Guilt By Non-Capitulation: Part One
Sam Sykes ~ 02/13/2024
Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines Justice as the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments. Justice can probably not be perfect, because nobody can be impartial. Everyone values some things, hates other things, and judges everything whether they want to admit it or not. In America, we expect as righteous justice as we can put together. Of course it cannot be perfect, but the most egregious examples of injustice should be highly publicized and swiftly righted.
The Innocence Project has attempted to do this with some success, but remains committed to just muddying legal waters to overturn convictions on shaky grounds, releasing men that were convicted of murder and/or rape based on decades-old clerical errors and/or shoddy science. There are men that have been completely attacked and destroyed by the government and conspiring corporations who get hardly any media coverage. And the little attention they get is overwhelmingly negative.
KILLDOZER
What a cool name for something that didn’t even kill anyone. I obviously don’t condone destroying an entire town with a homemade tank, but it was pretty cool to see a man finally say he’s had enough and do something about it. I’m not Wikipedia, so I won’t run you through all the details, but basically the local government and media outlets fucked with this guy so much that he snapped. Marvin Heemeyer was a guy that really cared about his community and wanted to take a stand against the dark forces working to ruin it. It was poetic that the first place he demolished with his tank was a cement factory that he fought against building in his town. We can (and should) condemn his 7 million dollars in destruction he is responsible for, but we should also point to the pressures that led him to feel that was his only outlet.
The Ranchers
The ethics debate surrounding government ownership of land previously private-owned is a discussion not enough people are having. We can all agree that the government needs to own property for military or municipal purposes, but how much is too much? American cattle ranchers have always relied upon other ranches allowing cows to graze in each other’s land because they need a diverse diet that can be very dependent on the season. If each ranch cultivates plants that can be a food source for different seasons, they can keep producing all year. That is just one of the major reasons why beef producers in the U.S. need an abundance of land and grazing options.
Using the trojan horse of environmentalism, the federal government began buying all the ranches they could get their hands on for the power and money that comes with owning property. They destroyed the ability to inherit a ranch or farm by passing huge inheritance taxes that could never be paid, eventually forcing the ranchers to sell. Once that happened, they began cutting off grazing access to neighboring ranches in an effort to hurt their businesses and, you guessed it, sell.
This was mostly successful, but a few ranchers, most notably the Bundy Ranch, refused to sell and continuously allowed their cattle to graze in federal land. In the early 90s the government really tried to twist the knife on the Bundy Ranch. When it was decided that the conservation of the desert tortoise was more important than feeding millions of Americans, 400,000 acres of grazing land in southern Nevada was frozen.
In 2014, after over years of legal battles and threats on both sides, the situation escalated when 380 heads of Bundy cattle were captured and impounded while grazing on protected land, which had by now doubled to over 800,000 acres. In an armed standoff between Bundy and his supporters, the federal government was forced to stand down and return the cows. Despite the patriotic stand, the troubles did not end for the Bundy family, with both the patriarch of the family, Cliven and his son Ammon being pursued relentlessly through legal challenges.
In all fairness, the justice exacted against Bundy’s never really stuck, but both did serve time (really not much) in prison and lost millions in legal lawfare. But it is still unfathomable that a government would squeeze and drown a productive family farm in an effort to demonstrate and obtain more power. These guys have had their reputations attacked and made an example to farmers that haven’t given up their livelihood yet.
YOU CAN READ PART TWO HERE
