Proverbs 21:2
It seems a bit pretentious to call it a rebellion or to call the participants patriots for participating in an armed sit-in as we used to call it back in the day. "Highfalutin' " you might call it: rhapsodizing about sleeping under the stars and saddlin' up your horse, since one is still quite welcome to do that. Indeed I've done that myself although the horse was iron and didn't need saddling. The event that precipitated the Malheur occupation had more to do with arson of Federal Property than a camping trip or the right to enjoy the great outdoors. It has more to do with the perceived right to exploit common resources for individual profit.
LaVoy Finicum, said by his family to be a gentle and kind man was killed yesterday in an armed confrontation with FBI agents. Although I don't know the details, I'm rather certain he died in vain, defending a nostalgic idea of freedom drawn from romantic fiction but also drawn from a relic of the days of anti-Communist hysteria. Strutting around with firearms on Federal property is more like something extracted from a Zane Fray novel that a political statement. Fiction, romance, free-range nostalgia and maybe a bit of the Bible thrown it to remind us of a time before government and "every man did that which was right in his own eyes."
You might see it as paranoia, the assertion that our government must by nature abridge our freedom continuously if not wantonly, and that there is no process for addressing grievances except in the old way, the frontier way, the fantasy way of the gun and by pretending that the legitimacy of government is an individual choice and not that of the voting population. The sovereign citizen is not part of our law and never was. The idea of continuous revolution that "speaks from the muzzle of a gun" is an argument found in the little red books the Red Guard used to carry, not in our Constitution, but I'm used to seeing the words of Marx and Mao supported by people who think they're opposing Communism and seeing it everywhere.
But attaching noble purpose to the banal and even to the ridiculous is the stuff of religion and politics, from terrorists "protecting' their almighty God to the claim of immunity to the law conveyed by "belief." That noble purpose behind the Oregon occupation seems to be supported by a strange edition of the US constitution annotated by one W. Cleon Skousen, an anti-Communist crusader supported it seems by Glenn Beck which makes all kinds of claims about whom the law pertains to and what the constitution allows and doesn't. You may be old enough to remember that Cleon was one of those loonies claiming Dwight Eisenhower was a Communist agent. It's a book that's been distributed through Mormon sources and printed by the millions. It's a book carried by Cliven Bundy and others of his ilk
This madness lives on, lures people into a Quixotic epic including heroes with tin-pot helmets making suicidal attacks on the entire concept of Government. That the United states was never intended to be for anyone but Christians who live as they please and do no more than what is right in his own eyes is at the heart of this "rebellion" and I would sooner call it a fugue, a fantasy and a fraud. At heart though it's also religion and supported by a religion with separatism as it's legacy and hostility toward "gentiles" as it's heritage.
Perhaps YHWH will weigh some hearts here, perhaps not, but the law will certainly weigh actions
Read "Tales of Lonely Trails," by Zane Grey, before you offer him up as an author of children's literature. It may be the finest descriptive narrative of the adventurous life in California and Arizona in the early twentieth century. I certainly learned a great deal and my imagination was fired by his wordsmanship.
ReplyDeleteOf course, LaVoy Finicum died in vain. I would like to see Ammon Bundy charged with murder for his death in leading such a ridiculous and vain escape attempt. Why on Earth would they carry weapons as they fled? Mentally challenged. A type of mania. But in his cowardly efforts to avoid the law, even though the FBI had offered him safe passage, he left his supporters to die or be captured. Not anybody's idea of a hero.
I read Zane years ago - I may have read that one too, but certainly think of him as a real writer for real adults. LaVoy has stated openly that he intended to be killed before he'd go to jail and I have no doubt at all this was another "suicide by cop."
ReplyDeleteI see this as less the product of romantic imagination than of the Mormon mythos of men being given a world of their own where they are like a God. It certainly is reinforced by the observation that ther all quote from a book on the
Constitution they all carry thats printed by a Morman publisher.
Kill yourself just to avoid being booked and a couple of nights in the tank? That's some misplaced pride.
ReplyDeleteFBI Video.
ReplyDeleteAwesome!
Seems confusing to me. Were we hearing automatic weapons firing? Hundreds of rounds? I don't buy the "hands up" defense though and frankly the way these people were playing with fire, they should consider themselves lucky that any of them survived.
DeleteThey can call themselves "patriots" all day long, but armed insurrection is a near suicidal enterprise, to say the least.
Clearly visible ... the handgun being drawn from his pocket. Fe, fi, fo, fum, Finicum succumbs.
DeleteBut the movement grows. I don't think we're taking it seriously enough. Like most dangerous movements it has roots in religion and I think the "sovereign Citizen movement, for all it's lofty language about principles and liberty is about a kind of Feudalism where every man leads his own little fiefdom and answeres to no one outside it. It's fed and funded by Fundamentalist Mormon splinter groups who love to form hermetic colonies, some, like Warren Jeff's rife with abuse: sexual and economic. They control large businesses which they steal from members and make their serfs work for free. Some of these companies have been sole suppliers to NASA.
DeleteWe have a blind spot that causes us to respect evil if calls itself religion and so our noble love of freedom protects tyranny. These armed men are not about freedom - at least not about yours or mine.
Anarchists have always been part of American folklore and legend (and sometimes raised to hero worship status). Not this time. Not this gang. Since the beginning of 2016, the Bundy gang has been part of an ugly media circus swallowing us nightly … just one more story emblematic of our national descent into abject stupidity. Bundy, Bundy, Bundy … Trumpf, Trumpf, Trumpf. Sickening …
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when American conservatism had a valid and important place at the public table. Conservatives emphasized accountability, personal responsibility, thrift, a respect for law and social order, and tradition. As a philosophy of governance, conservatives favored the ‘go-slow’ approach as their cautionary catchphrase warned of “unintended consequences.” Progress ‘towards a more perfect union’ was never the issue at stake; rather the argument has always been over ‘how far and how fast.’ No longer.
What passes for conservative today is the very OPPOSITE of what it used to represent. Today’s GOP is no longer about accountability, personal responsibility, thrift, a respect for law and social order, and tradition. Rather, it is hellbent on turning back the pages of history to a more savage time — with appeals to bigotry, character assassination, defamation, pandering and demagoguery, outright lies, hostage taking, and relentless insurgency. For the GOP, politics is no longer about ‘contest’ but ‘conquest.’
Bundy, Bundy, Bundy … Trumpf, Trumpf, Trumpf. Nonstop verbal abuse, political abuse, public abuse! I find myself taking long mental health breaks from this madness, far longer than usual.
Thank you (O)CT(O)PUS. Your description of what conservatism once reprsented is the very philosophy my grandparents and parents instilled in me. I accepted the principles
ReplyDeletebecause they made sense. It was the philosophy I tried to exemplify and expose my own children to. I to this day believe it has great merit.
It is unfortunate
a once valid and rational philosophy has been hijacked and destroyed by demagogoues and snake oil salesmen/politicians.
Delete2016 is a very important year. It very well may define whether we remain a nation of laws or become a nation ruled by irrationality, religiosity, and fear.
We're mankind - that's what we do. We take everything and use it up or twist it to serve our greed.
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