Discussion:

Discussion for article #222316

This is masterful. As one historian to another–thank you!

“Get out, and send more money.”

This is a great take on some of Bernard DeVoto’s recurring themes.

http://cozine.com/2002-november/the-western-paradox-by-bernard-devoto/

…but it doesn’t even touch on the immense environmental costs of these policies.

Excellent. Thanks to the author and TPM for this.

The big question no one in the media is asking is - why has it taken so long to act on Bundy’s trespassing? If he tore up his grazing permit in 1992 it seems like, say, 1994 would have been enough time to see if he would come around, but to wait over twenty years to take action, there is much more to this story than a crusty old racist moocher.

I would also recommend volume two of Daniel Boorstein’s superb trilogy “The Americans.” Besides just being a great read, the book punctures once and for all the myth that the West was won by rugged individualists - it was won by highly organized and disciplined groups operating with the support of military and governmental structures. Boorstein was a conservative Republican, by the way.

He has been taken to court several times since 1992. So the BLM acted on it almost immediately. Bundy, however, has ignored every single court order.

When will we arrest this scofflaw?

First the government imposes taxes, fees and eminent domain on The People, pretending to do things better than the rest of us can do. Then when The People actually uses what it has handsomely paid for, the government tells us: “See? You have all of this because of the government”. Clowns!

Moocher? Trespasser?? Let’s call this man what he is, a “criminal” as in “thief.” He is stealing from all the rest of us, suckling at the public teat, and then pretending that he is a patriot. Last refuge of the scoundrel, indeed. He must be so happy that Donald Sterling has knocked him off the front page for a while. I look forward to the government foreclosing on his property and/or sending him to jail.

I wonder how Bundy’s land-grabbing ancestors would have fared against hundreds of thousands of Native Americans defending their ancestral lands without the help of the evil, despotic Federal Government and its oppressive armies?

That’s a very, um, creative reading of history, dear. Totally untethered from the fabric of reality, but very creative.

Even in our present capitalist-based society, the large and instutional investors benefit heavily from a worldwide military that enforces peaceful international trade and expanding access to new markets. Police are more often assisting with preventing demonstrations or the supression of social unrest due to inequal treatment than they are prosecuting the powerful for unjust treatement of the poor or labor. Our society spends a huge amount of resources enabling those with capital to obtain more capital, yet we don’t consider that welfare or socialism, because the benefits go to such a narrow group of people.

That’s quite a word salad there…are you from Wasila?

Unfortunately, by that point, the Indians had already been reduced well below ‘hundreds’ much less ‘thousands’ due to the various diseases brought from throughout the world.

What do you suppose drail’s first language is, JF?

Cliven Bundy, thy name is ignorance.

Coherence, like history, is the mark of hated liberal elitism.

Larry Wilmore crushed this one as Senior Black Correspondent on Stewart.

He’s the new local troll…sorta like the town drunk. Low on intellect, base on emotions, short on wits.