I’m not really outraged, more like bemused over the outrage that Americans aren’t reacting the same way towards people who haven’t killed anybody but do oppose the federal government that we do to people who do kill ordinary civilian Americans.
I’m not really outraged, more like bemused over the outrage that Americans aren’t reacting the same way towards people who haven’t killed anybody but do oppose the federal government that we do to people who do kill ordinary civilian Americans.
I’m bemused that the usual complainers about overcriminalization and oversentencing, don’t see it as such when it’s about someone not in “their own group.” If that’s how things are going to shake out, then it’s probably worth no effort to think about criminal law reform.
I’m not sure it’s quite that simple. Absolute libertarians on drug use could well complain about overcriminalization and oversentencing in those areas without agreeing with the Oregon militias about land use and armed civil disobedience. Said another way, they may believe that there are differing classes of behaviors that deserve different treatment.
Meh. I think the proper way, mostly, to handle the Oregon guys is to make fun of them. Bunch of fat guys with guns living out some fantasy. Let’s airdrop some video games and costumes for them. My general theory is that if you are outraged over something you are probably being manipulated.
Steve
The story itself doesn’t actually interest me that much, steve. The reactions to the story do a little. People saying that they should be treated like DAESH? Blimey!
I’m amused by the people that kept insisting that the protests in Ferguson & Baltimore were largely peaceful except for a “few frustrated individuals” are acting as though the Oregon situation is worse than 9/11. But mostly I don’t care, as it looks like another case in the ongoing story of the federal government owning vast chunks of the west of the country, which as a Southerner I don’t have any interest in.
By “treated like DAESH” do they mean the US government should supply them with arms indirectly and then use million dollar bombs to blow up their pickup trucks?
As far as I can tell, these guys are basically small-time feudal warlords who think they can muscle in on the federal government. They don’t seem to have much respect for actual property rights.
It also doesn’t sound like they have much of a plan or a clue, which is working in their favor as the authorities seem to be pretty baffled.
Of course, if armed deluded twenty-something environmentalists entered an Exxon corporate office at night and took it over as protest over the company’s whitewash of its scientists views on climate change, I’m guessing there would be a much different reaction from the people stressing the peaceful part.
The same goes with the major crime of being in this country illegally.
In related news immigration placed 4th on Gallup’s list of the country’s greatest threats, the first time it has made the top four in eight years. The government was at the top of the list.
“the Oregon militias about land use and armed civil disobedience.”
The underlying criminal case wasn’t about that though. The defendants set fire to their own land, which spread on to federal land. The judge applied the federal sentencing guidelines, and found that zero to six months was appropriate for the 73 year old father, and eight to fourteen months for his son. The sentence was overturned because an anti-terrorist law required a minimum five years. For conduct that the government agreed improved federal land, they got heaped in with terrorists setting fire to a government office building.
Granted the agitators bring in all of the larger issues, but the spark here is simply over-criminalization on private land. I think at least some strains of the more cosmopolitan libertarians use drugs or have friends/family use drugs, but see farmers and ranchers as welfare cases.
The government was at the top of the list.
America’s greatest threat is its government? What does that mean? What are the respondents afraid of? Being locked away like Chelsea Manning for giving up state secrets? No–I’m guessing they’re afraid that ‘government’ is undercutting ‘the American way of life’, which is just a way to say nothing.
If you ask people who are not being threatened what is threatening them they’re going to name generic villains. We(or some people do) wish to believe it’s government because government, on paper, is the most malleable, especially when it’s transformed into an ideology.
If I had to pick the Greatest Threat to the country, it would be the fact that the only human trait that seems to count is fear.
I suspect there’s a word – and I suspect Dave may know it – that encapsulates the belief that naming something X rather than Y effectively alters reality. I grant there’s some truth to it, but far less than people seem to believe. People on the Right are obsessed with the notion that if we just say, “Islamic terrorism,” everything will be fine; people on the Left demand we call this, “Domestic terrorism.”
It strikes me as magical thinking. I can call my wife Beyoncé and myself Lord of Tiburon but it doesn’t get breakfast made.
There are a number of interrelated words. One of the meanings of “reification” is the belief that giving something a name means that it exists. The idea of a “true name” for things that affects their nature is “magical thinking”. Also “associative thinking”.
In the philosophy of names the causal theory of names holds that there is a symbolic relationship between the thing and the name used for the thing. Sort of a psychological “true name”.
Howsomever, henceforward I plan to address you as “Lord of Tiburon”.
“Domestic terrorism.” Granted I haven’t paid much attention to anything other than the Hammonds criminal case, but the first word that came to my mind was “insurgency,” as in the Whiskey Rebellion.
I do have a question. Don’t you need to terrorize to be a terrorist? Or at least attempt to terrorize? I think there’s a case to be made that the militiamen are criminals but terrorists?
Indeed. My reading of the public mood is “bemusement” not “terror.” We could try calling them Domestic Amusers.
“Clowns” is probably sufficient.
I’ve heard some interviews with people who live in the area of the wildlife refuge who pretty uniformly say that they agree with the grievances of the militiamen but disagree with their tactics.
I guess my point was that although all terrorists are criminals not all criminals are terrorists.
Jacobin has an interview with Ammon Bundy in which he sounds somewhat reasonable. However–
The Hammonds are good people being poorly treated by the Bureau of Land Management and our government. They have been trying to secure their land for almost forty years and this is their way of doing it. If they can’t make payments on their land the government takes it over. With them both now serving five years it will be almost impossible for them to keep it in my opinion.
What I don’t understand is what they expect the government to do–let people have the land for free? On the land they own are the Bundys indifferent to making money? Are they proposing that the government give the land back so they can turn it into a socialist utopia? Like a lot of things with right-wing America, the main complaint seems to be that the person complaining should be the one telling others what to do, and not the other way around.
I assume that occupying a federal building is a crime, but its not a dangerous act. I’ve heard threats were made, and that could be criminal assault, but much more likely they are protected speech. It depends on the context, but the Brandenburg test that emerged from a KKK rally where violence was advocated required intent, imminence, and likelihood. People can say any fool or evil thing they want in this country.
There is apparently some disagreement as to precisely whose land it is. Here’s a post that gives an explanation that’s pretty much 180° opposite of the one that I’ve been reading in the MSM. I take no position on the right or wrong of it. I don’t think that the militiamen should be occupying federal buildings and I don’t think that when armed men practice it it can be reasonably called “civil disobedience”. I think they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and I’m a bit puzzled about why they haven’t been arrested.
“I suspect there’s a word – and I suspect Dave may know it – that encapsulates the belief that naming something X rather than Y effectively alters reality.”
You mean like the War on Women, or AGW vs natural climate fluctuations?? That kind of wording attempting to alterreality?? Yeah, it’s called liberalism. Uh, Lord of Tiburon.
Speaking of altered reality. All you guys should watch Fisher ‘s confession about the Fed and public equities on CNBC. A cut is available at zero hedge. Back to Reality can be witnesses in the latest auto statistics post.
MM: The Hammonds own their land. The federal government has been acquiring land in the area, but the Hammonds refuse to sell. As part of the sentencing agreement, the government obtained a right of first refusal if the Hammonds ever sell their property. Apparently the Hammonds owe $400,000 in fines, so the most likely reason to sell is going to be to raise money to make a payment. This seems an odd structure to me.
Hammonds’ supporters think this is a case of selective prosecution that was intended to fill some hole in a long-term plan. I would like to know why the government hasn’t used eminent domain powers (they may not have them, the funding for them might have been cut).
Scott Greenfield, a criminal defense lawyer is more outraged than bemused by the reaction to the criminal case:
“But the fact that criminal defense lawyers accepted the circuit’s vapid rationale so readily is even worse. Rather than agree with ordinary injustice, it should be our responsibility to fight Eighth Amendment sentencing violations at all levels and in all instances, and support those sentences where a judge has shown the fortitude to refuse to perpetuate miscarriages of justice.
That we, too, have become so inured to harshness and impropriety that we can no longer muster the courage to argue against it is unacceptable. We can at least be as courageous as Judge Hogan, and we should be that brave in every instance of a banal miscarriage of justice.”
http://blog.simplejustice.us/2016/01/05/hammonds-sentence-just-a-banal-miscarriage-of-justice/
Doesn’t strike me as terrorism, but I think we should a fairly narrow, precise definition. It is the right which has insisted on calling everyone terrorists, even when it pretty clearly did not apply and overtime there was any doubt. The term has a pejorative w/o much meaning.
Really, this shouldn’t be treated anymore seriously than we treated the Occupy movement. Both were protests. Both occupied public grounds. Both look kind of ridiculous. Guess the main difference is that the Oregon guys are openly carrying guns. The Occupy people could be arrested and dragged away. The police aren’t going to do that with a bunch of guys carrying guns. If you want to do something illegal in the US, get a bunch of guys with guns together first if you want to avoid getting arrested.
Steve