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

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."