It’s interesting that the Clive Bundy militia group has decided that they have the right to the land there around that building, and that their claim is somehow more valid than the claim of the Federal Government. The real spiritual owners of that land should not be invading ranchers, whose only claim truly stems from their forefather invading via Federal government mandate. The true spiritual owners of that land are the Paiute nation and their people. If anyone has a right to that land it is them. It is also strange to me that we still have not called in any Federal forces to retake the land that is  being held.

The fact that the only true legal claim stands with the Federal Government who created false treaties and other documents to support their claims. People living there have no reason other than their own government to claim any kind of ownership over the land. The government could simply seize any surrounding lands through eminent domain. Further, the full plenary power of congress can be brought to bear on any citizen, and no citizen is immune from the laws that govern these United States.

The fact of the matter is that the people who the militia is supposedly standing up for do not even want them there. If that is the case then who exactly are they fighting for? Ranchers according to them, though it does not make very much sense to fight for the ranchers who have stated that they do not support the militia. They must fight for something else then, perhaps the idea of free ranchers. If they are fighting for the idea of ranchers be allowed their opinions and land undisturbed, then it is a curious thing that they choose to disturb the land of ranchers and then disregard rancher backlash in order to make their point.

They may then claim they’re “giving them a taste of their own medicine!” but that does not hold up either. The ranchers in this case were found guilty of federal crimes with mandatory minimum sentences, somewhat like the drug sentencing in the war on drugs. The ranchers managed to weasel out of the mandatory minimum somehow, which is not how the justice system is supposed to work. If you commit a crime with a mandatory minimum then you are legally required to serve that sentence, other considerations be damned. The government has not committed a crime the way that these ranchers have, except perhaps against the Native Americans who they swindled for the land. If anyone deserves to occupy that land, then it is Native Americans, specifically Paiutes. So in truth, in order to give the Government a taste of its own medicine, and truly represent the spiritual owners of the land, they would have to be fighting for Native Americans, not ranchers.

There are the conspiracy theories about how these ranchers are being land grabbed, and that may have a seed of truth. The government is known for its land grabs if we look back to how the government obtained that land in the first place. What I do not understand is what makes these men think that they are so damn special that Native Americans can have their land grabbed and then think its a good thing, while if it happens to non Indian ranchers then it is the tyranny of the government. The fact that these people are whining that men who belong in jail for their offenses are being pushed is hysterical looking at the broad history of the area, where the land was stolen blatantly without any justification.

Perhaps they are more kindred with the federal government than they realize, as they have now reenacted the taking of the land from Native people. They have come with guns and foisted the current, and Federally true, owners off of the land. When Native Americans would try to take back their land in order to peaceably live in the land of their childhoods they were often rounded up, shot, and if they survived were sent to internment camps. I doubt that this will happen in modern America, as the government is far more crafty than that. Perhaps there should be an indigenous protest, one that is truly peaceful and does not demand the fear and insecurity that the scared, armed white men represent.

White men can carry guns to their protests, though I would not recommend that to any people of color. I would not even recommend a toy gun when facing down any law enforcement, unless of course you are a white men, simply exercising his privilege under the 2nd amendment. It will be an interesting day when minorities are able to exercise that right too.