Cliven Bundy - Observations From the Rabbit Hole
"Government is best which governs least and government is best which governs not at all".When men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."
Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience. 1849.
Cliven Bundy, Nevada melon farmer and cattle rancher has created a whopper of a dust devil or as some call it, a Nevada tornado.
His remarks about the "American Negro" - most unfortunate.
Yet this ongoing Nevada incident is quite a rabbit hole that goes beyond Democrat or Republican.
Personally I am never been afraid of looking into a rabbit hole. I've always been curious and nosy like Gladys Cravitz the neighbor character in the TV series, Bewitched - a wide eyed observer of human behavior, including my own..
Credit where credit is due - Cliven Bundy took a stand alright. A stand on something he happens to believe in. He refused to pay taxes for his cattle to graze on land that has been used by his family for decades. He fought in court for what he called ancestral rights to use this land.
He lost.
One day the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) showed up on his ranch with helicopters, snipers, attack dogs. A stun gun was used on his son.
Bundy said the federal agency was wrong for interfering with a state issue.
His situation is dramatized and televised but there are other people that found ways to say no when they felt something was just plain wrong.
A family in New Orleans - After Katrina they needed food and ordered some on line. FEMA heard about it and arrived at their door to confiscate it. The family simply refused to hand it over. They said; " It is our food we paid for it. You cannot take it."
FEMA backed off.
Another example of drawing a boundary was a California protest against chemical spraying. The well prepared protestors turned up in large numbers and attracted major media attention.
The chemical spraying people comment was: "We expected a push back, but we did not expect it to be so organized."
Voluntary support came to the Bundy ranch in the form of armed militia, some from other states, as far away as Florida and Montana.
They said they were not there to start shooting, instead came to prevent shooting from starting. They faced the government snipers eye to eye, equally skilled and legally armed.
The militia seemed pretty level headed to me at the time. They weren't the ones that got aggressive in this story. Nope.
It was the BLM.
In the end it was the BLM that backed down but not before saying it wasn't over, followed by the destruction of some "illegal" structures on BLM land by someone. Water tanks were destroyed and a prize bull killed in his pen. Bundy's herd was considered "trespass cattle."
The BLM is the agency you are least likely to know about unless you happen to live in certain states yet it is the nation's biggest landlord.
So just how much land does BLM claim to own? 84% of Nevada land, and pretty much all of the western U.S. land. Currently, under the purview of the Dept of Interior, it oversees a whopping 247.3 million acres, about 1/8 of the country. It also owns 700 million acres of on-shore federal mineral estates.
This Nevada standoff may seem like a corny cowboy Western (where is John Wayne, Roy Rogers or Trigger when you need 'em?) but it has a lot of people thinking the story is about much more than Bundy.
It is not so much about melon farming, cattle ranching, or Cliven's horribly chosen seemingly derogatory words about slavery. "Almost a folk hero" made a serious wrong turn there.
Maybe it is more about... questions. Questions and boundaries.
Is the Federal government encroaching on state and individual rights? Do ancestral rights apply to land ownership. Why has there been over a period of years, issue after issue from BLM and other federal agencies making life almost impossible for many ranchers and farmers, especially in the West?
Why are most people - smart, courageous, decent, honest people - afraid to step out of line when it comes to government and state or individual rights?
What might have happened if armed support and TV crews had not come to the Bundy ranch?
And, hey! What about those pesky taxes?
Didn't the founding fathers intend the taxing power of the government to be restricted as means of controlling its size?
Under the president's budget request, total federal tax revenues in fiscal year 2015 are projected to be $3.3 trillion. These revenues come from three major sources: income taxes paid by individuals, accounting for 46 percent of all tax revenues; payroll taxes paid jointly by workers and employers, accounting for 32 percent; and corporate income taxes paid by businesses, making up 13 percent. There are also a handful of other types of taxes like customs duties and excise taxes that make up much smaller portions of federal revenue. Customs duties are taxes on imports, paid by the importer, while excise taxes are taxes levied on specific goods, like gasoline.
If we are paying these amounts in federal taxes, doesn't it seem we should have an active voice and influence in how that much of our money is spent and where it is used?
Maybe this is just one of my crazy rabbit holes. But I don't think so.
Who thought a cattle ranch stand off in the middle of a dry mountain desert, would create a buzz on subjects like taxes, economy and government over-stepping its boundaries?
As for taxes, let's face it - most of us live in fear of the IRS. Take a gander at this page I stumbled upon from the IRS website: Why You Must Pay Taxes (and what will happen if you do not comply). Link: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p2105.pdf
Like Seven of Nine, speaking for her collective society in Star Trek, The Next Generation, "Resistance is futile - You must comply." So says the IRS.
If we must comply then we must have a say, a yes or a no, in how the money is used, right? Seems right to me.
IRS repeats more than once that legal cases about refusing taxation based on the Constitution always are dismissed as frivolous and have never been won in court.
Yet I found an exception through the accidental magic of internet research. In 2007, an attorney did just that. He was acquitted by a jury for refusing to pay a tax levy. And there was no appeal.
Link here for his interesting story: http://www.wnd.com/2007/07/42749/
Incidents like the Bundy ranch battle involving an over-reaching, aggressive, bloated government and resistance from the people are happening in other countries. These individual events may appear to be unrelated, but really are not. People want something better, they want change.
It simply cannot be possible that this imbalanced system of government and economy are the best we can ever do. Can we evolve to a different balance? Create new and better systems?
Pardon me, but... "Yes. We can." To quote a certain presidential candidate said so before he took office. Oh, Snap!
There are many brilliant individuals, (such as the esteemed Catherine Austin Fitts) with explanations, insights and fresh ideas to explore about money and economy. Links:
Asking questions and more even importantly, wondering lead to discourse - open minded discourse. That is how peaceful, positive change begins, with awareness.
"There is no need to invade a place, or install a whole new government to create positive change." Nickolas D. Kristoff.
We can begin with simple awareness,open discussion and the setting of a boundary or two as we move into a greater adventure, a better world.
Go ahead. Take a trip down the rabbit hole.
Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience. 1849.
Cliven Bundy, Nevada melon farmer and cattle rancher has created a whopper of a dust devil or as some call it, a Nevada tornado.
His remarks about the "American Negro" - most unfortunate.
Yet this ongoing Nevada incident is quite a rabbit hole that goes beyond Democrat or Republican.
Personally I am never been afraid of looking into a rabbit hole. I've always been curious and nosy like Gladys Cravitz the neighbor character in the TV series, Bewitched - a wide eyed observer of human behavior, including my own..
Credit where credit is due - Cliven Bundy took a stand alright. A stand on something he happens to believe in. He refused to pay taxes for his cattle to graze on land that has been used by his family for decades. He fought in court for what he called ancestral rights to use this land.
He lost.
One day the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) showed up on his ranch with helicopters, snipers, attack dogs. A stun gun was used on his son.
Bundy said the federal agency was wrong for interfering with a state issue.
His situation is dramatized and televised but there are other people that found ways to say no when they felt something was just plain wrong.
A family in New Orleans - After Katrina they needed food and ordered some on line. FEMA heard about it and arrived at their door to confiscate it. The family simply refused to hand it over. They said; " It is our food we paid for it. You cannot take it."
FEMA backed off.
Another example of drawing a boundary was a California protest against chemical spraying. The well prepared protestors turned up in large numbers and attracted major media attention.
The chemical spraying people comment was: "We expected a push back, but we did not expect it to be so organized."
Voluntary support came to the Bundy ranch in the form of armed militia, some from other states, as far away as Florida and Montana.
They said they were not there to start shooting, instead came to prevent shooting from starting. They faced the government snipers eye to eye, equally skilled and legally armed.
The militia seemed pretty level headed to me at the time. They weren't the ones that got aggressive in this story. Nope.
It was the BLM.
In the end it was the BLM that backed down but not before saying it wasn't over, followed by the destruction of some "illegal" structures on BLM land by someone. Water tanks were destroyed and a prize bull killed in his pen. Bundy's herd was considered "trespass cattle."
The BLM is the agency you are least likely to know about unless you happen to live in certain states yet it is the nation's biggest landlord.
So just how much land does BLM claim to own? 84% of Nevada land, and pretty much all of the western U.S. land. Currently, under the purview of the Dept of Interior, it oversees a whopping 247.3 million acres, about 1/8 of the country. It also owns 700 million acres of on-shore federal mineral estates.
This Nevada standoff may seem like a corny cowboy Western (where is John Wayne, Roy Rogers or Trigger when you need 'em?) but it has a lot of people thinking the story is about much more than Bundy.
It is not so much about melon farming, cattle ranching, or Cliven's horribly chosen seemingly derogatory words about slavery. "Almost a folk hero" made a serious wrong turn there.
Maybe it is more about... questions. Questions and boundaries.
Is the Federal government encroaching on state and individual rights? Do ancestral rights apply to land ownership. Why has there been over a period of years, issue after issue from BLM and other federal agencies making life almost impossible for many ranchers and farmers, especially in the West?
Why are most people - smart, courageous, decent, honest people - afraid to step out of line when it comes to government and state or individual rights?
What might have happened if armed support and TV crews had not come to the Bundy ranch?
And, hey! What about those pesky taxes?
Didn't the founding fathers intend the taxing power of the government to be restricted as means of controlling its size?
Under the president's budget request, total federal tax revenues in fiscal year 2015 are projected to be $3.3 trillion. These revenues come from three major sources: income taxes paid by individuals, accounting for 46 percent of all tax revenues; payroll taxes paid jointly by workers and employers, accounting for 32 percent; and corporate income taxes paid by businesses, making up 13 percent. There are also a handful of other types of taxes like customs duties and excise taxes that make up much smaller portions of federal revenue. Customs duties are taxes on imports, paid by the importer, while excise taxes are taxes levied on specific goods, like gasoline.
If we are paying these amounts in federal taxes, doesn't it seem we should have an active voice and influence in how that much of our money is spent and where it is used?
Maybe this is just one of my crazy rabbit holes. But I don't think so.
Who thought a cattle ranch stand off in the middle of a dry mountain desert, would create a buzz on subjects like taxes, economy and government over-stepping its boundaries?
As for taxes, let's face it - most of us live in fear of the IRS. Take a gander at this page I stumbled upon from the IRS website: Why You Must Pay Taxes (and what will happen if you do not comply). Link: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p2105.pdf
Like Seven of Nine, speaking for her collective society in Star Trek, The Next Generation, "Resistance is futile - You must comply." So says the IRS.
If we must comply then we must have a say, a yes or a no, in how the money is used, right? Seems right to me.
IRS repeats more than once that legal cases about refusing taxation based on the Constitution always are dismissed as frivolous and have never been won in court.
Yet I found an exception through the accidental magic of internet research. In 2007, an attorney did just that. He was acquitted by a jury for refusing to pay a tax levy. And there was no appeal.
Link here for his interesting story: http://www.wnd.com/2007/07/42749/
Incidents like the Bundy ranch battle involving an over-reaching, aggressive, bloated government and resistance from the people are happening in other countries. These individual events may appear to be unrelated, but really are not. People want something better, they want change.
It simply cannot be possible that this imbalanced system of government and economy are the best we can ever do. Can we evolve to a different balance? Create new and better systems?
Pardon me, but... "Yes. We can." To quote a certain presidential candidate said so before he took office. Oh, Snap!
There are many brilliant individuals, (such as the esteemed Catherine Austin Fitts) with explanations, insights and fresh ideas to explore about money and economy. Links:
Asking questions and more even importantly, wondering lead to discourse - open minded discourse. That is how peaceful, positive change begins, with awareness.
"There is no need to invade a place, or install a whole new government to create positive change." Nickolas D. Kristoff.
We can begin with simple awareness,open discussion and the setting of a boundary or two as we move into a greater adventure, a better world.
Go ahead. Take a trip down the rabbit hole.
Source...