Breaking Oregon Militia Occupies Federal Building

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Does anyone know what these knuckleheads want?

I don't think it's really about the Hammonds. The Bundys and their buddies believe that federal land should belong solely to the states or the ranchers themselves since the ranchers have grazed their cattle on it for so many generations. Section 8 of the Constitution gives the federal government sway over land in the nation’s capital, but nowhere else. If you believe that any power not granted to the federal government belongs to the states, then I suppose the Bundys are correct. However, the federal government has owned land outside the capital pretty much since 1790, when Alexander Hamilton convinced the states to give up land west of the Appalachians in exchange for federal assumptions of state debt. A few years later, Thomas Jefferson himself questioned the constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase even as he wrangled the Senate to approve it.

It's possible that is what Bundy and his ilk think they are doing. Just as tree sitters raised public awareness of issues related to old-growth forests in the 1980s, maybe these guys see their occupation of a closed Fish & Wildlife Service building as their way to raise public awareness of alleged federal overreach on land control. Seems a few centuries late though.

The underlying problem with this tactic is that nowadays 90 percent of western US residents are urban dwellers who are much more likely to sympathize with spotted owls and sandhill cranes than with cattle and sheep.