Charge the Oregon gunmen with sedition

This might completely blow the minds of so-called “Patriot” movement supporters, but by definition, seizing federal property and holding it with threat of force — in the case of the Oregon standoff with shotguns and rifles — a la a nonviolent (so far) John Brown at Harper’s Ferry-type situation is not in keeping with traditional American principles.

A sign tacked outside a Burns. Ore., home reflects growing community sentiment that outsider militia aren't welcome, in mid-December 2015. Self-styled patriots and militia say they are in the area to help ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, convicted of arson for burning federal land. The sign refers to Ammon Bundy, whose father Cliven Bundy was at the center of an armed standoff in Nevada in 2014. (Les ZaitzThe Oregonian via AP)

A sign tacked outside a Burns. Ore., home reflects growing community sentiment that outsider militia aren’t welcome, in mid-December 2015. Self-styled patriots and militia say they are in the area to help ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, convicted of arson for burning federal land. The sign refers to Ammon Bundy, whose father Cliven Bundy was at the center of an armed standoff in Nevada in 2014. (Les ZaitzThe Oregonian via AP)

We can all probably understand, or even sympathize, with the sentiment that the ranchers in Oregon pine for a day in which the federal government owned less land and homeowners and true pioneering types, folks who are used to living off the land, could tend to their own farms as they please without encroachment from the feds. But this is not 19th century, and we are all better for it. Whereas if the federal government had not created various wildlife refuges across the country, certain species of animals might have faced the threat of extinction, not to mention untold numbers of plants that are protected in these areas, not to mention thousands of acres of pristine land cannot be sullied by retail or residential developers and industrial users.

The specific list of demands from the ranchers is muddled, to say the least, but as best as Time can estimate, they want individual property owners to be able to take back control of refuge land, which was no doubt tended by families in the area generations before the protected area was established, and they want a lighter sentence for a pair of ranchers, a father and son, who were previously convicted of arson stemming from a fire that began on their property and then spread onto federal land.

As Sally Kohn, with The Daily Beast pointed out earlier today, the standoff in Oregon comes about a year after Clive Bundy, the crazed rancher who still owes money to the feds from past due grazing fees dating to the mid-1990s, somehow avoided charges in 2014 for refusing to comply with the law. According to CNN analyst Joey Jackson, Bundy could have at least been charged with resisting arrest or impeding federal officers, if not others. Yet, the only people charged were two Bundy supporters who picked counts unrelated to illegal grazing.

Kohn believes that, after Clive more or less got a win against the federal government, his son, Ammon, has now been emboldened in the latest Bundy fiasco at the Oregon refuge. While I understand arguments that, after disastrous outcomes in places like Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, law enforcement should treat the situation in Oregon carefully so as not to mobilize more support for these people and turn a peaceful incident (again, so far) into a shootout, it seems to me that the Bundy family has thumbed its nose at authority for way too long.

As many across social media have already said, if a group of gun-toting militant black people or AK-47-yielding Muslims had taken over a federal refuge, no shortage of blood would have already been shed. This goes without saying. That law enforcement does not even have a presence out there is almost unconscionable. To here news reporters talk about the incident, it’s as if law enforcement is just resigned to wait it out and try to come to some kind of settlement with individuals who are — I hate to belabor the point — holding a piece of federal land by force and who freely confess that they are ready to defend it if necessary.

Am I in the minority in seeing how serious of a crime this is? I’m not saying we should swoop in and violently take back to compound, but this passive approach in the face of overt defiance of the law is disturbing to say the least.

And unlike our “soft on terrorism” approach in Clive Bundy’s case, as Kohl put it, we should be ready to make an example of these folks, namely that right-wing nuts have every right to air their grievances and voice their anti-government rhetoric to whoever will listen, but a line must be drawn when the exercise of First Amendments rights crosses over into white-bred thuggery. As Peter J. Henning, law professor with Wayne State University said in this case, a charge of sedition would fit the bill.