Outpost of Freedom blog

The Bundy Affair #10
Again?

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
April 18, 2016

My last article in “The Bundy Affair” was published on October 31, 2014.  That article was “The Revenge of the BLM“, when the Bureau of Land Management tried to promulgate new rules, in favor of critters and against the People of this country.  Their effort failed, and, well, I thought that was the end of the story.

Unfortunately, the government, like a spoiled child, does not like to lose, even when they are wrong.  It appears that we have returned to that age when the King can do no wrong, and when the people do stand up to them, forcing them into compliance with the Constitution and the limitations imposed on them by that document, their vindictiveness does not abate.

The incident that garnered the attention of the country, and much of the world, culminating in the “Unrustling” of the Bundy cattle that had been rustled by the BLM (yes, illegally taking cattle and attempting to bypass Health and Brand inspections is rustling), on April 12, 2014, was, as all assumed, the end of the affair.

When a crime is committed, the government’s obligation is to take the matter before a Grand Jury, obtain an Indictment, and prosecute those who have committed the crime.  Justice should be swift, and the government’s duty is to pursue that justice, if there is a crime, in a timely manner.

On January 2, 2016, Ammon Bundy and others, in an effort to bring attention to another abuse by the government, took over the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in Harney County, Oregon.  That effort culminated in the arrest of a number of people in a roadside ambush that resulted in the murder of LaVoy Finicum.  The government claims that they had cause to arrest those people, though they had failed to secure arrest warrants until AFTER the incident on U. S. Highway 395, north of Burns, Oregon.

The charges that were first addressed on the arrest warrants, when finally issued, were based upon a single count, a violation of 18 US Code § 372.  The desperation, on the part of government to find a crime, when probably none existed (they have yet to come up with a reasonable indication of criminal activity, though they have added five other counts in a Oregon Superseding Indictment filed over a month later), demonstrates that the government often puts the cart before the horse.

Nearly one year and ten months after the closing of the “Unrustling” event, the government dusted off their spite and filed a Criminal Complaint and Arrest Warrant against, wait for it, only Cliven Bundy.  On February 11, 2016, in the dead of night, as Cliven got off an airplane in Portland, Oregon, he was arrested for alleged crimes committed two year prior.  Nobody else was named or arrested, or included in the Complaint.

Six days later, on February 17, Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Ryan Payne, and Peter Santilli were included in the Criminal Indictment.  Then, once again, the plot thickens when a Superseding Indictment added another 14 names to those who will be held to stand trial for alleged crimes committed in the distant past.

We must wonder if it really took the government that long to figure out that there might have been criminal acts committed by the now 19 defendants.

Perhaps the Nevada US Attorneys weren’t creative enough to figure out if a crime had been committed, and when the charges were brought in Oregon, they said, “We can use that same statute!”

Or, are we living in a police state where the government can do what it wants, when it wants, without regard to the very document that created that government, the Constitution for the United States of America?

Perhaps the North Carolina Supreme Court had it right when the North Carolina legislature enacted a law that deprived absent Tories of their property.  This was in violation of both the Treaty of Paris (ending the war with Great Britain) and the Declarations of Rights* in the North Carolina Constitution.  The North Carolina Supreme Court addressed the state legislature’s enacting an unconstitutional law when they said, in Bayard v. Singleton [1 N.C. 42] 1787

But that it was clear that no act they [the Legislature] could pass could by any means repeal or alter the constitution, because if they could do this, they would at the same instant of time destroy their own existence as a legislature and dissolve the government thereby established. 

That document, when it created the government, granted them certain powers and authorities, and it imposed certain limitations on them.  So, that same principle apply, today?

Only if we make it so.

The Plan for Restoration of Constitutional Government.

* North Carolina Declaration of Rights:

12. That no freeman ought to be taken, imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges, or outlawed or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, or deprived of his life, liberty or property, but by the law of the land.