"Congress shall make no law concerning the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
That is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. The full text. Since 1791 those few words, that one sentence, has been the symbol of individual liberty that has been the hallmark of America.
The significance of the text following the last semicolon must be understood in light of history. This right of petition and redress was guaranteed in the laws of Great Britain and finds its roots in the Magna Carta; but the method King George III provided for hearing grievances from his colonies was cynical at best. He would grant audience at inconvenient times and in inconvenient places, he would cancel or postpone audiences at the last minute, and he would drag out addressing grievances over months and years. The 'established channels' for airing and resolving grievances with the government were used to enforce tyranny while lending an air of legitimacy to the process.
For decades, and for reasons I don't fully understand, American farmers and ranchers have been under increasingly unreasonable regulation. The federal government, in granting statehood to western territories, agreed to an initial period of federal control of public lands which would then, as quickly as practical, be turned over to the sovereign state for management or disposal.
Western states looked at American history east of the Mississippi River and had no reason to doubt that they would be treated equitably as their earlier brothers, where state control of land was the norm and where control had been returned fairly quickly.
For whatever number of reasons this did not happen. This left local ranchers and farmers to negotiate with a distant and removed federal bureaucracy which became known as the Bureau of Land Management.
Perhaps it began when the 'environmental movement' gained popularity within government planning circles. The BLM's attention shifted from managing land and administering land use agreements to 'conserving' the land and 'protecting' wildlife. The relationship between the federal government, represented by the BLM, and American agriculturalists began to deteriorate. Ranchers who had counted for decades on free access to range land and water for livestock found their access restricted. Sometimes the restrictions came in the form of arbitrary reduction or revocation of grazing rights; sometimes it came in the form of restricting access to water; but always it was incremental and localized. A handful of small ranchers affected in a remote area, or a family farmer affected in a state whose economy was not dependent on agriculture made it easy for lawmakers and the public to ignore an increasingly heavy-handed bureaucracy.
But every now and again some small person gets the idea in his head that something is wrong with the way things are. Thomas Paine was one; Rosa Parks was another; and Dwight Hammond was a third. When, in the early 1990s, the BLM started to squeeze him and his family ranch in Harney County, Oregon, Dwight objected. In court case after court case, judges and juries decided in his favor and forced the BLM to back down from their desired course of action - absorbing his privately owned family ranch into the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. But when a government with unlimited legal and financial resources decides it will destroy one of its citizens or subjects who has only limited resources, the outcome is a foregone conclusion; only the timing is in question.
And bureaucrats have very long attention spans and even longer memories.
So, when Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, committed a tactical error - in order to prevent a lighting-caused fire burning in 2006 on the Refuge from spreading to his land, Steven lit a backfire on his land without seeking a fire permit. The backfire was successful; it not only saved his family's land, but it stopped the wildfire from spreading more within the adjacent Refuge. Steven's actions were reviewed and no charges were filed at the time. But in 2011, at the urging of the BLM, both Steven and Dwight were charged under a relatively new anti-terrorism statute and convicted. They we're each sentenced to and served months in prison.
Years passed and in 2015 BLM asked a judge to review the arson conviction and sentencing. The review judge found that the trial judge had been too lenient in his sentencing, as the statute called for a minimum sentence of 5 years. He ordered the two, aged 74 and 45, to return to prison to serve more than 4 1/2 years more time. This despite the fact that the trial judge had determined that more than a few months in prison would have violated the men's rights under the 8th Amendment which protects Americans from cruel and unusual punishment.
This brings us to 4 January 2016, when, as the Hammonds reported to prison, fellow ranchers Ammon Bundy and LaVoy Finicum arrived at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge which surrounds the Hammond Ranch. Ammon Bundy and his father, Cliven, are ranchers in Nevada and recently had their own difficulties with BLM when the agency ruled that they could not run cattle on their desert ranch leased from BLM because the ranching would pose problems for an endangered species of tortoise - never mind that the cows and tortoises had peacefully coexisted for more than 150 years.
Bundy and Finicum's arrival did not go unnoticed by self-styled 'militia' types who were sympathetic to the idea of an out-of-control bureaucratic government. In short order the Refuge headquarters building and surrounding area was occupied by dozens of armed men and women all bringing their grievances, real or imagined, to the table.
Days turned into weeks and law enforcement officials from agencies as local as the Harney County Sheriff's Office and as shadowy as contract security forces working for agencies they would not name gathered for this waiting game. And through it all, LaVoy Finicum was a voice of reason. Firm? Certainly. Irrational? Definitely not. Listen to the uncut audio and watch the uncut video of anyone his several interviews and you will see a man who is not deranged, but who is determined.
Finicum and Bundy and their close associates frequently visited the town of Burns, Oregon - about 30 miles away - to eat, shop or meet with people from journalists to law enforcement agents.
But something changed in late January; the tone of both FBI and HCSO became more aggressive. The Harney County Sheriff, David Ward, began cancelling meetings, making the people he was supposed to hear wait long hours, and rather than being conciliatory or neutral, he became openly hostile.
On 26 January 2016, Ammon Bundy and LaVoy Finicum, accompanied by at least 4 others, left the Malheur Wildlife Refuge for a meetings with the sheriff and other citizens of another county. They never made the meeting. They were driving in two vehicles; one was LaVoy's truck and the other was a Jeep belonging to a recent arrival at the Refuge who called himself Mark McConnell. Both vehicles where stopped on the highway leading out of the Refuge. The Jeep with Ammon Bundy was not allowed to drive on, but LaVoy left the traffic stop and continued to his meeting. When rounding a blind curve in the road, LaVoy encountered a road block for which he could not stop in time and he drove his truck into a snow bank at the side of the road.
What happened at either the first traffic stop or the road block is unclear. By some accounts, police were shooting at LaVoy's truck during the first stop, leading him to 'run for his life.' One passenger in the truck says that as soon as they crashed into the snow bank, law enforcement officers began shooting at the truck. The official story is that upon crashing, LaVoy leapt from his truck and charged at law enforcement officers who had to shoot him. The video released by the FBI contradicts this. It shows LaVoy standing outside his truck with his hands in the air, and trying to keep his hands up as he is shot by no fewer than 3 agents.
By any measure, this was a murder. And it was a murder intended to stop objections to government abuse at the hands of bureaucratic agencies. LaVoy Finicum was a sympathetic, well-spoken, rational and knowledgeable man. He was a threat to the power structure.
I am convinced that he had no idea how greatly he was feared until the first bullet entered his body. I am convinced that he believed that he could make people hear reason and that there was an outcome without blood that was possible. Right up to the end.
I don't like the crass and ugly threats from 'militia' types that I see on line. That type of rhetoric is dangerous and ignorant. And they represent a very small, by their own estimates 3%, of the population.
What concerns me more is the response I get from my friends in government and in general. A US military officer I know has no sympathy. He chose to 'live by the sword' and thus chose his fate. Never mind the fact that LaVoy Finicum hurt no one.
An attorney has no sympathy. There is a right way to bring grievances before government. When one goes outside that channel, then killing that person is justified. Never mind the 8th Amendment or the 1st Amendment.
A liberal environmentalist has no sympathy. There was important work to be done on the Refuge and he was keeping them from it. When someone undertakes to obstruct government work, then killing them is okay.
A business executive has no sympathy. The guy was obviously a kook. Someone being a kook makes it okay to kill them.
The general understanding among these people seems to be that, in order for First Amendment rights to be protected, one must be socially acceptable, not speak or act against government, and use those rights only within established channels as dictated by law and tradition. This would be the first time I know of where the exercise of speech, assembly and petition were so narrowly applied.
I want to shake them and shout, "ARE YOU OKAY?!?! YOU THINK THESE GUYS HAD A SERIOUS CHANCE AT RESOLUTION THROUGH A SYSTEM THAT HAD BEEN TRYING TO DESTROY THEM FOR 30 YEARS?!?! WHAT GIVES YOU THAT IDEA? AND WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT'S OKAY TO KILL SOMEONE WHO DISAGREES WITH GOVERNMENT ACTION?"
That is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. The full text. Since 1791 those few words, that one sentence, has been the symbol of individual liberty that has been the hallmark of America.
The significance of the text following the last semicolon must be understood in light of history. This right of petition and redress was guaranteed in the laws of Great Britain and finds its roots in the Magna Carta; but the method King George III provided for hearing grievances from his colonies was cynical at best. He would grant audience at inconvenient times and in inconvenient places, he would cancel or postpone audiences at the last minute, and he would drag out addressing grievances over months and years. The 'established channels' for airing and resolving grievances with the government were used to enforce tyranny while lending an air of legitimacy to the process.
For decades, and for reasons I don't fully understand, American farmers and ranchers have been under increasingly unreasonable regulation. The federal government, in granting statehood to western territories, agreed to an initial period of federal control of public lands which would then, as quickly as practical, be turned over to the sovereign state for management or disposal.
Western states looked at American history east of the Mississippi River and had no reason to doubt that they would be treated equitably as their earlier brothers, where state control of land was the norm and where control had been returned fairly quickly.
For whatever number of reasons this did not happen. This left local ranchers and farmers to negotiate with a distant and removed federal bureaucracy which became known as the Bureau of Land Management.
Perhaps it began when the 'environmental movement' gained popularity within government planning circles. The BLM's attention shifted from managing land and administering land use agreements to 'conserving' the land and 'protecting' wildlife. The relationship between the federal government, represented by the BLM, and American agriculturalists began to deteriorate. Ranchers who had counted for decades on free access to range land and water for livestock found their access restricted. Sometimes the restrictions came in the form of arbitrary reduction or revocation of grazing rights; sometimes it came in the form of restricting access to water; but always it was incremental and localized. A handful of small ranchers affected in a remote area, or a family farmer affected in a state whose economy was not dependent on agriculture made it easy for lawmakers and the public to ignore an increasingly heavy-handed bureaucracy.
But every now and again some small person gets the idea in his head that something is wrong with the way things are. Thomas Paine was one; Rosa Parks was another; and Dwight Hammond was a third. When, in the early 1990s, the BLM started to squeeze him and his family ranch in Harney County, Oregon, Dwight objected. In court case after court case, judges and juries decided in his favor and forced the BLM to back down from their desired course of action - absorbing his privately owned family ranch into the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. But when a government with unlimited legal and financial resources decides it will destroy one of its citizens or subjects who has only limited resources, the outcome is a foregone conclusion; only the timing is in question.
And bureaucrats have very long attention spans and even longer memories.
So, when Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, committed a tactical error - in order to prevent a lighting-caused fire burning in 2006 on the Refuge from spreading to his land, Steven lit a backfire on his land without seeking a fire permit. The backfire was successful; it not only saved his family's land, but it stopped the wildfire from spreading more within the adjacent Refuge. Steven's actions were reviewed and no charges were filed at the time. But in 2011, at the urging of the BLM, both Steven and Dwight were charged under a relatively new anti-terrorism statute and convicted. They we're each sentenced to and served months in prison.
Years passed and in 2015 BLM asked a judge to review the arson conviction and sentencing. The review judge found that the trial judge had been too lenient in his sentencing, as the statute called for a minimum sentence of 5 years. He ordered the two, aged 74 and 45, to return to prison to serve more than 4 1/2 years more time. This despite the fact that the trial judge had determined that more than a few months in prison would have violated the men's rights under the 8th Amendment which protects Americans from cruel and unusual punishment.
This brings us to 4 January 2016, when, as the Hammonds reported to prison, fellow ranchers Ammon Bundy and LaVoy Finicum arrived at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge which surrounds the Hammond Ranch. Ammon Bundy and his father, Cliven, are ranchers in Nevada and recently had their own difficulties with BLM when the agency ruled that they could not run cattle on their desert ranch leased from BLM because the ranching would pose problems for an endangered species of tortoise - never mind that the cows and tortoises had peacefully coexisted for more than 150 years.
Bundy and Finicum's arrival did not go unnoticed by self-styled 'militia' types who were sympathetic to the idea of an out-of-control bureaucratic government. In short order the Refuge headquarters building and surrounding area was occupied by dozens of armed men and women all bringing their grievances, real or imagined, to the table.
Days turned into weeks and law enforcement officials from agencies as local as the Harney County Sheriff's Office and as shadowy as contract security forces working for agencies they would not name gathered for this waiting game. And through it all, LaVoy Finicum was a voice of reason. Firm? Certainly. Irrational? Definitely not. Listen to the uncut audio and watch the uncut video of anyone his several interviews and you will see a man who is not deranged, but who is determined.
Finicum and Bundy and their close associates frequently visited the town of Burns, Oregon - about 30 miles away - to eat, shop or meet with people from journalists to law enforcement agents.
But something changed in late January; the tone of both FBI and HCSO became more aggressive. The Harney County Sheriff, David Ward, began cancelling meetings, making the people he was supposed to hear wait long hours, and rather than being conciliatory or neutral, he became openly hostile.
On 26 January 2016, Ammon Bundy and LaVoy Finicum, accompanied by at least 4 others, left the Malheur Wildlife Refuge for a meetings with the sheriff and other citizens of another county. They never made the meeting. They were driving in two vehicles; one was LaVoy's truck and the other was a Jeep belonging to a recent arrival at the Refuge who called himself Mark McConnell. Both vehicles where stopped on the highway leading out of the Refuge. The Jeep with Ammon Bundy was not allowed to drive on, but LaVoy left the traffic stop and continued to his meeting. When rounding a blind curve in the road, LaVoy encountered a road block for which he could not stop in time and he drove his truck into a snow bank at the side of the road.
What happened at either the first traffic stop or the road block is unclear. By some accounts, police were shooting at LaVoy's truck during the first stop, leading him to 'run for his life.' One passenger in the truck says that as soon as they crashed into the snow bank, law enforcement officers began shooting at the truck. The official story is that upon crashing, LaVoy leapt from his truck and charged at law enforcement officers who had to shoot him. The video released by the FBI contradicts this. It shows LaVoy standing outside his truck with his hands in the air, and trying to keep his hands up as he is shot by no fewer than 3 agents.
By any measure, this was a murder. And it was a murder intended to stop objections to government abuse at the hands of bureaucratic agencies. LaVoy Finicum was a sympathetic, well-spoken, rational and knowledgeable man. He was a threat to the power structure.
I am convinced that he had no idea how greatly he was feared until the first bullet entered his body. I am convinced that he believed that he could make people hear reason and that there was an outcome without blood that was possible. Right up to the end.
I don't like the crass and ugly threats from 'militia' types that I see on line. That type of rhetoric is dangerous and ignorant. And they represent a very small, by their own estimates 3%, of the population.
What concerns me more is the response I get from my friends in government and in general. A US military officer I know has no sympathy. He chose to 'live by the sword' and thus chose his fate. Never mind the fact that LaVoy Finicum hurt no one.
An attorney has no sympathy. There is a right way to bring grievances before government. When one goes outside that channel, then killing that person is justified. Never mind the 8th Amendment or the 1st Amendment.
A liberal environmentalist has no sympathy. There was important work to be done on the Refuge and he was keeping them from it. When someone undertakes to obstruct government work, then killing them is okay.
A business executive has no sympathy. The guy was obviously a kook. Someone being a kook makes it okay to kill them.
The general understanding among these people seems to be that, in order for First Amendment rights to be protected, one must be socially acceptable, not speak or act against government, and use those rights only within established channels as dictated by law and tradition. This would be the first time I know of where the exercise of speech, assembly and petition were so narrowly applied.
I want to shake them and shout, "ARE YOU OKAY?!?! YOU THINK THESE GUYS HAD A SERIOUS CHANCE AT RESOLUTION THROUGH A SYSTEM THAT HAD BEEN TRYING TO DESTROY THEM FOR 30 YEARS?!?! WHAT GIVES YOU THAT IDEA? AND WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT'S OKAY TO KILL SOMEONE WHO DISAGREES WITH GOVERNMENT ACTION?"
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8 comments:
Hi, This is Thara Tenney, LaVoy's Daughter. This is a beautifully written article. May I have your permission to post this on my FaceBook Group page?
This is a very very very OLD Method of the KINGS OF THE EARTH. I concur with Mrs. Tenney and fully support Your work and perspectives. THANK YOU
https://theadirondacksconspiracy.wordpress.com/2015/07/17/the-adirondacks-conspiracy/
Oh and Please Mrs. Tenney and ALL ...... Join Us at the School ...... https://www.facebook.com/groups/1065967200090101/
God Bless America.
These are the exact words I have wanted to put together, the same message! Thank you. Sadly you are right about so many not caring. I will repost this but doubt if anyone (but the choir) will read it. The spotted frog is threatening our irrigation water supply here in Jefferson County. Our liberal newspaper editor has called for all of us to fight this issue so we don't devastate our local ecomony, get educated, write to our senators (he is certain that wyden and merkley are going to care because they are his good buddies) and we must stand together. We MUSt unite to keep this from happening, he tells us. Great message except for the second part of his column speaks to the atrocities of the awful people who had taken the refuge with their guns. He spoke lies about them and the Hammonds. The all knowing, all intelligent citizens of this country are destroying our freedoms. We now take political prisoners (Bundys and friends in solitary) and we kill when a man stands for educating anyone against the liberal agenda. I am deeply grieved for the personal trials of the families hurt in this, deeply grieved that media is behind an iron curtain, and deeply grieved that we are too a point of taking/killing citizens who speak out. Sadly, you can take a fool to knowledge but you cannot make him think.
All of these words written are perfect! As you stated, these were the exact words you had wanted to say. I agree with what was said 100%. In situations like this, one wants to be smart and logical but the inner anger of human nature gets in the way and the "right words" to say, are blurred by rage. I'm angry over all that I have seen for several years. Then, when these atrocities occurred on Jan 26th, I was sick. I want to rush to Oregon and "take on" the murderous Government entities. I had to stop and talk myself thru all of it. I came to the conclusion that action, driven by anger has negative consequences. I started reaching out to LaVoy's family and the Bundys to find out how, a tiny being in Iowa can help them make a difference. I was given many options and for this, I am greatful. I will also help to keep the fire of justice and the mission these patriots started, alive. This response was spot on. The original piece was right also, on so many levels. Thank you guys for giving us all hope to keep fighting for our freedoms!
Thara, you are welcome to share these thoughts with others.
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