Bundy clan patriarch Cliven Bundy weighed in on Tuesday on the arrests of his two sons, Ammon and Ryan, who had been occupying a wildlife refuge in Burns, Oregon, and the death of one of the group’s members in a shoot-out with authorities. Cliven Bundy is the rancher whose failure to pay grazing fees sparked another standoff at his Nevada ranch last year. In response to the law enforcement crack-down at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a nearly month-long stand-off in Oregon, Bundy said he thought it was a “wake up call.”…. Bundy made his recent comments to the Las Vegas Review-Journal…. “This whole battle is over a constitutional issue where the federal government has no rights within the state or at least rights in a sovereign state,” he said. “This is a total disaster to be happening in America where we have I’m guessing federal people killing innocent people.”
It would be difficult to overstate what a thoroughly pathetic and impotent figure Cliven Bundy cuts. Besides believing that getting something for nothing isn’t a problem as long as he’s the one benefitting, he also fancies himself something of a Constitutional scholar.
Evidently convinced of the unassailable moral and divine superiority of his self-absorbed “something for nothing” ideology, Bundy seems to have lost sight of the fact the this is a country governed by the rule of law. That means believing something to be wrong doesn’t ipso facto convey upon one the right to attempt to “fix” the problem via force of arms. Bundy, the pater familias for a movement composed largely of angry White men who “want to take their country back,” seems to lack a basic comprehension of both the Constitution and the rule of law. To say the federal government “has no rights within the state or at least rights in a sovereign state” is as laughable as it isjust plain wrong. The Property Clause of the Constitution expressly lays out the justification for federal land ownership.
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States….
ARTICLE IV, SECTION 3, CLAUSE 2, U.S. Constitution
Then again, what else might you reasonably expect from the leader of a movement which believes that the highest law enforcement officer in the land is the county sheriff? What’s a self-interested, cherry-picked interpretation of the Constitution between friends…right?
“Isn’t this a wonderful country we live in?” he sarcastically asked the Los Angeles Times. About the death of LaVoy Finicum in a shoot-out with police, he said, “We believe that those federal people shouldn’t even be there in that state, and be in that county and have anything to do with this issue. … I have some sons and other people there trying to protect our rights and liberties and freedoms, and now we’ve got one killed, and all I can say is, he’s sacrificed for a good purpose.”
He told the Review-Journal his sons and others were there to “do good, no harm was intended. They would never threaten anybody.”
Bundy may well “believe that those federal people shouldn’t even be there in that state, and be in that county and have anything to do with this issue.” He can believe the moon is made of Camembert if it gives his life meaning and purpose- but that doesn’t make him an astronomer. Far from it. The federal government absolutely has the constitutional right to be in Harney County. Try as he might, Bundy has no convincing argument available to him…except for the pocket-sized Constitution he has a habit of misinterpreting when it suits his purpose.
He also doesn’t get to claim that the occupiers weren’t harassing anyone, when it appears they were heavily invested in doing just that.
Nor does he possess the unassailable right to turn LaVoy Finicum into some sort of martyr for the cause. While details are still sketchy (the FBI has released the video of the confrontation), it does appear that Finicum died while resisting arrest. To claim that he was “murdered,” as some sympathizers have done, is to engage in flights of fancy designed only to ignore the truth and support the dominant narrative that the evil, nasty feds are out to kill patriots.
The occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge aren’t heroes, just as LaVoy Finicum is no martyr. They’re criminals fighting “tyranny” by undermining democracy. They deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Period. End of story.
In the end, Cliven Bundy remains a sad, pathetic man peddling ignorance and the belief that “something for nothing” isn’t a problem as long as he and good, God-fearing, White Christian patriots are the ones benefitting.
