In a nutshell: Some armed anti-government folks – they claim to number 150, but probably the real figure is closer to a dozen – have occupied a Federal wildlife management building in Burns, Oregon (which is a long way from basically anything other than Burns, Oregon). The building was empty for the holiday weekend, so there hasn’t been any violence so far; however, one of the occupiers, Ryan Bundy, told a reporter that they are willing to “kill and be killed.”
(Incidentally, it doesn’t seem like any of these folks are actually from Oregon.)
For a much more complete summary of the situation, Vox has a primer.
1) I’m not convinced that the government would already have rushed in with blazing guns if these folks were not white, but the situation were otherwise (isolated Federal building, no immediate threat, no decisions being made on-the-spot by lower-rank police) identical. (There is the example of the bombing of MOVE in 1985 – but that was decades ago, and a local police force, not the Federal government).
There’s no denying that law enforcement is sometimes violently racist. But you can’t go from that to saying “this specific event would definitely go differently!”
2) On the other hand, I agree with Vox that media coverage of protests sure looks different when demonstrators are white. And the different media coverage means that there will be less pressure on government to resolve the situation quickly. (Related example: “CNN Analyst Says Black Protesters Are More Dangerous Than Armed Militiamen“).
3) I’ve seen right-wingers on Twitter suggest that this situation is comparable to Occupy Wall Street, or to Black Lives Matter. But neither of those groups threatened to “kill and be killed” if anyone tried to arrest them. That’s a huge difference.
4) In a situation like this – where there is no one in immediate danger, and the occupiers are shut up in a building far from anyone, and there’s a danger of police getting injured or killed if the situation escalates – we should want the authorities to take their time and be cautious.
5) But seeing these guys treated with kid gloves is infuriating, as David Atkins points out:
So on the one hand it’s understandable that federal officials would not want to make martyrs of the right-wing domestic terrorists who are actively seeking to engage in a confrontation and make themselves appear to be downtrodden victims of the federal beast. But on the other hand, it’s infuriating that they receive special kid glove treatment that would not be afforded to minority and liberal activists. […]
As much as restraint is the better part of valor when dealing with entitled conservative crazies, principles of basic justice and fair play also need to apply.
But the fair play I want is for police to use restraint and care in every case possible – not for them to treat this situation without restraint or care.
6) I don’t think what these folks are doing is “terrorism,” and calling it terrorism seems to be part of expanding the term “terrorism” to cover people who aren’t setting bombs or attacking random people in order to effect political change. So far, these folks have done nothing but occupying a building, and warned that they will defend themselves with force if attacked; that’s deplorable, but it doesn’t meet my personal threshold for calling someone a terrorist.
Mark Kleiman suggests that the correct charge is “seditious conspiracy.”
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
That seems spot-on. These folks richly deserve to spend time behind bars.
7) Kevin Drum says he “would like to hear all the Republican presidential candidates denounce them in no uncertain terms.” I agree. But so far, all of them but Kasich have been staying studiously quiet. Profiles in courage, ammirite?
8) Some folks (example) have been claiming that the Hammonds – father-and-son ranchers whose sentencing for arson set off this chain of events – were merely setting fires on their own lands, which inadvertently spread onto Federal lands. But according to the US Attorney’s Office, that’s not true.
P.S. A good cartoon from Jen Sorenson’s archives applies to this situation.
Thanks for this article!
Just FYI, these guys are at the Malheur wildlife refuge. I think that’s about 30 miles from Burns. So, they’re even more out in the middle of nowhere than Burns (which I did not realize at first).
On a side note, I had a discussion with someone earlier today and suggested that sedition might be a better word than terrorism. So, the “seditious conspiracy” phrase makes sense to me.
But the fair play I want is for police to use restraint and care in every case possible – not for them to treat this situation without restraint or care.
Along the same lines, it’s really fucking annoying to see the same people who argue that Tamir Rice just had to die and that the cops had no choice but to kill a 12 year old kid with a toy gun argue for that restraint and care when dealing with a bunch of grown-ass man with very real AR-15s.
Agreed, Pillsy.
And thanks for the info, Ahimsa.
I’d say that you’ve pretty much described the way I see it as well. Despite the rather over-the-top reactions I’ve seen elsewhere, these guys are simply not terrorists. They haven’t killed anyone and they haven’t attempted to kill anyone, nor have they destroyed any property. They’re certainly acting outside the bounds of the law and are properly subject to being charged with various criminal offenses.
As far as the restraint with which they’re being treated – again, they are clearly no immediate threat to anyone, so there’s no need to go charging in on them.
I will say you missed one popular meme that’s being used to describe them – “militia”. Again, that’s bogus. It seems almost every news report uses the word “militia” either in the headline or the first paragraph. But “militia” != “a bunch of white guys with guns”. They are clearly not part of the organized militia (i.e., the National Guard), and there is no indication they claim to be acting on behalf of any group styling itself as a militia.
They are connected to large, organized, heavily armed groups for whom “militia” is appropriate (though they aren’t receiving a whole lot of support so far).
Matt — that would seem to be a good reason not to call them a militia, then. It’s like calling Timothy McVeigh an active-duty US soldier when he blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City, because he had served in that terrorist organization. Or saying that gay activists are occupying the student union at Indiana University, because I’m sitting here with my laptop.
“But the fair play I want is for police to use restraint and care in every case possible – not for them to treat this situation without restraint or care.”
You are exactly right, and put it well! This is a procedural justice issue. We should absolutely point out that the police don’t treat everyone this way. But the point of that is that the police should, not that these criminal assholes ought to be gunned down.
“Connected to” != “organizing and running”. Heck, by your lights if I was in that group you’d say that the building was occupied by a heavily armed Boy Scout Troop.
Which reminds me of a picture I took at a Troop shooting outing once. Usually it’s a battle to get the parents interested in supporting outings. But we held a shooting outing and told the parents they could bring conforming guns and ammunition with them (there’s limits on calibers/gauges, etc. at a BSA shooting range). Just about every father showed up, and by the time these guys finished emptying out their trunks at the range we looked like we were getting ready to repel the zombie invasion.
Some more links, relevant to this story:
Meet The Child-Abusing Arsonists That Inspired The Oregon Militia Standoff | ThinkProgress
The Hammond family seems genuinely awful. CW: Physical abuse of a teen.
Could Oregon Be the Next Waco? | New Republic
Nothing could be worse for the left than for the Bundys and their friends to become martyrs for the cause.
Ted Cruz Won’t Be Burned Twice by the Bundys | New Republic
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have come out against the occupiers.
What Happened In The Hammond Sentencing In Oregon? A Lawsplainer | Popehat
The five year sentences are arguably morally excessive, but they’re definitely not unconstitutional under current precedent.
Ninth-Circuit-Decision.pdf
The Ninth Circuit decision has a summary of what the Hammonds’ were found guilty of (which is less than what they were accused of). After reading this, I think it’s reasonable for people to say, deferring to the Court, that the Hammonds were found guilty of setting a fire on their own property which spread to federal property.
The apparent lack of public and media panic here may be because it’s a bunch of ranchers arguing about grazing rights in federal land in a remote corner of Oregon. That can’t be further from the day-to-day life of nearly all Americans.
No matter your class or race, it’s easier for the urban and suburban supermajority to understand a burning CVS than the takeover of some small outpost in the woods. I’m told that the grazing rights are too cheap, but I only get that second hand, mostly from sources with predictable opinions on stuff like this. In the end, the resolution of the issue means nothing to me, asks nothing of me and puts my position in the world at no risk. If I pay 5% more for beef, I won’t even notice.
This probably goes double for the people who work at big-city media outlets.
The police? Everyone has an opinion on them, good or bad, usually from personal experience. So we get a feast of provocative headlines and hot takes.
Good piece from Jamelle Bouie at Slate, though the title doesn’t quite match the text[1]. The whole thing is worth reading, but I think the concluding paragraphs really get it right:
[1] AIUI, editors generally write the titles for most publications; the ones at Slate seem to be pretty persistently sketchy.
I don’t think anyone argues that the rates that the Bureau if Land Management charges are too high. They question the right of the government to own the land in the first place. They claim that the land was essentially stolen from their ancestors. At least that’s my understanding.
BLM rates are significantly lower than market rate, and only cover about 15% of what the bureau spends to maintain the land, according to 538.
Not to take their side, but none of these idiots is claiming the land was stolen from their ancestors.
We urban and suburban folk often don’t realize how much land the government owns in parts of the West. Over 81 percent of Nevada is owned by the government, as is over half of Oregon.
Even if you’re actually getting a good deal from a near-monopoly landlord, it’s inherently unstable and a huge political risk. At any time, the Feds can raise grazing rates or declare the land a national monument. If you can own it, that’s not going to happen without compensation.
Which is to say, this is about more than one guy’s criminal sentence.
Bundy and these folks are nuts. Delusions of grandeur, entitlement, the whole nine yards. But my point is that the standoff in Oregon gets less press because the issues are so remote to most people. We can’t even strawman right.
Not in those words. But Bundy does claim that the federal lands surrounding his ranch belong to him. From the article I linked @12
The issue is not that Bundy thinks the government is charging too much. He thinks that the land actually belongs to him. Why does he think that? Because his family has traditionally grazed their cattle on that land.
I’m having a hard time figuring out what to call them. They haven’t committed any terrorist acts, as far as I can tell. I don’t think they’re seditionists or insurrectionists, either. I feel like they’re just petty criminals of some sort. Trespassers and menacers? I’m open to suggestions.
The goal isn’t to strike fear into the hearts of the citizenry, so terrorism doesn’t count.*
If you view this broadly (in the context of land use) or narrowly (mandatory minimum sentencing), then it’s an occupation. An occupation with a lot more guns than Occupy. So trespassing, certainly. And perhaps something relating to the threats, though that depends on how specific they were.
But now you have Ammon Bundy saying his goal is to have “the federal government to give up its unconstitutional presence in this county,” which sounds a lot broader. Here’s the definition of “seditious conspiracy” per federal statute:
So is Bundy saying “we want the federal government to stop doing unconstitutional things in this county” or is he saying “we oppose federal authority in this county”?
To bring BLM back into it, if you count this as seditious conspiracy, how do you differentiate it from protesters occupying publicly-owned space until the government stops doing something government says it has the power to do? The presence of (presumably legal) guns?
Personally, I think Bundy & Co. are a bunch of egotistical idiots and BLM, warts and all, is based in a legitimate grievance. But seeking to stretch the definition of sedition imperils a lot of things you probably don’t want to imperil.
* Unless you want to go to the your-words-are-violence-ing-me route to borrow society’s stronger opprobrium from the non-applicable word, then be my guest. But that’s not descriptive, it’s posturing.
The difference is the threat to use those guns against the police if they attempt to remove or arrest them. Both Occupy and Black Lives Matter (BLM in this post) have policies of not violently resisting arrest (they do verbally protest, refuse to move when told to, go limp when police try to move them, run away, and so on). Dicipline in not 100%, and I have a recollection of punches being thrown at various points. Nonetheless, to the best of my knowledge, no Occcupy or BLM protesters have pointed guns at police, the way Bundy supporters in Nevada did. Given how violent police response has been to the non-violent protests of Occupy and BLM, I fully expect that they would be shot if they did point guns at police the way Bundy’s group did.
Now, in terms of how to deal with protest, I think that the police get it right with Bundy’s lot and wrong with Occupy and BLM. I’m for violence as an absolute last resort. However, after the crisis was over, the feds should have found some way to impose consequences on Bundy’s lot. Just letting them get away with it was wrong.
This is a good piece from grist about how not allowing ranchers to graze on federal land really does make it hard for them to make a living, and that should be taken into account when finding solutions.
Is that the threat they made? Or did they threaten to use their guns if the cops fired on them? I’m sure they have the incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco in mind (both of which rather contradict a meme going around in some circles that the cops won’t shoot white people).
Having been “handled” by LE much less gently than these armed folks who’ve said they will return force with fore, I’m not sympathetic. It’s not lost on me, if they were African-American and armed to the teeth, they wouldn’t be allowed to simply occupy property owned by the federal government like these militia folks. After all, all I have to do is remember what happened to MOVE in Philadelphia. I just kind of have to laugh at them. For being rugged testosterone infused survivalists, their leader was begging his mama to bring them supplies. Hmmm… if you’re a rugged individualist survivalist wouldn’t you be prepared with supplies to survive a long standoff with authorities. At least AIM was able to do so during the occupation of Wounded Knee in the 1970s.
And I have to chuckle at the media’s struggle on how to identify them. They’re protesters but if they were Muslims they’d be terrorists. If they were Black, same thing. The only reason they’re still allowed to trespass on federal property is because they are White men.
Ron, they threatened to shoot anyone who tried to remove them from the building they were occupying. So they get the kid gloves treatment by LE.
Yes there’s issues with the fact that the feds own a large percentage of land in the Western states but these ranchers got to over graze their cattle on such lands with very little cost and taxes as opposed to grazing cattle on private property. The folks occupying the BLM building are mostly from Arizona rather than Oregon and even the town folk want them gone.
Then there’s the basic fact that if that land was “stolen”, it wasn’t stolen from ranchers, it was stolen from indigenous people none of which are supporting this armed occupation.
” The difference is the threat to use those guns against the police if they attempt to remove or arrest them.”
The law that defines seditious conspiracy doesn’t make any mention of threats, though.
Another article about Oregon: