Bundy Ranch Standoff

[Farm_or]

I missed the earlier conversation because I was too busy working. That is what I have to offer to this story.

This all went down in my backyard, my hometown. I grew up on a ranch in harney county.

Every "hard working" rancher I know would be too busy taking care of the cows to start a range war over low, low cost grazing fees. Or start a fire on the prairie.

Government overreaching goes with the territory. So does ranching over bolding. Many of gunsmoke episodes written about cattleman greed. Might is not right, but you have to be careful with picking your battles.

[Riggerjack]

This all went down in my backyard, my hometown. I grew up on a ranch in harney county.

Busy working? But you were needed here!

If you go through the thread, there's some confusion about grazing, DNR land and subsidies, from a few members just speculating and linking (yeah, mainly me.)

How far off were we? This is really your area of expertise, isn't it?

[Riggerjack]

So I read the Oregon live article. It seemed... biased and not quite accurate.

But then I thought I'd look at what Google had. Just more partisan clickbaity "news sites". Some with the same story word for word. But then I found this article:
https://thewashingtonstandard.com/inves ... -evidence/
Also from that kind of site. But if you can read between the lines, it looks about as messed up as it did back when this was going down.

The leader of the feds gets fired for stealing the (low value)evidence in a separate case, where he bragged about hounding a suspect until he committed suicide. Could be coincidence, except that he bragged about 2 others, as well. I don't have unrealistic expectations of law enforcement, but bragging about hounding people until they commit suicide isn't the kind of thing I would look to promote. I certainly wouldn't think, "massive fed display of power, this guy seems like he'll handle that responsibility with aplomb." Which kinda reaffirms the narrative that they were there for a Waco re-enactment.

I'd be interested in the 18 page report that the story was taken from. Currently, this Wooten guy sounds like a disgruntled, really petty dickhead. But that's what I got from a biased reporter, going through looking for "gotchas" to make the story.

For instance, this insistence that investigators not giving exculpatory evidence to the prosecutor is some kind of malfeasance worthy of a mistrial.

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the defense gets whatever evidence that the prosecutor gets. And that investigators investigate the crimes, make a case, and run it past the DAs office to see if that's enough to prosecute. There is no obligation, nor is it in the investigator's interest to weaken his case by revealing any weaknesses to the prosecutor that the defense is unlikely to discover. (The real reason that the poor are disproportionately represented in our justice system is the defense of the poor have few resources to discover much of anything, so they are just easier targets)

So, I don't know if the reporter doesn't know better, just thinks his readers won't know better, or if I'm just wrong on that point.

Is there a lawyer in the house?

[George the original one]

So I read the Oregon live article. It seemed... biased and not quite accurate.
[...]
So, I don't know if the reporter doesn't know better, just thinks his readers won't know better, or if I'm just wrong on that point.

You're making the mistake of conflating the memo contents with the reporter relating what's in the memo. The entire article is a condensed version of what is in the memo and the reporter has not added anything to that report other than remarks in court from judge, defense, & prosecutor. Short of including the entire memo, there is no way to make the article less biased in my opinion.

Now if you found that the condensed version omitted major statements or misquoted the memo, then that would show bias.

On the other hand, in TheWashingtonStandard article, definitely has colored statements from its reporter, where the reporter makes a judgement of the lead federal agent outside the quoted memo. This is something the reader could do on their own and thus crosses the line from reporting and goes on into the grounds of an editorial.

[Farm_or]

@Riggerjack Sorry, didn't read the whole six pages of comments. Don't know if I fully understand your question.

Grazing public land? It's not too complicated. It's certainly not expensive. It is a bargain half the time and necessary to stay in business the other half. Ranchers and Farmers are the only producers that pay retail for all their inputs, but sell at wholesale. Grazing public land is one exception.

There's limitations and most ranchers don't like limitations. And there's federal employees with Napoleon syndrome.

The big issue is the huge land grabbing going on by the feds. Most locals want state owned land to succeed the feds. Funny how much that is out of whack here in the West?

[Riggerjack]

You're making the mistake of conflating the memo contents with the reporter relating what's in the memo. The entire article is a condensed version of what is in the memo and the reporter has not added anything to that report other than remarks in court from judge, defense, & prosecutor. Short of including the entire memo, there is no way to make the article less biased in my opinion.

Well, I haven't seen the original document, so I don't know. When it gets to be available, I'll read it and see.

My complaint was just based on the feel of the condensed version. Condensing is really editing. Bias can be pretty clearly read in editing. Read the same story on huffpo and the Washington Post, and this is perfectly clear. I don't object to the bias, and in fact agree with some of it, but since there was no effort at neutrality, I felt I should point that out in th same post as the link.
Kinda like an old guy's version of a trigger warning.

[Riggerjack]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nyt ... l.amp.html

Woo-hoo! The Bundy's got a mistrial!

I mean, they were guilty as hell, but so was OJ. OJ got off because of the general distrust of the LAPD to act professionally. Now it looks like the Feds are suffering from the "Reno effect" (TM).

I find myself amused by the reporting, again. In the times article, they said "For two decades, Mr. Bundy grazed his cattle on federal land but refused to pay grazing fees, insisting that he did not have to because he had inherited water rights on the land. In 2014, the Bureau of Land Management seized his cows in an attempt to force him to pay, but hundreds of antigovernment activists, many of them carrying guns, rallied to the cause and went to the family ranch until the confrontation ended with the withdrawal of federal agents."

Which doesn't match up at all with what I remember of the case. As I remember it, he had been grazing there for decades, and BLM tried to shut him down so a senator could work a deal for solar power in the same area. Bundy kept sending checks to someone local, who wasn't doing anything with them. Then, a few contract cowboys and a few hundred heavily Armed Federal agents, came to peaceably sieze property, and maybe paint the desert red. But I admit to not following this after the Bundy BS in Oregon.

I'm no fan of these Jokers, but I'm glad to see that hundreds of Feds rolling on an isolated family worked out poorly for the Feds. It would be nice to think the "overwhelming firepower and kill all the witnesses" play got removed from the Fed playbooks, but I really doubt it.

The Oregonian had another, much better article a few days after JP's link above.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/articles.o ... t_supe.amp

I'm still not sure about this Wooten guy. 10 years as a marine officer, 14 in law enforcement, and still offended by a douchebag's pep talk. Something there just doesn't seem right.

I have no doubt that he (Love) said to kick em in the teeth, that he was over aggressive, that putting the little people in their place was exactly what the goal was. If it wasn't, Love wouldn't be the guy. But guys like Love are the guys that go for those kinds of jobs. Keeping them on the leash is why we pay the rest of the chain of command.

This whole situation seems to have come about because too many people in our government think of the citizens as little people. The kind that can be bullied and killed, with no repercussions. I don't think this incident will change that, but it's a start.

[Farm_or]

Respect goes two ways.

[enigmaT120]

"The big issue is the huge land grabbing going on by the feds."

If you mean the federal government managing public lands, I'm all for it. The land grab I read about sounds like the ranchers want the public (my) land to be put under more local control, ideally the ranchers themselves. It's the opposite of federal land grabbing. What am I missing?

[CS]

If you mean the federal government managing public lands, I'm all for it. The land grab I read about sounds like the ranchers want the public (my) land to be put under more local control, ideally the ranchers themselves.

+1 I'm in no mood to subsidize these folks. To me, it sounds like pure entitlement, in the real sense of the word (i.e. they put nothing in, but expect all the benefits).

[BRUTE]

45% of California, 85% of Arizona belong to the federal government, according to some websites. similar in all western states. brute finds these numbers unreasonably high.

[Gilberto de Piento]

What is the appropriate percentage of land for the federal government to hold? I'm happy with the govt taking care of the land and allowing room for reasonable recreation and responsible resource extraction. If they sold it off it would just get bought up by rich people and everyone else would be left to fight over the scraps. It's good for people to have a place where they can dirt bag in a van and good for there to be some places that are just natural open space.

The welfare ranchers should pay their fair share just like everyone else. I always laugh at their "independence" when their business model only works with free/nearly free land.

[jennypenny]

That's a tough one. Commercial fishing mostly takes place in 'public' water. I'm not saying that the government should relinquish publicly-held lands. I just wonder if its use should be managed better. If we allowed chicken farmers to operate on public lands, would we be able to curtail factory farming? I would be in favor of that and would see it as a good use of public lands.

[nestbuilder]

As a former commerical fisherwoman I can assure you that at least in my experience, fishing in those public waters was highly regulated. And depending on the runs, you could be told you couldn't fish or that areas were off limits. I would also add that after the Boldt decision Native American fishing rights were formally recognized and actually honored. Many commerical fisher people have seen the boom bust cycle and the perilous drop in populations from poor management, short-sighted greed and habitat destruction. They certainly don't depend on the public giving up the sea for their personal gain or handouts from the government to maintain their unique culture and way of life.

[Gilberto de Piento]

I'm not a poultry expert but I don't think chickens will thrive living free-range in the desert.

Management is tough because "better" can mean a lot of things. I want to preserve a few places without signs of people. The Bundys want free grazing land. Others want to preserve endangered species (the desert tortoise is related to the Bundy drama). The Sierra Club is down with hiking but not mountain biking. The off roaders want to make trails everywhere. The shooters want to drop old cars and fridges out in the desert and recreate Fallujah. The miners want to extract metals and leave dangerous tailings with no regard for the future.

The job of the government is to mediate all of this and make sure everyone gets something (no one is totally happy). Government protection is needed because the free market has been shown to not be enough.

[jennypenny]

As I said, I'm hoping for better management -- not a free market solution. And of course I didn't intend to raise chickens in the desert.

I know the extent to which fishing is regulated and don't think that kind of regulation is bad in meat production. I think there is a way to manage the land better. I can agree with on that point and still think that the authorities handled the Bundy situation poorly. That kind of public mismanagement is why people lose trust in the government and don't want them owning/regulating more land.

We're having this discussion in Stepford right now. Our town, like many, owns 'preserved farmland'. In Stepford, they mostly grow corn on that land because it looks country-ish and is usually what was grown on those fields before. The discussion now is that if the town is going to spend money annually doing something with those fields anyway, is there a better use for them? Should we naturalize them? Develop bee and bird habitats? Use them for organic farming? Install solar farms?

I think this is a good discussion and one that we should be having on a national level as well. FYI ... most of the more right-leaning people in my world thought Trump's move giving that land back in Utah was a bad call. You wouldn't get knee-jerk pushback from that 'side'. I don't see why we (the public) can't agree on some scheme where (just an example) 1/3 is preserved for public use, 1/3 is preserved for agricultural use, and 1/3 is preserved for wind/solar power ... all managed properly so that we don't have swaths of solar panels across Badlands Nat'l Park.

[CS]

Personally, as a stakeholder in public lands, I'd like to see none of it developed. We don't need more industry. Very rapidly, these untouched lands are going to be the real wealth... more valuable than anything else.

Considering that we actually have enough for everyone right now, it feels ridiculous (to me) to even be having this discussion. The problem I see is not plundering the land for more, but rather learning to share what we have, i.e. corporations can pay their fair share of taxes for the infrastructure they make their money off of. Ditto for small businesses (the amount I'd be saving if working under that tax bill is downright ridiculously high - and I'm small change for a business).

Also, the argument that the Federal government owns too much land makes no sense to me. The short answer is 'so what?' The long answer is that this sounds like the same argument used to take the land away from the Indians: They didn't know how to use it, they didn't use it, etc. You get the point. The difference here is that there are 300+million stakeholders, many of whom are lawyers who know how to work the system. And thank goodness for that.

[Gilberto de Piento]

I thought "chickens in the desert" because I thought we were talking about federal lands in the west since that is where the controversy is. Most of those lands are high desert, alpine, very steep or otherwise difficult to access and develop with little in the way of ag land. Plenty of it is available for grazing and logging in general although I'm sure there are local places where someone would like to log or graze but can't for whatever reason.

There isn't a lot of fed land east of the Mississippi and only the hardest core of libertarians are arguing the Eastern lands should be sold off or otherwise managed as something other than parkland.

[jennypenny]

Sorry if I misunderstood.

[BRUTE]

What is the appropriate percentage of land for the federal government to hold?

this will depend on the political ideals of the beholder. in brute's eyes, the appropriate involvement of the government in anything is 0%. in communism, the percentage would be 100%. 85% in Arizona sounds a lot closer to communism than to what brute thinks makes sense.

property rights are tricky. there doesn't seem to be a framework that many humans agree on. brute finds the idea that all land belongs to the government unless they let citizens have it repulsive and morally wrong. it is like saying all humans are slaves unless given freedom.

to brute, putting anything under government control is admitting failure, and it should be a temporary and well thought-out measure, because government is inherently immoral, inefficient, and cancerous.

the whole Bundy fiasco is just another indication to brute that publicly managed land can't be managed well.