Cliven Bundy’s Cattle Battle

Cliven Bundy is not a hero of liberty, he is a rich prick who doesn’t want to pay what he owes.  Well, I don’t know for sure that he’s rich.  But, if he’s got a thousand head of cattle, that’s a lot of hamburgers.

The government is not trying to stop him from raising cattle.  They aren’t even saying he can’t graze the cattle on their (our) land.  They’re just saying he has to pay $1.35 per month per cow (calves eat free) for an all you can eat, all day bovine buffet.  Of course, with that many cattle, that’s still a feed bill of  $1,350 a month.  Which might sound like a lot, but this is an industrial sized operation.  I’m a city kid, I’ve got no idea how much it costs to feed a cow, but my guess is that $1.35 a month is a hell of a good deal.

Here the embattled farmers stood, and shouted about their right to not have to pay for anything

Bundy says he owns the land, but he doesn’t.  At least not in the traditional sense of having a deed, or some sort of legal claim.  His family, he says, has always grazed their cows on that land, going back to the 1800s.   That’s all true, I’m sure.  Then, in 1997, the federal government (which actually does own the land) started charging a fee for cattle grazing, and Bundy’s never paid it.  He now owes about a million dollars. (I’m not being hyperbolic.  About a million dollars is about how much he owes.)

So, anyway, when the forces of law and order showed up to try and take his cows, a lot of Bundy’s buddies showed up to protest, including a whole bunch of gun loving wack jobs from all of the Western states, standing around and saying stupid shit like “I’ll shoot if I have to,” thinking they were the modern incarnation of the farmers on Lexington Green or something, instead of a bunch of fucktarded goobers.

So, the law backed off, not wanting a Waco type situation, and maybe fearing for their own safety a bit, too.  Probably the smart thing to do, but now the forces on the right think they can get the government to back down every time there’s a petty little dispute over a grazing fee of $1.35 a month.

I don’t know how this is going to play out.  Maybe the government will accept the loss of face and credibility, but I doubt it and think it would be a mistake.  Or maybe, they’ll just wait until some fine afternoon when Mr. Bundy comes into town without his posse, and they’ll arrest his cheap ass and let him sit it out in the iron bar hotel until he decides to cough up the million bucks he owes.

They could charge him with obstructing justice, or causing a public disturbance.