Those tempted to write off the standoff at the Bundy Ranch as little more than a
show of force by militia-minded citizens would do well to reconsider their easy
dismissal of this brewing rebellion. This goes far beyond concerns
about grazing rights or the tension between the state and the federal
government.
Few conflicts are ever black and white,
and the Bundy situation, with its abundance of gray areas, is no exception. Yet
the question is not whether Cliven Bundy and his supporters are domestic
terrorists, as Harry Reid claims, or patriots, or something in between. Nor is
it a question of whether the Nevada rancher is illegally grazing his cattle on
federal land or whether that land should rightfully belong to the government.
Nor is it even a question of who’s winning the showdown— the government with its
arsenal of SWAT teams, firepower and assault vehicles, or Bundy’s militia
supporters with their assortment of weapons—because if such altercations end in
bloodshed, everyone loses.
What we’re really faced with, and what we’ll see more of before
long, is a growing dissatisfaction with the government and its heavy-handed
tactics by people who are tired of being used and abused and are ready to say
“enough is enough.” And it won’t matter what the issue is—whether it’s a rancher
standing his ground over grazing rights, a minister jailed for holding a Bible
study in his own home, or a community outraged over police shootings of unarmed
citizens—these are the building blocks of a political powder keg. Now all that
remains is a spark, and it need not be a very big one, to set the whole powder
keg aflame.
As I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police
State, there’s a subtext to this incident that must not be ignored, and
it is simply this: America is a pressure cooker with no steam valve, and things
are about to blow. This is what happens when a parasitical government muzzles the citizenry, fences
them in, herds them, brands them, whips them into submission, forces them to
ante up the sweat of their brows while giving them little in return, and then
provides them with little to no outlet for voicing their discontent.
The government has been anticipating and preparing for such an uprising for years. For example, in 2008, a
U.S. Army War College report warned that the military must be prepared for a
“violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,” which could be
provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse,” “purposeful domestic resistance,”
“pervasive public health emergencies” or “loss of functioning political and
legal order”—all related to dissent and protests over America’s economic and
political disarray. Consequently, predicted the report, the “widespread civil
violence would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in
extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.”
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BATR 2020 Election News
