The Cause – What To Do?
The Cause – What To Do?
Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
June 12, 2017
I have been writing about the Bundy Affair since April 12, 2014 and the Burns Chronicles since February 2, 2016. Both evolved out of a common grievance, Public Lands, and the rights that are inherent in them. There are other commonalities, such as some of the players involved in both events and the fact that both had left behind the concept of Civil Disobedience and had entered the realm of Civil Defiance. Those players, unlike most other patriots, had moved along “The Other (not so) Thin Line” to a point where their actions were intended to speak louder than their words.
The first event, in Nevada, the Bundy Affair, was an evolution from an event back in 1993 when Cliven Bundy, supported by hundreds of patriots who went to his ranch to side with him, defied the federal government and first stood for his right to continue both grazing and water permits necessary to continue his ranching business. Cliven Bundy’s right to his historical use of the public lands culminated on April 12, 2014, or so we thought, in the “Unrustling” of the cattle that had been rustled by agents of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
In 2015, in Oregon, Dwight and Steven Hammond had been “resentenced” for a “crime”, though they had already served their time. Their “crime” was the use of controlled burn and backfire to do what ranchers and the BLM have done for over a century. The first is to destroy unwanted vegetation, the second, to control an existing fire in order to protect property.
This was not the beginning of their ordeal with the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Their ordeal began almost a decade before Cliven Bundy’s first confrontation with an out of control federal government. The FWS had been trying to restrict the Hammond’s ranching by cutting of water supply, fencing public corridors, and requiring annual licensing for what were perpetual rights to Public Land Usage. “The Harassment of the Hammonds” dates back to October 1986.
For all intents, the Hammonds were tried, sentenced, served their time, and left prison as free men. The government waited until all of this was done before filing an appeal to the Appellate Court, contending that they should have been sentenced according to the Sentencing Guidelines. Funny, the word guidelines isn’t mandatory, simply a guide. But, more on that in a future article.
The resentencing of the Hammonds raised the indignation of some of those players from the Bundy Affair, and others who had, possibly a result of what they witnessed in April 2014, moved further along that “Thin Line”. Unable to convince the Hammonds that they should not turn themselves in for the additional 4+ years they would now have to serve, the objective changed to the FWS, the aggressors against the Hammonds.
There had been a planned demonstration in support of the Hammonds scheduled for January 2, 2016, just two days before they were to turn themselves over to the US Marshal Service to begin their second punishment for the first crime. This demonstration, like many others, was Civil Disobedience. However, behind the scenes, a plan of Civil Defiance had been hatched. It was left to those who either went to Burns, Oregon, before or after the January 2 event to decide just how far along that “Thin Line” they had moved. Unfortunately, many who claim that they are “fed up with the Feds” are not fully committed to action. Instead, they chose to act big and criticize what was acted out by those who were more committed and chose to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (MNWR), an FWS facility about thirty miles south of Burns, and the adversary of the Hammonds rights for three decades.
For nearly a month, the Civil Defiance brought attention to the country, and the world, that the historical rights of Public Land usage were being trampled upon by the government. The government, possibly absent any legal standing to deal with the occupation of the MNWR, chose to ambush a two vehicle, eight-person convoy going to a public event in John Day, Grant County, north of Burns.
Lying to the Oregon State Police (OSP), the FBI claimed that they were making a “felony stop” (legally, to stop the completion of a felony) and/or to serve an arrest warrant. The warrant, however, was not issued until after seven were arrested and one murdered, while in transit to the event in John Day.