed sentiment against federal and local government online, and was accused of doing the same in person. Kane served three days in jail near Carrizozo, New Mexico for driving without a license and concealing his identity. He posted a $1,500 bond. After that incident, he complained of a "Nazi checkpoint".[citation needed]

Based on a 2004 conversation with Jerry Kane, Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly expressed concern that Kane would be dangerous toward law enforcement. According to Kelly, Kane had complained about being "enslaved" by a judge who had sentenced him to serve six days of community service for driving with an expired license plate and no seat belt.[citation needed]
Insurance analyst J. J. MacNab observed that Kane ran a debt evasion business.[6] Jerry Kane also posted $10,000 bond (which a judge later ordered forfeited) on charges of forgery and attempted grand theft of a motor vehicle filed in Miamisburg, Ohio. Although Kane was arrested in New Mexico, he was never extradited to Ohio

seems they were quite into that lifestyle and their crazy believes triggered the incident.

operation endearing freeman

i wonder if the shootings have informed this heavy emphasis the UK guys place on being peacable, or if it's just that the UK guys have nothing to defend themselves with if the cops decide to break out the batons

Kane had complained about being "enslaved" by a judge who had sentenced him to serve six days of community service for driving with an expired license plate and no seat belt.

it's always petty shit that drives these people nuts.

what a horrible story. i hope that son can break free of his dad's influence in whatever is left of his life.

What's a debt evasion business? Teaching people to evade their debts? And then mailing them a bill afterwards and hoping they didn't learn too much?

i'm shocked that this shit has made it over to the UK -- i thought that this was 100% American crackpottery that wouldn't translate to any other culture.

Yeah, we should get royalties.

it's as if the impulse to making up bullshit "historical" reasons to justify your personal selfishness was universal

Never underestimate the capacity of cretinous British ppl to copy American stuff verbatim off the internet and ignoring whether it is remotely applicable to their own context- like when British racists copy n paste whinges about being asked to press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish

and to ignore

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/us/citizens-without-a-country-wage-battle-with-liens.html?_r=0

But as Sheriff Stanek soon learned, the liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices.

Over the next three years, the couple, Thomas and Lisa Eilertson, filed more than $250 billion in liens, demands for compensatory damages and other claims against more than a dozen people, including the sheriff, county attorneys, the Hennepin County registrar of titles and other court officials.

“It affects your credit rating, it affected my wife, it affected my children,” Sheriff Stanek said of the liens. “We spent countless hours trying to undo it.”

lol fuck that sherrif.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZr6k2ksls

Real England tbh but

I'm assuming the bailiffs went away, came back with the correct paperwork, and took this guy's house.

lol the end when they tell the attendant police "you're gonna be heroes online".

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/28/sovereign-citizen-killed-in-shootout-with-ohio-deputies-serving-arrest-warrant/

Live free, then die.

did they take his gun from his cold, dead hand?

So many good quotes, I can barely choose.

“He was approaching the law from what he thought was a studious basis,” said Middleburg Heights Prosecutor Peter Hull. “He seemed to have a real sense that an injustice was being done [to him].”

And Middleburg Heights isn't some back-country cowtown, it's a decent sized Cleveland suburb just east of where I went to college.

Commenter OTM:

Artor • 36 minutes ago
Huh. If he thought he was not governed by the laws of the US, why did he think his 2nd & 14th Amendment rights were violated? This is the funny part of the Sovereign Citizen movement. They think the law doesn't apply, but that there is somehow a loophole in the law that lets them avoid it. Which is it? Does the law not apply, or does the law provide a way to weasel out of it? You can't pick both options, but it takes two brain cells to rub together to be able to realize that.

Welllll, sort of. I don't know about this guy but he could simultaneously believe that he wasn't bound by US law but that local officials who weren't in on the secret parallel shadow government should still treat him according to its tenets.

Artor with the classic "as a rational person let me tell you how irrational your beliefs are" gambit

The common law largely springs from royal decrees and even if you adopt the modern idea of sovereignty as stemming from the crown in parliament, the obvious assumption is that no individual is sovereign, not even the monarch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFE7qpFq-G4

copper in this one is quite sweet

when you see it in action like that, it's p close to str8 evil isnt it

evil plus boneheaded, the deadliest combination

this seems like some extreme kind of psychosis in action, doesn't it?

in a way, so do most non-mainstream worldviews/conspiracy theories? i guess this is the bit that i find interesting about them - a creative elaboration of how the world is based on the same evidence that others draw more mundane conclusions from. problem with the Freemen iteration is that in the end their worldview is very stilted, repetitive, uncreative.

"Sovereign Citizen" arrested for shooting a Bureau of Land Management ranger claims he's an "Attorney General of the United States":

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/blm-shooting-suspect-statutory-attorney-general

Under 18 U.S.C. Section 6, I am an agency of the United States.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JvrN-SrPXug/UJdOM7qKhhI/AAAAAAAAT5A/XgCtXYfVsg0/s1600/outoftheloopcd3.jpg

Earlier this month, one of them opened fire on a courthouse in Georgia, hit a cop, and that was that for the dude.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/06/06/sovereign-citizen-is-suspected-in-georgia-courthouse-shooting/

otm

the system works!

Apparently, it will be easier to die in a blaze of courthouse glory when Georgia's new concealed carry law kicks in. Meanwhile, US State Dept. advices those who want to renounce citizenship:http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/legal-considerations/us-citizenship-laws-policies/renunciation-of-citizenship-right-of-residence.html

Of course, that's the legal not the Lawful way (to Hell).

Oh, and as recounted in the original biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind (the book is so much richer and more worthwhile than the movie---no Imaginary Friends and Enemies, for a start), he's inspired by a guy who sought to renounce Cold War American citizenship and become the first Citizen of the World. So Nash, schizzed-out, goes to Europe, attempting to follow in the footsteps of his hero (who deserves his own book; blanking on the guy's name, else I'd look him up right now).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Davis

this guy?

suggest me a site i can draw a graphic online and post it and i'll show you- nothing coming up on google

― 30 ch'lopping days left to umas (darraghmac), Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:29 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://sketchtoy.com/

?

i feel like the "freeman" folk are like poststructuralists who don't really dare to accept the logic of their own worldview

stop trying to assign smart words to such bafflingly dumb people

also don't use sovereign citizens as just another pretext to shit on your academic bugbears

pretext i barely even discourse

i have no idea what you mean! i meant no slam on poststructuralists, who i have learned a lot from. do either of you have any idea what my academic background or interests are to be so confident in knowing my "academic bugbears"?

in short, i think you're reading way too much into it.

i'm just saying, the freemen seem to be motivated in part by some sudden revelation that there is no absolute foundation to government. which is an interesting and useful revelation to have. their reaction is to assert its illegitimacy, rather than a general recognition that governments and other entities acquire and maintain credibility and authority (and thus consent to use force, etc.) in complex and shifting ways.

xpost

also i don't think the smart/dumb binary is very useful here.

its a useful bedrock to keep in mind ime

yeah, but i think the relevant point is that these people are deluded, not necessarily that they are dumb (even if some/many of them are, by whatever measure).

choosing to be dumb, at whatever remove from yr 'intelligence', becomes yr de facto level of dumbness

obliged hl
http://sketchtoy.com/61736401

is it the World Cup?

and in a way, I suppose, it is /blair

haunting, dm.

that is a cool site tho

stop trying to assign smart words to such bafflingly dumb people

words to live by, in any context.

sudden revelation that there is no absolute foundation to government

These aren't those people. They still believe in an absolute foundation for government, society, law etc. - they just think that it's hidden, not the one that everyone agrees on. They still quote, with absolute certainty, their interpretations of pieces of law, the constitution or whatever. They're not postmodernists: they're just conspiracy theorists, convinced they alone know the truth.

I interviewed Garry Davis for like four hours once, he seemed kinda cheesed that his movement never really took off

cool! the interview i mean, i find the world citizen thing pretty inspiring

Watch yer step if you go stateless though (re that State Dept. link).

http://www.legalcheek.com/2014/09/judge-sacked-after-he-orders-defendant-to-be-electrocuted/

Good response to these dudes imo

If any more evidence were required of his mercurial nature, then there is this historical tit-bit:

That's English. ('stun-chuff' is perhaps more worthy of a raised eyebrow)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-official-wants-judge-removed-for-ordering-man-be-shocked-with-stun-cuff/2014/09/09/6397b7aa-385c-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/indigenous-affairs/2014/09/06/freemen-movement-targets-indigenous-australia/1409925600

That's English.

Ah ha, thanks. I genuinely have never seen or heard that before. I've always known it to be "tid-bit".

In American English, it's 'tidbit', whereas British English uses the original 'titbit'. Works in the same innuendo-expunging way that 'cocks' become 'roosters'.

Feel like indigenous Australians have some strong justification for arguing in this vein. Much more so than insolvent libertarian creeps.

And while Freemen, western libertarian branch anyway, are all total lamers, the judge ordering an electric shock in court is like o_0 almost as much as Ferguson, so fuck that fucking judge.

http://chrisspivey.org/common-law/

have we ever discussed how the hermeneutic/legal anarchism of these guys is authentic in the sense that it recognizes the ultimately biased construction of reality by powerful actors manipulating discourses of language + law? it simply refuses to participate in its own powerlessness and framed differently (politically instead of legalistically?) might be viewed as a more radical movement.

it'd be more radical if it weren't being employed to reactionary ends by the desperate and craven, for the enrichment of heartless scammers

on the radical side you're looking for the hardcore jury nullification types probably

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkZrzEHKBqI

We're going to cover word spells. How post-Mesopotamian language has had us under the Ol' Abra-Cadaver trick.... the oldest control trick.. "Thou hast fallen for the eldest trick in the scroll! xD

how do i even begin? is it by telling you about how we've unwittingly been CAST into the MOLD of ancient SPELLS of our modern SPELLING? CAST just like a MOLD, or perhaps like a NET? while caught, like fish, in the net of spells and spelling that have been cast, thus SENTENCING us to LIFE SENTENCES and the CURSES of CURSIVE which are just TERMS, just like serving a PRISON TERM.

So we've been SENTENCED to the WARDS of these WORDS which can be deadly as SWORDS if misunderstood or perhaps you missed the understanding of my TERMS or the SYBILS of my SYLLABLES, or even the ancient RITES of writing??

We Languish in our languid Language, in anguish ever since the ancient times of the Anglish angus and the PhonY Phonetic Phonics of the ancient Phoenician Pheonix. You think English is easy?

Sometimes I think English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was created from the ancient Phonic Phonetics of the Phony Phoenician Phoenixes, and it reflects the creativity and cunning genius of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all, unless youre just another rat, caught in the daily maze of the rat race of this human race against one another.

We draw money from our banks which are the edges of a river, which FLOWS in CURRENTS to the SEA, which is why its called CURRENCY, because our CASH FLOWS like pyroclastic ASH FLOWS toward the SEA, which is why we can trace back the ROOTS of all modern TRADE to the ancient Phoenician TRADE ROUTES,

and why our mundane weekdays seem to keep us in a perpetually WEAK DAZE, until we are so WEAKENED, that we barely make it to the WEEKEND. so each day, we routinely AWAKE in the MORNING, or is the Monday morning ritual conversely conversing a MOURNING at A WAKE for the dead?

And thus, the Bible speaks that the dead shall walk the earth, so it appears that they already are, without even knowing it, just by the strange language of which they know not the TRUE origins and what their words mean in etymology.
And the SIGNIFICANCE of the SIGNS and sins in SIGNIFICATION of their SIGNATURES on dead legal fictions like IDs and bills.

because our citizenship begins when we board the citizen SHIP, which sails the high seas carrying SEAMEN and it all begins when the male SHIP docks in its female SLOT or SLIP, also known as its BERTH, and unloads its CARGO or SEMEN, which sail up the WATERS of the CANAL.

So she gets pregnant and now carries the precious CARGO and will now give BIRTH to the new citizen that must now register to board the citizen SHIP and repeat the cycle all over again, until the citizens catch on to the ancient spells of the PHONY PHONETIC PHOENICIANS' tools of commerce and piracy of the high seas and the human commodity through the use of their made up languid language, which gives us our modern english.

So that's what the new Dr. Bronner labels are like.

reminds me of someone but I just can't....

Apparently the organizer of a yoga festival that a bunch of friend's bands participate in has turned out to be homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, and a sovereign citizen. Oh, and a Sandy Hook-truther to boot.

https://www.facebook.com/evolvefestival?fref=nf

http://www.acalltoactions.com/#!Transhumanism-Agenda-Exposed-David-Andrew-Bryson-/c7j3/578BDFB6-F5E0-4A8A-9A30-1CD2240EDBFB

woah. the crazy made my screen throb.

If you go back a few years in their timeline, it was already crazy, but mostly just corny hippie meme Alex Grey picture/inspirational quote crazy.

Liked by This Page

Fellowship of The Beloved
Exposing The Archons
The Cathars

Generally have little patience for these types, but this one is pretty quotable:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/262808205/Notice-to-Fuck-This-Court-and-Everything-That-It-Stands-For

silby last post otm and lol at my last post itt

It took me about 1 month to study the history of the world

i guess this is re http://www.11alive.com/news/article/154374/0/East-Point-Woman-Charged-in-Attempted-Jail-Break

Wipe out your debts for free!
http://gu.com/p/4cfdp

Have any of these idiots been arrested or self-immolated in spectacular fashion lately?

There's this dude that lives near where I work who has a series of dipshit stickers like "OATH KEEPERS" and a bunch of sovereign citizen/lolbertarian/prison planet garbage who just added "NOT A CAR: CONSUMER GOODS" which is a new one on me... so some Googling got me to this page on, of all places, the Farrakhan Factor:

http://www.farrakhanfactor.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1552

this whole thing is cousin to Morgellons, but here the bugs are slithering under the skin of language

xp - that whole thing with the car and consumer goods post is gibberish, it cobbles together a bunch of distinctions from different types of law resulting in something ridiculous and wrong

That seems to be the basis of a lot of this stuff, an almost cargo-cult understanding of law.

do these people do a lot of meth?

on our side they rode high and hard on a property wagon and don't seem very willing to acknowledge that having made some money before losing some money doesn't preclude them from being complete fucking idiots who have breathed heady air to no good effecg

i know the type of people who will buy into this kind of shit, used to know quite a few Icke-ists and lumpennewagers, and all i'm saying is there is probly a fair bit of scrumpy and weed on the road to believing this is how the world works

scrumpy?

strong cider, whatever the american is for alcoholic cider

is it hard cider in the US? scrumpy is the artisanal, brewed in a disused diesel sump variety in the UK,

we have alcoholic cider here, but I would bet the equivalent beverage preferred by this sort is something else

kombucha served in a neti pot iirc

US variety sovereign cits seem a little more trigger happy than the hippy casualties that i'm guessing form the UK core

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/571673589934350336/JNV72ebC.jpeg

this person might be a scrumpy drinking freeperson

too well turned-out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zHRQn_IShw

(sorry about the title on that)

what is wrong with me that I can't get enough of this stuff

innate love of freedom which is your creator's gift

is that the same woman whose kayak got eaten by the bear?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGxSzn5DKK4&feature=youtu.be

^ this one is painful. i've managed to watch the whole thing a couple times tho

That video stet posted makes me so fucking angry when I think about e.g. Sandra Bland. This bullshit is the ultimate expression of white privilege -- "I'm not even SUBJECT to your stupid laws!"

this thing is not that thing

It is, though.

that was both lolz and annoying in equal measure because of her voice

ah it is, grand.

That video stet posted makes me so fucking angry when I think about e.g. Sandra Bland. This bullshit is the ultimate expression of white privilege -- "I'm not even SUBJECT to your stupid laws!"

― Resting Bushface (Phil D.), Friday, October 16, 2015 3:20 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally.

lol forever at 3:05 of "it's your constitutional right"

"you're a fuckin' lazy bum who doesn't wanna pay his fare"
[inverts camera to record himself saying:] "well, I work two jobs"
"two jobs doin' what, taking selfies?"

oh man if I had known this was an SF Muni video I would've watched it a lot sooner

I have totally been that "get the fuck off the bus already!" guy on various occasions

the craziest part of all this to me is that the people who record these videos wind up posting them online

oh shit I totally know that second Muni cop that shows up in the clip

i love the passenger who calmly and knowledgably explains the 4th amendment to him between cussing him out

or the 'hi youtube!' guy. might be the same guy

loooooool @ when the "travel denied" message appears on the card-reader

that's probably the best part

lol, another from his channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhfpV3AyoGY

i dunno if i can click on that

I can't listen to that dude's voice for one more millisecond, sorry

We had a dickhead like that on the bus whose travel card photo was defaced and you could just hear the whole bus deflate when he yelled at the driver NO GIVE ME *YOUR* NAME and wouldn't get off

entitled lying attention-seeking shitheads

I like how he makes sure to mention to the camera that he's gay

there's another video where he's doing parkour routines in the stairwell of a gym. about all you need to know i guess.

so basically he's Abbi's boss from Broad City

I #bought #buffalochicken from #BurgerKing and received # hot chicken instead. Plus the meal was waiting to be bagged for 5 minutes. Unnecessary waiting much?

dear god in heaven why did i just sit and watch that entire asshole on the train video

is this the same guy?

http://www.munidiaries.com/2014/06/20/man-disrobes-reenacts-red-hot-chili-peppers-photo-on-the-1-california/

http://sfist.com/2014/06/20/video_muni_passenger_wearing_sock_o.php

http://sfist.com/attachments/sfist_eve/nude_bus.jpg

Lonely guy just thinking baout things

God what an attention whore. Lets not encourage him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0PPc6pHX2Q&feature=youtu.be

"This video is private" Must be a *very* sovereign being.

obv i have a favourite two seconds of this clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTseKyiNbfQ

well that brightened a gloomy sunday evening

i...might need a little more context for that

I don't remember if it's been mentioned upthread, but these guys are basically the next step beyond Dennis the Peasant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, right? "Oh, now we see the violence inherent in the system!"

Several steps

I always figure they're a deranged version of that pub bore who always knows how to get you out of your speeding ticket (If you don't show up/if they can't prove/say it got lost in the mail etc etc)

closer to that, yeah

i've made the "violence inherent in the system" gag before but in the movie the peasant is really minding his own business not going out with a phonecam looking to show the world what a badass he is

that peasant is considerably more sophisticated than the freemen imo

And considerably less asset-rich a lot of the time

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-30/australias-sovereign-citizen-terrorism-threat/6981114

http://www.startribune.com/charging-deadline-nears-for-suspects-in-shooting-of-black-lives-matter-protesters/358855091/

An acquaintance of Scarsella’s told investigators that he and Scarsella were there a few days earlier to video-record the protesters. He said they made “inappropriate comments to [ the ] protesters, which sparked anger between BLM and his group and led to angry Internet postings …”

Investigators reviewed the postings, in which participants discussed going to the encampment to “stir things up.” Potential agitators were encouraged to dress normal and look like protesters but “feel free to carry” a firearm.

The website participants referred to blacks in derogatory terms and said they intended to do some “reverse cultural enriching.” The acquaintance held up a handgun before the camera in one posting and ended the video with the words “stay white.”

About 1 o’clock the next morning, a police officer [ identified in other court documents as being from the Mankato Police Department ] said Scarsella told him he shot five people near the police station. The officer told Scarsella to turn himself in.

The officer knew Scarsella as someone who carried firearms, “had very intense opinions,” considered himself “a sovereign citizen and pro-Constitution,” and had “negative experiences with and opinions about African Americans.”

There doesn't seem to be a general militia thread but this just popped up on my fb feed.

Militia takes over wildlife refuge in Oregon.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/01/drama_in_burns_ends_with_quiet.html

following this shitfest on twitter, ban militias, repeal the second

Ammon Bundy says his standoff group is 150 strong. People on the ground there say it's more like 8 or 10.

bundy! a pleasure! might i ask if you are of the florida bundys?

Yeah, this is way out in deeeeep eastern Oregon, which is pretty much another universe from the I5 corridor on the west side of the state

god what would they even do with that land? all it's good for is migrating birds. it's a fucking desert out there. i just can't get over how stupid these people are. nice beards tho.

like the only reason they're out there in the first place is because of the federal government? maybe they could go to the local paiute reservation and see actual sovereignty in action? the stupidity is unfathomable.

can't these guys just suffer life-ending aneurysms already

militia dudes are such dorks

They felt that I'd say

should see the rationalizations for this on my feed this morning:

"this is what happens when the government loses its moral high ground".

oh, right. that's what it is.

militia dudes are such dorks

― nomar, Sunday, January 3, 2016 9:47 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on the one hand i get that these children turn to militia dorkism because they're in a repressive, economically and culturally desperate shithole with nothing to offer. but really they're so privileged in these small towns, a little imagination and some gumption and they could pretty much get away with murder if they wanted to, to say nothing of profitable small-town corruption. jeez they have it good. they're all driving huge-ass trucks on land credit. federal policy keeps their ranches treading water even as their debt mounts. just like the rest of the middle class. why do they need this silly cult of purely symbolic abrahamic righteousness to top it all off, just going to fuck everything up for them the dolts.

malheur is a giant salt marsh. it's beautiful country! not great for a home depot though. :( ammon bundy says he's going to stay in that building for years! what a moron.

out here in the crazy middle-of-nowhere west, this shit is mainstream! there are elected congressmen in utah who spend millions of taxpayer dollars hiring snake oil louisiana law firms to fight this battle to "take back" federal land in actual courts. we're talking national forests! like jesus you stupid greedy shitstains. the idiocy + cultural rot is astounding.

you know what these guys should get into? lensemaking. for sweet local binoculars. the world is full of l0u1s jagg3rs just waiting to discover the avian wonderland of the great basin.

ammon bundy says he's going to stay in that building for years! what a moron.

How is this supposed to work? I mean, after the cops block the roads so no food can get in or out.

Initially confused in the reporting by what "BLM" stood for. Think I got it now.

Beef lo-mein?

somehow i doubt they're thinking of starting a cattail diet. water is also a problem. xp lol, yes it's much more readily recognized as standing for "Bureau of Land Management" in the land that forgot about racism.

every tiME I read the thread title I imagine Morrissey singing it while slapping himself with gladioli and the Constitution

...just like every other white man.

this is one of these idiots' facebook page. what's this 3 percenter thing? first i've heard of it

https://www.facebook.com/scrappyphx.rider?fref=ts

just reading through the posts of the last few weeks of his, it's pretty clear that he was openly planning something. pretty astounding how idiotically brazen he is. it reminds me of the mouthbreathers who opened fire on the black lives matter protest in mpls, they literally made a video for their 4chan buddies with their faces in it describing what they were going to do. if they weren't so menacing their stupidity would be kind of funny

FBI is flying in tonight, we'll see where this goes tomorrow. all my Oregonian friends are outraged. from one native of the area:

Make no mistake, Bundy and his ilk are out-of-state meddlers who do not represent the people of Harney county. Good people on both sides who live in and understand this land have worked hard to find common ground and these guys want to stir up conflict and division.

yeah it seems like they are quite a minority and my generalizations above about the area are subjective to say the least

so is the crossed-out #blm thing on their vans anti-BlackLivesMatter? or is it bureau of land management?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgk-lA12FBk

probably the latter; bureau of land management is in charge of nearly a quarter of oregon's land last I read and that's who they're beefing with xp

They're also mad at the National Act for the Assistance of Conservation Parklands.

I keep seeing quotes in the media about defending the constitution. What is the particular chapter and verse that they're trying to bone-pick about?

last i read they hadn't indicated any specific demands that would resolve the "standoff" is this still the case? like they are the kinds of ppl who are just mad and want a change / restoration of the country or whatever but can't actually itemize complaints in an actionable way

i thought they had complaints about eminent domain type stuff? what are the chances this turns into a Waco type thing?

Just want to share this nugget:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CX26PAbUsAEvmEW.jpg

Oh,they probably think the BLM isn't constitutional. They think most of the federal government isn't. This reminds me of the "Is Trump fascist?" thread. For real, the "patriot" squad are supporting both. They believe the sheriff ought to be the highest authority. So that is how their fascist police state would work. These are the same people who counterprotest in places like Ferguson. Local authorities good, feds bad.

My spy source on the right told me that these people's beef with Washington is also racist. They view Washington as serving urbanites esp. black people. This sovereignty shut is just wire men's entitlement. Patriotism entails subduing everything non-white. I say this because media often portray them as not racist in their concerns or motivations.

Sorry, New tablet. "White men's entitlement."

https://actionfast.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/bunk-mcnulty2.jpg

i've been seeing a lot of "if they were black or muslim they'd be dead" point scoring on social media today. feel like such commenters shouldn't give up hope yet - there's still a good chance for a federal massacre.

i'm confused as to why this is being called a "standoff" since it doesn't sound like there's any law enforcement there for them to stand off with?

maybe they've set up some cardboard cutouts that they can shout and shoot at

lol, that would be the best.

xxp from what i was reading before i think the matter is being handled by the fbi as of today, but this was referred to as a standoff prior to this involvement and it doesn't sound like anyone is really challenging these guys. i kind of wonder what would happen if they just ignore these fools and let them gesticulate until the media tires of the story and they militia eventually disbands.

yeah it got me thinking that ignoring them seems like a great idea.

i guess this could force them to escalate but also it still isn't clear to me what specific demands could be satisfied (short of dissolution of the govt) to resolve this. given the relatively general form of their complaints i wonder how dedicated they are to sacrificing their bodies to the cause (such as it is)

people said the same thing about Occupy iirc

Pretty sure they're just trying to manufacture a crisis, hoping the Feds show up so they can start shooting then up the gadsten (sp?) flag bat signal for the other lunatics to come on down and exercise their second amendment rights

some good background on their Mormom roots (even for a Buzzfeed article):

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/heres-what-you-need-to-understand-about-mormon-history-if-yo#.apGyjrexJ

There's an interesting twitter feed that defined what these guys are doing as "enclosure" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

Ie taking common land and turning it into private land, with its benefits going only to the now-owner instead of the society.

Exactly. It is OUR effete, urban, minority-loving government they are provoking. They are a bunch of conquistadores.That is the sort of nation they want to be patriotic about. That's why they will "never forget" September 11 th, but don't mourn the victims of the OKC bombing,nor do they care about federal personnel hurt by white extremists. War on Islam =OK, war on domestic threats not similarly patriotic. Then they get out their flag whenever a defenseless black person is shot by police,implying that Black Lives Matter are traitors.

people said the same thing about Occupy iirc

despite a lack of parallels elsewhere, occupy was a similarly unfocused protest that had goals too nebulous to distill into a series of explicit demands and was likewise pointed at the wrong targets and accomplished little/nothing

Calling it a protest, IMO, is playing into their hands. It's an armed confrontation. They are a terrorist group by any definition.

I mean, they think like fascist terrorists, they don't need to articulate goals. They have been looking for the opportunity to confront the government.

I'd call it more of a violent tantrum.

Whoa - this is what the SPLC said:

"The sheriff reportedly received death threats for
not being a “constitutional sheriff,” standing up
what the antigovernment extremists brand as
the “tyranny of the U.S. Government,” and
offering sanctuary to the Hammonds –
something they didn’t request."

These people piss me off.

is the presence of guns the main objection? bc i could imagine worthy left wing causes occupying a space in order to create political change that would be championed here not derided and it seems like opposition to this is centered on it tactically (eg i have seen v few ppl discussing whether they have legitimate reasons to be upset about imminent domain and grazing laws, but lots of talk about how this is terroristic criminal behavior). i don't even need to imagine bc obv there have been tons of left wing activism movements that /have/ occupied spaces (and have even employed some level of violence in doing so). i bet some of them even protested imminent domain laws.

like if the problem is that their goals seem inchoate i remember that was the right's v critique of occupy

Sheriff David Ward said protesters came to Harney County, in southeastern Oregon, "claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers." In reality, he said, "these men had alternative motives to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States.”

In an interview with reporters late Saturday night posted on Facebook, Bundy said he and others occupied the building because "the people have been abused long enough."

"I feel we are in a situation where if we do not do something, if we do not take a hard stand, we'll be in a position where we'll be no longer able to do so," he said.

Bundy said of the park headquarters: "It is the people's facility, owned by the people, and it has been provided for us to be able to come together and unite in making a hard stand against this overreach, this taking of the people's land and resources."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/01/03/militia-members-occupy-us-building-in-oregon-after-protest/78226600/

Bundy seems confused about the difference between a wildlife sanctuary and a community center, social hall, town square, or church basement, at the very least.

xxp EMINENT domain dude

I think the local outrage is primarily due to:

1. they are from out of state and not very welcome
2. past history of dumbass behavior by the Bundys
3. blatant kid-glove handling of the situation due to their race & privilege
4. it's a goddamn bird sanctuary
5. "ready to die" nonsense posturing

not all of these are believed by the same demographics imo

I could give a shit about the guns, everybody in Harney County has guns.

thx for the correction. re "blatant kid-glove handling" like the federal gov did invade an armed compound when i was 9yo and killed a ton of ppl and it was a huge deal. WACO's whiteness didn't protect them in 94.

93?

I thought maybe you'd confused it with Ruby Ridge, but apparently that was 92. Didn't ANY of these hillbillies get ko'd in 1994?

xps

Grazing rights on Bureau of Land Management federal lands are extremely cheap and act as a subsidy to ranchers in the interest of cheaper meat for urban areas. If the ranchers were required to graze only on the land they owned or leased from a private owner, their costs would be enormously higher.

Nor are these people protesting eminent domain, in that the federal lands in question were never under private ownership, but were always public domain. The difference is that they have become more actively regulated by acts of Congress since 1910.

Finally, even if one accepted that there is some injustice being protested here, the solution being offered is to decentralize the state's monopoly on force so radically that local government would immediately regress to vigilantism and hooliganism.

i'm of several minds about this

the Bundys are racist goons and their cause is one of the worst in american life. they've turned themselves into freelance antifederal celebrity protesters. Wesley Lowery's reporting has been great

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/01/03/what-spurred-the-armed-occupation-of-a-federal-wildlife-refuge-in-southeast-oregon/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/armed-activists-in-oregon-touch-off-unpredictable-chapter-in-land-use-feud/2016/01/03/17a45e5c-b272-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html

the Hammonds did their time for the crime committed -- arson in a federally owned forest (i'm a little unclear if it was a "national forest" or if than even matters tbh -- and, per Lowery, the community is largely hostile to the Bundy showboating

i really don't like this idea of mandatory minimums, so objecting to the Hammonds being brought back to jail for an extended sentence seems totally fair to me

there's a lot about federal land use out west that i'm not familiar with. i've seen lots of contradictory anecdotal stuff that the feds run those lands a) as a "welfare" program for the rural communities out there and b) for the benefit of the well-connected.

there's really more than enough hypocrisy to go around. tons of liberals saying these men would have been lit up if they were muslim or black while crowing for the gov't to do just that, which is just nauseating

again, the Hammonds are acquiescing to their punishment. the Bundys, whatever crimes they've committed here -- trespassing? weapons violations? -- don't really amount to sedition, no matter their self-regarding proclamations. this isn't captial crime territory.

it's worth mentioning that Cliven Bundy got his way in 2014. the federal BLM let him do whatever with his fucking cows. a bad precedent, it seems.

my memories of Waco are fuzzy but there were several dead FBI agents in the course of that thing, too...

good summary, thx

it's worth mentioning that Cliven Bundy got his way in 2014.the federal BLM let him do whatever with his fucking cows. a bad precedent, it seems.

i was wondering what had come of that. ugh.

The [Hammonds] had been sentenced and served time previously, but on appeal a federal judge ruled that their initial sentences had been too short.

When you appeal to a higher court, you are seeking to overturn the outcome of your previous trial. That's what happened here, except it was overturned in order to extend the sentences for the arson they committed. The Hammonds took their chances on appeal and they are accepting the result. It is the 'militia' who are portraying this as tyranny, not the arsonists.

i take that sentence to mean that it was prosecutors who had appealed the sentence, not the Hammonds

The history of animosity between the BLM and Hammonds on the Bundy Ranch blog makes for an interesting read. Was pointed in that direction via a fb friend's comments string. I won't link to it, but google bundy ranch blog hammonds and that should get you there. Obviously slanted and desperately needs a fact-checker, apply salt to taste, etc.

xp: the re-sentencing came from a federal appeals panel.

The Oregonian (Portland Oregon)

February 8, 2014 Saturday
1M EDITION

Arsonists who did time face more

BYLINE: Helen Jung hj✧✧✧@oregon✧✧✧.c✧✧

SECTION: A; Pg. 07

LENGTH: 494 words

Two eastern Oregon men got off too lightly for setting fires on their ranch that spread to government lands and should be re-sentenced, a federal appeals panel said in an opinion issued Friday.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that retired U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan illegally sentenced the father and son of the prominent Hammond ranching family in Harney County to terms below the five-year minimum.

“A minimum sentence mandated by statute is not a suggestion that courts have discretion to disregard,” Judge Stephen J. Murphy III wrote in the opinion. The panel found that the case should be sent back to the district court for another sentence.

Both Dwight Hammond Jr., 72, and his son, Steven D. Hammond, 44, were found guilty in 2012 of intentionally and maliciously setting fires in September 2001 near Steens Mountain, where they leased public land for livestock grazing. The fire consumed 139 acres of public land, taking it out of production for two growing seasons, the court said in its decision.

In addition, Steven Hammond was found guilty of setting fires on Krumbo Butte in August 2006 on the boundary of the Hammonds’ land. Despite a burn ban, the court noted, he said he set them to counteract fires sparked by lightning nearby. The fire consumed one acre of public land, according to the decision.

Prosecutors sought the five-year mandatory minimum prison term for both men, but Hogan sentenced the father to three months in prison and the son to one year and a day. Both have completed their terms, a lawyer for the family said.

According to a transcript from the October 2012 hearing, Hogan said imposing the five-year term would violate Eighth Amendment protections.

The Hammond sentencings were Hogan’s last before his retirement the following day after 39 years as a federal judge. “I will impose a sentence that I believe is defensible under the law, but also one that is defensible to my conscience,” he said at the hearing.

He said he didn’t believe Congress intended for the five-year minimum to apply to fires set in the wilderness. “It just would not be — would not meet any idea I have of justice, proportionality,” he said according to the transcript.

But the appeals panel disagreed.

“Even a fire in a remote area has the potential to spread to more populated areas, threaten local property and residents or endanger the firefighters called to battle the blaze,” Murphy wrote in the opinion. He noted that a teenage relative of the Hammonds was nearly burned by the fire and pointed out the damage to grazing land as well.

“Given the seriousness of arson, a five-year sentence is not grossly disproportionate to the offense,” the opinion states, in sending their cases back to the district court.

Larry Matasar, one of the attorneys for the family, said he is “very disappointed” by the opinion. He said he expects the Hammonds will ask the full 9th Circuit bench to reconsider the panel’s decision.

I mean, fuck the Bundy's anyway I hope they feel the tyrant's bootheel.

i'm totally cool w/ anyone who's like fuck the bundys and whatever they believe in. just annoyed w/ all the stupid arguments that are getting thrown around today about tactics and whether this should be called terrorism etc.

xp oh it was Michael Hogan, what a surprise that he lowballed their sentences. glad he's gone, he was the worst.

makes for an interesting read

I mean, in terms of a timeline of the history of the conflict and a litany of perceived aggressions.

The thing that makes this completely inscrutable to anyone who lives in a mostly-urbanized area is what these guys really think they have the right to do -- use publicly-owned resources for their own private profit, without compensating for use of the land.

I live in a part of the country that has a large agriculture economy and has virtually no government-owned or -managed land, outside of a handful of parks that are mostly recreation areas. The idea of having cattle just wandering around on land you don't own would be a crazy proposition -- even farms that raise animals in the free range fashion are doing so on land they own.

These guys are really arguing for the inverse of eminent domain, which is when the government takes over privately-owned property for an arguable public good. They want to have their property (animals) wandering around on land they don't own, feeding off of public land, and pay nothing for it. Or in the case of poaching, to just grab animals off public land.

If they want to argue the land belongs to "the people" then yeah, you're right, I'm one of those people as a US citizen. Pay for your damn resources.

they want to argue the land belongs to "the people" then yeah, you're right

But the bundys get to decide who are people and who aren't. Given their own words on the subject, blacks certainly don't qualify. Seems likely no one on ilx would meet their qualifications either.

perhaps their movement can address that

in the meantime, the idea that there's public land that's not owned by anyone is an intriguing wild west idea that hasn't been the case for a long time.

give them the max. setting fire to public property seems like a GIANT WARNING SIGN that this person is a very real danger to civilized society. they even almost burned their teenage relative. idiots.

relevant federal maps, for anyone who is interested:
http://nationalmap.gov/small_scale/printable/fedlands.html

http://nationalmap.gov/small_scale/printable/images/preview/fedlands/BLM_2.gif

hopefully most of that land is inhabited by people that don't lack the self-control of Beavis & Butthead

i.e. you, based on how much you appear to know about what's going on

Generally speaking federal lands are uninhabited. Some of it is leased on long term leases where there are inhabited dwellings, but this amounts to a tiny fraction of the whole.

lots of links and history of this movement for your reading pleasure

http://www.hcn.org/articles/sagebrush-rebellion/

there are a lot of legitimate reasons to set (controllable) fires in areas that you are using, whether as a break against wildfires or to clear dead areas for renewal, but again, it goes back to whether you have the legal right to that land and the authority to do whatever you want on it

there's an undeniable secessionist bent to the take-the-land-backers imo but it's sort of weird because they left behind the free labor supply.

worth noting that the BLM gets a lot of hate from the environmental left too, is accused of selling out especially to energy interests.

WACO's whiteness didn't protect them in 94.

― Mordy, Monday, January 4, 2016 2:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The branch davidians were a multiracial group. 45 of the ~130 living in the waco compound were black.

interesting. i didn't know that. 2 things you've taught me today :)

oops, sorry, sleeve taught me the other thing. got confused.

worth noting that the BLM gets a lot of hate from the environmental left too, is accused of selling out especially to energy interests.

this is very true, esp. in Oregon

tbf I am acting like there are legitimate, poorly-articulated complaints these people might have, but I don't think they'd agree with me on anything and their actual stances are less within the legal framework and more nebulous *waves constitution at passerby*

the bureau of land management, along with many of the other organizations that coordinate and regulate land use both public and private, are pretty understaffed and subject to the whims of politicized interests

the argument "well, BLM lets corporate fat cats use land poorly for mining and energy so they should not restrict our use of the land" is the "just let us all behave badly" end of things

what's the deal w/ the grazing? do these ppl not have sufficient land to graze their livestock or is it really a principle of the thing type of thing, we go where we want?

grazing disputes are so ancient. they're the reason lot + abraham split up when lot went down to sodom.

xp

rn you can't deny that by seizing this facility over a holiday weekend this handful of rabble-rousers has succeeded in capturing a lot of attention for their self-important posturing, so they have to be pleased with themselves. plus, if they don't make a big mess of the facility or pull their weapons on the wrong people, they might quietly slip out of town in a few days and not even face arrest or trial, let alone have to face a hail of bullets from FBI agents.

I get where they're coming from, but they're still a bunch of dumbasses.

http://i.imgur.com/TG94nh4.png

http://i.imgur.com/TG94nh4.png

Is Abbott still on this board? I think she'd be the best explicator of some of the Mormon background here

this one isn't a grazing dispute, mordy. but the bundy brouhaha in Nevada was about the bundys not paying the fees required by their contract with the government, even though they had derived the financial benefits of grazing their allotment. the blm tried to impound their cattle as a form of lien, met armed resistance from about 300 so-called militia, and backed down to avoid what looked like certain bloodshed on both sides. now the bundys are in the armed insurrection business.

do these ppl not have sufficient land to graze their livestock

they traditionally have just let their cattle graze across the prairie, including federal land, and I doubt they have much fenced area. true free range.

but yeah, the case they're supposedly protesting now is nominally not about this, but it comes down to whether they think they own the government anything at all

one vital aspect overlooked by the bundys is that the government grants exclusive grazing rights to ranchers within their federal allotments, so there is an enforceable mechanism that prevents a rancher with more guns and cattle from running off your cattle and putting his on the land you were grazing. or maybe they don't overlook this and believe they can always be the rancher with the most guns and they'll be doing all the bullying.

The branch davidians were a multiracial group. 45 of the ~130 living in the waco compound were black.

I actually thought there were more black victims than that, there were a lot of British citizens there and, as far as I know, they were all black.

you guys: https://youtu.be/zcOIdVMa4-0

i don't understand ppl whose ideology takes precedence over being around to take care of their children

A bit too weepy for a genuine martyrdom video.

that red-tinged map looks a little misleading to me: includes all indian reservations and national parks!

I was just going to say that: the red areas in MI at least are deffo mostly natl parks in remote, isolated areas.

fwiw the BLM administers around 14 million acres of rangeland in OR and WA comnbined.

those cows are wandering a looong way to find something to eat in some of those areas

The vast majority of those federal lands in western states are not suited to any economic uses other than grazing, logging, mining, or recreation. Those activities are widely allowed on those lands, but also regulated. With the rise in environmental concerns, those regulations have become more complex, which cheeses off people like the Bundys.

The fees paid by loggers, ranchers and miners do not cover the costs incurred by the federal regulatory agencies that oversee the lands - mostly the Forest Service, which tellingly is part of the Dept. of Agriculture, and the Bureau of Land Management, most of whose lands are grasslands. Most notably, the Mining Act of 1872 set the price of a mining claim at $2.50 to $5 an acre, and that price has never been revised to this day.

Point to that map is how much land in the west is not available for private development.

I've got no problem with that, but it is very disproportionate compared to the rest of the nation, even with the lower population.

so there ain't much to do in eastern and southeastern Oregon, right?

Malheur County, just next door to Harney County, is only an hour behind Pensacola.

so there ain't much to do in eastern and southeastern Oregon, right?

parts of eastern Oregon have stuff going on. The Pendleton rodeo is an annual big deal in the state. But get too far south of the Columbia and shit is almost uninhabited. SE Oregon, man, I've never even really thought about it much less visited.

Point to that map is how much land in the west is not available for private development.

I've got no problem with that, but it is very disproportionate compared to the rest of the nation, even with the lower population.

― pplains, Monday, January 4, 2016 2:53 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

huh? it's fairly proportionate with the rest of the nation especially when you consider the population. the main reason there is so little private development is because there is literally no one there. xp

http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/79800/dnb_united_states_lrg.jpg

cool cool

https://twitter.com/OmanReagan/status/681653286840184833

SE Oregon, man, I've never even really thought about it much less visited.

I drove SR 95 from Winnemucca to Boise once and it was the most desolate terrain I have ever driven through

xp might be a which came first, the chicken or the egg, kinda thing. How can you live somewhere on land that you can't own or have any private development.

http://i.imgur.com/MPFwBLZ.jpg

And again, fuck these guys, and on the whole, I'm glad 80 percent of Oregon is under wraps. But look at the thinly populated areas of the south or Texas (which is a whole other thing altogether), and you can see where it looks like the Fed is taking up more than its fair share.

xp what are those lights in eastern montana?

oil rigs, fracking in ND.

and ufo's.

one of the dudes hanging out in Oregon refused to give any name other than "Captain Moroni"

http://itcpowersolutions.com/images/OilFieldsFromSpace.jpg

worth noting that the oil fields are lit up like car sales lots and are operating nearly 24/7 in an area without people complaining about light pollution. it's probably brighter there at 3AM than it is most places at noon.

See? Eastern Ore doesn't know what it's missing.

http://i.imgur.com/YXZrJp5.jpg

Harney County, where this is taking place, has a population of about 7500. It is also the largest county in the USA, at 10,226 sq mi. For comparison Vermont has 9,616 sq mi.

good breakdown of the grazing economics here:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-armed-oregon-ranchers-who-want-free-land-are-already-getting-a-93-percent-discount/?ex_cid=538fb

xp
San Bernardino county is the largest in the US (20,000 sq mi), but with a population of 2 mil.

Harney may be the least dense.

xp might be a which came first, the chicken or the egg, kinda thing. How can you live somewhere on land that you can't own or have any private development.

pretty sure the government would sell this land if anyone were actually interested in using it, barring environmental concerns or something.. it seems more 'logical' than wondering why they're "holding on to it" or w/e.

the ritzheimer goodbye video is depressing and seems to confirm my suspicion that these guys are desperate to add some sort of meaning to their lives, but the best they could come up with is a combination of action hero tropes and bible/constitution fanfic.

how about these people spend time, I dunno, at work, earning a living, rather than cosplaying as American heroes.

xp this is otm and also a bummer

here's a more detailed map of federal land ownership fwiw

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/US_federal_land.agencies.svg/990px-US_federal_land.agencies.svg.png

Harney may be the least dense.

Not sure about its inhabitants though.

pretty sure the government is taking care of these places BECAUSE no one else is

we could try just letting private enterprise handle it, though, that'll be great

the great basin is a unique, fragile habitat. it's easily destroyed and needs some kind of management, much stronger management than it currently sees imo. i'm not sure why so much of it is blm land compared to say the high plains, other than maybe the order of westward migration and the new deal happening when it did? it could be that all of that blm land is somewhat related to the early antagonisms between the federal government and mormon pioneers, who basically wanted to establish their own theocratic state and did for at least a few years or decades. that kind of anti-u.s. sentiment is definitely a particular flavor of thing among mormon yahoos out here. there is an old professor at the u. of u. law school who i know has sympathies in that direction. and anyway you can still catch remnants of what this theocracy might look like in hildale / colorado city.

hm i guess the BLM was established in 1946 by Truman. i often find myself wanting to know more about this stuff but i don't know where to start -- i think i'm a little scared off by the personae of local historians, lol.

anyway, at least in utah, it seems like the blm bends over backwards to make its land as accessible to buttholes with fleets of ATVs as possible and the vibe is much less "sacred untouched wilderness" than "local hicks' backyard dump station / playground".

also i mean if you've ever driven through the great basin, it's pretty rugged and inhospitable, like an order of magnitude more than the high plains. there isn't a lot of water, it's very hot or very cold and windy all the time, basin and range after basin and range over long net-zero-elevation distances doesn't exactly mesh with the rhythms of settlement and improvement.

The whole area sounds like that First Blood town.

Not sure about its inhabitants though.

These self-appointed militia yahoos have received very little encouragement from the locals.

was gonna say

I don't see anything that Harney Co. is No. 1 in, at least nationally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_statistics_of_the_United_States

And the Fed doesn't own that land just because it's up in the boonies and no one wanted it. Obviously, there are folks who'd take it. It's just that the Fed finally came around after the Civil War that maybe it should hold on to that land in the interest of national security, conservation, Native reservations, national parks and tourism, transportation, etc. It certainly didn't "take over" in most cases any property that was already owned by a (white) landowner.

Unless I'm wrong, Frank Herbert first got the idea for _Dune_ in the late '50s covering desert reclamation efforts in deep SE Oregon

Fremen

there it is

smh

I've spent a lot of time driving, camping, digging, etc. in the Great Basin and it's a lot like the first Mad Max movie. There's civilization of sorts, but really it's just people who believe in the old ways so strongly that when you get out of the car, it's still 1975. There are towns that have to support the old ways because the Old Ones still have to buy groceries, gas, fireworks, and prostitutes. Nevertheless it's still 1975 and it's weird taking a picture of 1975 with an iPhone because the people who still live in 1975 haven't seen one before. That's the part of the Great Basin that's more like Vanishing Point. The reality is that it's more like Reno 911.

Eastern Oregon is also the home of: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/rajneeshpuram/

digging?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-read-u-s-attorney-statement-on-oregon-standoff-20160104-htmlstory.html

Ecowatch points out the relationship between far right activity and mainstream Republican rhetoric. http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/05/bundy-militia-public-lands/#

As militant occupation continues in Oregon, sheriff says 'go home'

Ebony explains why black people feel their is a double standard here: http://www.ebony.com/news-views/oregon-standoff-reveals-painfully-obvious-racial-double-standard-333

http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/3377742-155/mormon-leaders-to-oregon-militia-your

official lds church response

new favorite term for this is "Cowliphate"

there's probably some reason not to make all those jokes but idgaf, the Gadsden Flag image with "send snacks" cracks me up as well.

I still say Y'all Qaeda ftw.

The Mormon angle is an interesting one. I watched Frontline's two-part documentary on the history of the Mormons and while the main body of the church is very into not shaking things up and being very aligned with getting along with the government, there's the undercurrent of having a long memory about the contentious relationship with the federal government and the fact that Mormon culture really is prepper culture.

Vanilla Isis is still my front-runner, but Cowliphate works well.

i still just can't even deal with this picture

https://twitter.com/amandapeacher/status/683741037207007232

should be enough

hahahahaa

Gives me hope that left alone they'll eventually kill and eat each other, and the last survivor will die of trichinosis or mad cow disease.

hopefully.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/5/10714746/waco-ruby-ridge-oregon

That statement by the US Attorney for Oregon lays things out pretty clearly: the crimes, the basic testimony, the verdict, and the plea agreement. The presiding judge attempted to lay aside both the plea agreement and ignore the mandatory minimum sentence imposed by Congress, but his unlawful sentencing was overturned on appeal, as he certainly knew it would be.

In any case, why won’t they shoot at armed white fanatics isn’t just the wrong question; it’s a bad one. Not only does it hold lethal violence as a fair response to the Bundy militia, but it opens a path to legitimizing the same violence against more marginalized groups. As long as the government is an equal opportunity killer, goes the argument, violence is acceptable.

But that’s perverse. If there’s a question to ask on this score, it’s not why don’t they use violence, it’s why aren’t they more cautious with unarmed suspects and common criminals? If we’re outraged, it shouldn’t be because law enforcement isn’t rushing to violently confront Bundy and his group. We should be outraged because that restraint isn’t extended to all Americans.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/01/the_oregon_standoff_with_ammon_bundy_isn_t_evidence_of_a_racial_double_standard.html

That's exactly where my outrage lies.

the more prescient racist double standard at work. not too hot on twitter for some reason.

http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2016/01/04/23341055/required-reading-the-malheur-national-wildlife-refuge-was-taken-over-once-before-back-in-the-19th-century

Burns Paiute Tribe chairperson Charlotte Rodrique told The Stranger that she would not dignify the "Constitutional Freedom" group's movement with a formal statement from the tribe, but would comment as an individual.

"I do not condone the actions of the 'Constitutional Freedom' group who have taken over occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters," Rodrique wrote in an e-mail. "I believe there is little local support for their 'cause'. I have not observed many 'locals' at their gatherings. As a tribal member, I will not dignify their movement with a formal statement. The leaders [of the group] have taken it upon themselves to speak on issues that are of no concern to tribal interests. They seem to be motivated by greed and anger."

xp sorry for being flippant.

amazing

#1 group I hope throws shade at these ppl, tbh xxp

The "Wise Use" movement and the corporate and libertarian fucks responsible for it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wise_use

Excellent article on Wise Use from PRA in 1993 - this before OKC, but it's still relevant.

http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v07n2/wiseuse.html

promoting the expansion of private property rights

oh yeah sounds like a blast

According to McCarthy (2002),[1] the most prominent wise use groups receive most of their support from resource extraction industries (Amoco, British Petroleum, Chevron, Exxon/Mobile, Marathon Oil) as well as the American Farm Bureau, Dupont, Yamaha, General Electric, General Motors, National Cattlemen's Association, and the National Rifle Association).

Well now that you put it like that, what could possibly go wrong?

made me think of the scene from Naked Gun 2 1/2. I couldn't find a clip of but...

Chief of Staff John Sununu: Thank you. Mr. President, tonight I am extremely proud to welcome our distinguished guests from the nation's energy suppliers. From the coal industry, chairman of the Society for More Coal Energy, or "SMOCE", Mr. Terence Baggett. Representing the oil industry, head of the Society of Petroleum Industry Leaders, better known as "SPIL", Mr. Donald Fenswick...
Donald Fenswick: Thank you, thank you very much.
Chief of Staff John Sununu: And from the nuclear industry, president of the Key Atomic Benefits Office of Mankind - "KABOOM", Mr. Arthur Dunwell.

dude compared himself to rosa parks

hush that fuss

"Wise use" has pretty much always been Astroturf.

So many conservative causes present themselves as "get the oppressive tyrant's boot off the neck of the common man" when it's more like "let the orgiastic greed-party continue," but I suspect this is preaching to the choir here

probably, but that was a succinct summary

Yeah, I've been thinking about this lately, because I have had some neighbors who have had utterly asinine problems with local building codes lately, where I'm like "ok, so here is a very specific point where I concede that government has no business having any opinion at all about the height of this guy's front steps." But I have no idea how to go about seeking a remedy for that without aligning myself with extreme anti-regulation types.

sign a petition and take it to the city council imo

I mean the government does have a business, the government's business includes defending public safety. There are step rises which are too high to be generally safe.

This one was apparently too short. ¯\(°_°)/¯

Back to the topic at hand, I'm sad that these guys are more of the "copy of constitution in glovebox of pickup truck" instead of the "maritime law" variety.

Not to purposefully defend HOAs or anything stupidly restrictive, but there is a spectrum of safe tread and riser dimensions for stairs, with corresponding graphs for likelihood of injury if either measurement gets too out of sync. Iirc a lot of it has to do with the size of ppl's feet, the average length of strides, the amount of strain caused by level of incline, possible momentum built up in a hypothetical fall, and so on.

Like the same way that slow drivers are a danger on highways, somewhat counterintuitively, a too-shallow stair size might also cause ppl to trip more or try to take 2 at once, or some other behavioral quirk that increases risk.

I'm sorry, blame it on a lifetime of dinner conversations led by a mechanical engineer.

"Maritime law" = A good point, which gives me an idea.

Seems to me a shame that so many of these FreedomBoner (tm) dudes are into land-based pursuits (farming / hunting / ranching / mining / drilling), when their liberty-centric ideology would be very much more at home on the open seas. They'd be much more well-adjusted (and probably do less overall harm) if they took their shtick to international waters.

I would support redirecting all current initiatives intended to mollify and/or pacify the militia kooks of the montane west, and simply building them a half-dozen caravels or barquentines. Let them go privateering, fishing, oil-drilling, even getting mad piratical, if that's what they're into. Only one condition: they would need to wear eye-patches, pouffy blouses, and lots of pansy-asss scarves while they do it.

if ppl are really using the history of enclosure in england as a rationale, that's pretty 'maritime law'-ish

Libertarian tech bros have had the whole "international waters"/"private island libertarian utopia" thing sewn up for years. They're not gonna be mingling with a bunch of rednecks if they can help it.

imagine plenty of us English don't think enclosure was a civilization-enhancing event

I'll admit, I have in the past completely taken possession of someone else's front steps for hours at a time.

The maritime law ppl aren't into the high seas, they're just using any flimsy excuse to contravene federal authority and to argue that they should be exempt from the actual legal system.

"Maritime law" = A good point, which gives me an idea.

Seems to me a shame that so many of these FreedomBoner (tm) dudes are into land-based pursuits (farming / hunting / ranching / mining / drilling), when their liberty-centric ideology would be very much more at home on the open seas. They'd be much more well-adjusted (and probably do less overall harm) if they took their shtick to international waters.

― ineluctable modality of the chewable (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, January 6, 2016 5:13 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Would watch this film

Eli Roth will be right on it

they should do this in the open water but it seems their entire lives revolve around letting their cattle use public land, sadly no public land in the ocean

They'll have to become tuna ranchers.

Git along, little tunas. Yippee-yo-ki-yay.

one thing to be thankful for

http://factually.gizmodo.com/no-ammon-bundy-didnt-compare-his-militia-to-rosa-parks-1751353105

he said his militia would've shot Rosa Parks

thanks for the new username, Puffin!!

So, a key selling point Bundy tries to make is that rural areas are struggling financially because the feds keep placing undue burdens on the ranchers, and if the feds would only pack up and leave then everyone would be rolling in clover. This has a lot of appeal in rural towns surrounded by federal lands, because those places have always been full of poor people living on the edge, though often with a few wealthy folks who are basically the lords of the area.

The problem with this utopian vision is that the feds heavily subsidize those rural areas. They lease grazing rights for a fraction of their true value, build and maintain roads, create the best paid jobs in the local economy, and generally act like a sugar daddy, sucking money from cities and redistributing it to backwaters like Harney County.

From http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/grazing/pdfs/CostsAndConsequences_01-2015.pdf

Key Findings
1. Receipts from grazing fees were $125 million less than federal appropriations in 2014. Total federal appropriations for the USFS and BLM grazing programs in fiscal year 2014 were $143.6 million, while grazing receipts were only $18.5 million. Appropriations for the BLM and USFS grazing programs have exceeded grazing receipts by at least $120 million annually since 2002. Had the federal government charged the average private forage market rate for non-irrigated lands in the western states, grazing receipts would have been on average $261 million, greatly exceeding annual appropriations.

2. The gap between federal grazing fees and private land fees has widened considerably. The federal grazing fee in 2014 was set at the legal minimum of $1.35/AUM, or animal unit month, which is the amount of forage to feed a cow and calf for one month. The annual federal grazing fee has been set at the minimum required by law since 2007. In 2013, the federal grazing fees of $1.35/AUM were just 6.72 percent of fees charged for nonirrigated private grazing lands in the West, which averaged $20.10 per AUM. The gap has widened considerably since 1981, when the federal fee was 23.79 percent of fees charged on private rangelands. The federal grazing fee is generally also considerably lower than fees charged on state-owned public lands.

3. The federal grazing subsidy is even larger when all costs to the taxpayer are accounted for. Indirect costs for livestock grazing include portions of different federal agencies budgets, such as the USDA Wildlife Services, which expends money to kill thousands of native carnivores each year that may threaten livestock; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which expends part of its budget for listing species as threatened or endangered resulting from harm by livestock grazing; and other federal land management agencies that expend money on wildfire suppression caused by invasive cheat grass that is facilitated by livestock grazing. The full cost of the federal grazing program is long overdue for a complete analysis.

they really just want to be able to use federal land for zero dollars

I was thinking about that yesterday after reading that Bundy had a politician associate in Nevada that was going to try to get the land under state, rather than federal, control. At first I thought it would be to make the land available for sale, but I realized that these guys have no interest in owning it. They're just looking for more convenient ways to, once again, use land they don't own for whatever the hell they want for zero dollars.

to me these people are the very ideal of the "takers" they think they are fighting against. they just want free stuff.

they feel entitled to use land they don't maintain for whatever profit motive, just like their ancestors weren't allowed to do

Look into the history of settlement of the Mountain West to see why the "stay off my land" mindset was fairly prominent. Also, the fact that everything was constructed, from federal subsidies and the Army clearing out the previous inhabitants to mineral/extraction companies paying people to move there and artists to create the idea of "the Old West." They actually paid dudes to paint the legend, and sold people on relocating to the High Plains/Wastelands.

Colin Woodward has a good rundown of this in his American Nations book

Actually, the entire white settler history of the region after a certain point depended on federal support, in the form of railroads & the US Army.

So "grabbing shit you found laying around that someone else paid/fought/died for" has been a thing for quite a while

btw everyone should stop supporting the industry of fattening & murdering cattle altogether just saying

Bacon cheeseburgers > the environment, morality, whatever else you got

the funniest thing about this whole situation is these people who think they should be stewards of the land burned down 130 acres of it. not exactly the best way to make your case for responsible user of land.

The feds plan to freeze the Bundy militia out by cutting their power. The militia, which has occupied a federal building in an Oregon wildlife refuge since January 3, has said that it does not desire an armed confrontation with authorities, and it sounds like its wish will be granted. Rather than firing off tear gas canisters or kicking in doors and storming the building, authorities are instead planning to cut the Bundys’ electricity, then phone service, before shutting off roads to the refuge, according to The Guardian.

An unnamed federal official reportedly told The Guardian, “After [authorities] shut off the power, they’ll kill the phone service,” adding that “then they’ll block all the roads so that all those guys have a long, lonely winter to think about what they’ve done.”

In Harney County, Oregon, where the Bundy group is camped out, January temperatures hover around a 24 degree average, and winter typically brings plenty of snow. Nonetheless, the Bundys told The Guardian they are “ready and waiting” should their electricity be cut off.

xp ...A fire they allegedly set to cover up the illegal slaughter of a bunch of deer? Mmmm, stewardship.

hopefully more crazy militia people will join them and they can all sit in the middle of nowhere freezing for the rest of the winter.

The areas the Bundys/Hammonds have been embroiled in legal action over are the more verdant or, if you look at it another way, economically viable areas. A lot of the BLM areas are desolate, and in years with low rainfall, even some of the areas where they might graze cattle aren't useful for that purpose. Being able to lease rights for grazing in times when it's possible, and then just letting the federal government hold on to what is scrubland at the best of times is actually a pretty sweet deal!

In most of the country you can't even shoot at deer on your own property outside of a set season, and with the exception of some malcontents, that's mostly respected

I'm doubtful that even if they knew the subsidies given to their land-use and his everything else is paid for, they'd drop their protestations. It seems yet another situation where facts won't change shit, since we're into the realm of scared white dudes defending identity-based or tribal issues. Our brains have a habit of jumping to any other rationalization to undergird a tightly held belief.

BLM is directly responsible for a lot of damage too fwiw.

http://sandiegofreepress.org/2016/01/pinyon-juniper-forests-blms-false-claims-to-virtue/

kind of shocked the power was still on but i guess you don't want pipes freezing? these guys' only hope is a confrontation, and it's not going to happen. we should take bets on how long this lasts. i give it 10 days after the power goes out. 3 after the roads are blocked.

depends largely on if they have good internet on their phones

xp thought you were talking about black lives matter and clicked that link with the most confused look on my face

I think they imagine that, in lieu of a bloody confrontation and martyrdom, their epic heroism, continued over a period of months, will inspire an ever-growing movement of resistance to federal tyranny, sparking a revolution that renews and refreshes freedom and democracy nationwide. iow, they are just wanking, as was obvious from the start.

I have a friend who is an econ professor at a land grant state university in the rural western US and some portion of his workload involves outreach via each county's extension office.

Often this means that he meets with ranchers and farmers at town halls and such where they constantly vilify him and the federal government for their onerous taxes and regulations while utterly ignoring or being unable to comprehend that their entire existence is due to the largest water reclamation project in the country and the heavily subsidized irrigation that it provides. His predecessor was so pissed about having to do this sisyphean job for so long that after he retired he still goes to these meetings to yell back at these guys.

so are they still on the hook for going to jail for their fire? and if so, will that now have all this idiocy added to it? i hope they go away for a long time. they are a public danger.

yes, as far as I know they've already reported in for their jail time. the lower court didn't observe the mandatory minimum so they were in for two years, they're on the hook for the remainder of the time. that's all done and taken care of.

xp
the hammonds already reported back to federal prison a couple of days ago and are incarcerated. this wankery won't change that.

xxxp it still amazes me how people can be so blind to the basic facts that form the foundations of their lives.

who do you mean by "they"?

the Hammonds, father and son, reported to jail two days ago

http://abcnews.go.com/US/oregon-ranchers-expected-report-california-prison-amid-armed/story?id=36079385

the Bundy militia people are... different guys

xps ha

afaik, although there's no list of people, there are no Hammond family members (that were not supposed to be incarcerated) present according to reports. pretty sure that's been mentioned in the thread a few times.

these folks see their own day-to-day struggles and they listen to shitheads like Limbaugh who constantly teach them to resent the government and after a certain point, there is no room left in their heads for anything new. they're fully baked and from that point on they can only grow stale.

thanks goole.

yeah its the double standard that is so upsetting. weird there are two BLM's right now. one is protesting very real death and systemic abuse, the other making a violent stink about the right to ignore law and order.

I have a friend who is an econ professor at a land grant state university in the rural western US and some portion of his workload involves outreach via each county's extension office.

Often this means that he meets with ranchers and farmers at town halls and such where they constantly vilify him and the federal government for their onerous taxes and regulations while utterly ignoring or being unable to comprehend that their entire existence is due to the largest water reclamation project in the country and the heavily subsidized irrigation that it provides. His predecessor was so pissed about having to do this sisyphean job for so long that after he retired he still goes to these meetings to yell back at these guys.

― joygoat, Wednesday, January 6, 2016 12:49 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this is... it's so bizarre. i think a big part of the problem is how the symbology and mythology of the west both enables the situation and is deeply contradictory / anathema to it. if you hold it close you're a deeply deluded fool who is going to be coddled enough to keep the illusion out there but mostly exploited in real terms. if you do see it and you still want to be a part of it you have to be cynical. there's a rot that happens as a result. imo the original sin is a genocide that has never been openly acknowledged / dealt with. i mean it's basically a colonial nightmare.

to me its scary these militia people are bringing this stuff across state lines. they want to create an interstate threat.

smh adam blm stands for bureau of land administration

adam can you take a nap and come back to this or something

Bureau of Land Management

this is old by a day or so but I love its ignorance

After Bundy defended his decision to lead a small militia to take over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, Kelly challenged him.

"You know the argument on the other side, which is, these ranchers — whom you support but are not directly involved — had their day in court. And they were found guilty, and it went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied their appeal. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work in our country when it comes to the rule of law?" she asked.

"Yeah, well let me ask you — and I’m sure you know the answer, but who was the plaintiff?" Bundy asked in response.

After a pause, Kelly told Bundy to "keep going."

And when Bundy asked the same question again, Kelly took another brief pause.

"I’m waiting for you to make your point. Generally I don’t answer the questions on my show; I ask them," she said.

"Oh, I mean, it was asked intending to be answered, but the plaintiff is the federal government," Bundy said in response, adding that there is no "proper redress" for the people in such situations.

NO REDRESS. except for multiple appeals all the way up to the fucking supreme court.

right thx i'm typing during a meeting and got distracted midway thru the acronym xp

One of the sustaining myths out here in the rural west is "I work damn hard, constantly, so all my success is due to my hard work." This is, of course, a very self-flattering myth and thus very appealing. After all, most ranchers do work damn hard.

The fact is that most homesteaders in the same areas worked much harder, lived on a much smaller real income, failed in spite of backbreaking toil, and had to move away because the land would not support them no matter how hard they worked. The successful homesteaders usually succeeded because they got onto the right parcel of land, bought out their failing neighbors for a song, and hung on by their fingernails until WWI brought a commodities boom. Even then, they barely survived until the federal government programs of the New Deal put the local economies on a more stable footing.

after he retired he still goes to these meetings to yell back at these guys.

I love this

local native tribe says "get the hell out"

Burns tribe says armed activists 'desecrating' Oregon land

<3

OK so these Hammond guys aren't so great either

(trigger warning: descriptions of child abuse)

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/04/3735722/meet-the-child-abusing-arsonists-at-the-center-of-the-oregon-militia-standoff/

"I work damn hard, constantly, so all my success is due to my hard work."

one of the sustaining myths of capitalism even

Yup

Colin Meloy of the Decembrists has been tweeting erotic fan fiction about the Malheur standoff.

@colinmeloy
"Jason pressed Jed against a rack of "Birds of Oregon" books; his breath was sweet with jerky. Somewhere, an egret cried" ‪#‎bundyeroticfanfic‬

Apologies if this has already been linked, but this is a good 'splainer: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/upshot/why-the-government-owns-so-much-land-in-the-west.html.

Among other things, it notes that the ranchers couldn't afford to buy the land, and it would cost states too much to administer it, so it would be tricky for the feds to dispose of even if they wanted to.

that's a very strange notion, since, you know, the government itself is setting the price for the land. either it isn't priced to market or it's implied that other parties (but not the ranchers) would be able to buy the land.

When Astroturf Patsies Go Rogue lol

If the federal government were to divest itself of federal lands directly to private ownership, they would sell it in such enormous parcels that only banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, or pension funds could afford to bid on them. These owners would, in their turn, go about maximizing their profits on those lands as they saw fit. Handing them over to ranchers at bargain prices seems like the most unlikely outcome of all. More likely the new owners would just put up no trespassing signs and sit on their investment, if it didn't yield an immediate 30% profit.

That's why the Bundy types want the lands turned over to the local counties. Lots of these counties are very sparsely populated, so it would be relatively easy to capture county government with just a small amount of horse-trading, back-scratching, and a healthy dose of voter intimidation whenever needed. Just the way the KKK worked in the Jim Crow south.

Is this a really dull story? Feels like one.

you're bored of it, congratulations