By Anthony Dephue
A citizen submits a letter to the Idaho Statesman’s editor suggesting
that now that Cliven Bundy is behind bars, his assets should be seized
to repay his outstanding debt related to the non-payment of grazing
fees. (The editorial submission can be found here.)
What has always baffled me is why the Federal Government didn't take a
similar course of action to begin with. It is well documented that they
paid a Utah contractor in either 2012 (for the canceled roundup) or in
2014 almost $900K. Given that they claim such an egregious level of
negligence from Bundy regarding the condition of the herd, it doesn't
seem to me that the operation ever had a chance of achieving financial
solvency. The figures I saw for the value of the herd was somewhere
around $1M. Basically the Government hired a contractor for $1M to round
up $1M in cattle to satisfy a $1M debt. That doesn't even factor in the
logistics involved in aerial surveillance of the herd and all of the
personnel who showed up to enforce the roundup; I doubt they volunteered
their time or used vacation to offset their wage losses. Prices were
high in 2014 and the cattle would have fetched top dollar (assuming
people were willing to buy rustled cattle); but fetching more than
$2M... doesn't seem plausible.
Continuing with the fiscally doomed plan, they are captured on camera
using Tasers and canines on protesters, including the incident where the
woman was thrown to the ground. Stumbling along, they set up
cordoned-off "First Amendment Zones" apparently thinking that people
would just saunter on over and express their displeasure from there.
Actively engaged in a heavy-handed, militaristic show of force... they
become dumbfounded and shocked when people from all over the West show
up armed to the teeth; an action which, in and of itself, is not
unlawful.
I saw the "First Amendment Zone" on Friday morning, 11 April 2014 and
made preparations to drive through the night to go down there and kick
down those signs. I didn't go, but some who did found themselves the
next day standing on a bridge where agents looking like they just rolled
out of a deployment from Afghanistan say over a loudspeaker that the
people under I-15 were in danger of being subjected to gas or lethal
force if they did not disperse. Take a second to soak that in. A group
of men, women, and minor children... walking toward an area where
Bundy's cattle were corralled, a lot of them hands up, are told that
they could be shot and killed for protesting.
That is the whole context for the images that the media have run wild
with. Did individuals on and around the bridge point weapons at Federal
Agents? Yes. The next question should be, "Why?".
Coming full circle... these agencies have broad powers to obtain
remuneration for debts owed to the government. They can lien real
property, seize cash from bank accounts, withhold tax returns, deny or
garnish entitlement benefits, dissolve corporate entities, and the list
goes on.
Rather than take one or more of those approaches, they show up with
helicopters and guns, react violently to protestors, and then announce
that they will just kill them if they come any closer to the corral.
This is lawlessness. Pointing weapons at protesters and announcing that
you will shoot them is lawlessness. This is why what happened on the
bridge transpired the way it did. The images of people on the bridge
with weapons were images of people reasonably in fear for their lives
and the lives of those under the overpass. They truly believed that a
loud smack or a backfiring vehicle could have caused those people to be
subjected to deadly force.
Twenty people have been rounded up in connection with the events of that
situation. They are buried under an avalanche of excessive litigation
and yet the individuals who executed a dangerous, foolhardy, bone-headed
plan that endangered the lives of employee and civilian alike, all with
no possible outcome of financial solvency, continue their careers with
tacit impunity.
oped: Note: It came full circle and ended badly with the shooting of LaVoy Finicum see:
http://sharlaslabyrinth.blogspot.com/2016/03/new-video-proves-that-fbi-shooting-of.html
http://sharlaslabyrinth.blogspot.com/2016/03/widow-of-murdered-patriot-files.html
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