Why the Patriot Movement Will Never Succeed or How the Bundy Militia Standoff is Destroying the Cause of True American Patriots

By now, everyone has heard the story of the Bundy family in Nevada and how the federal government was going to confiscate their cattle for non-payment of federal grazing fees. The family wasn’t going to sit idly by and allow this to happen, and many people considered that there was a legitimate threat to, not just their livelihood, but their lives for resisting the government. Due to this, numerous patriots from all over the United States poured into Nevada to stand with and protect the Bundy family.

As a result of this sudden fame, the eldest son, Ammon Bundy decided to embrace the role of patriot leader and fighter against government overreach, and took up the plight, and the fight, of the Hammond family in Oregon, against their wishes. Now, Ammon and his rag-tag bunch of liars, poseurs, and agent provocateurs, are holed up in a federal building, on federal land with enough guns, ammo, and alcohol to ensure that they can remain drunk until someone from one of the sides fires a shot, or a truck backfires, whichever comes first. At this point in time, the militia group, sufficiently full of alcohol, but delirious from hunger since they didn’t plan enough food for more than 2 days of this “as long as necessary” siege, will likely go down in a blaze of glory.

While patriots all across this once great nation are praying for this very galvanizing event to happen to the group that they are using the federal government’s postal service to deliver groceries to this intrepid band of patriot warriors, solely for the hopes of a new “Shot Heard Round The World,” one must ask, besides a desire to see civil war, or revolution as they like to refer to it, what good is being effected by this siege?

If these patriots were truly concerned about federal overreach and their attack on farmers and ranchers, then why have none of them gone to stand with the farmer in Texas who has been fighting the BLM for 30 (yes, thirty) years as they try to steal fully 50% of his private property? His crime: the banks of the Red River have changed in the past 100 years. What about Mark Baker, of Baker’s Green Acres, who just announced that he is selling his private farm because he can no longer fight the government alone. His crime was simply raising heritage hogs for meat production. How about the Amish family that just recently got slapped with a punitive fine in Fort Worth because one of their customers distributed raw milk, purchased from their farm many miles away, within city limits? Or how about the Amish farmers throughout traditional Amish country who are facing 4am SWAT raids for daring to sell raw milk and eggs to their neighbors? Where were you when an organic, local market in California was raided and shut down for providing their customers high quality, fresh produce and raw milk?

My “patriot” friends, the movement is not failing because some of us are unrelenting in speaking truth, refuse to compromise on our principles, or choose to wait for facts, instead of inflammatory, emotion-driven rhetoric before taking action. No, the patriot movement will fail because you are not consistent in your principles. You are more eager to defend a family who is sucking at the government teat because the government dares to restrict their rights to use the public lands than to defend a farmer or rancher who is having his own personal property taken.

Let me ask you, how many of you will be on my doorstep when the government comes to shut me down because I dare to sell grass-fed beef, pastured pork and poultry, fresh unlicensed eggs, raw goat milk, lamb, goat, beef without unnecessary antibiotics, or fresh fruits and vegetables? And come they will, because none of the American patriots are willing to stand for the little guy defending private property. I ask you, once again, how many of you will come to my defense? I suspect that I would be optimistic to say one of you would be standing by me on that day.

Party Punishment or Poor Planning?

August 30, 2012

On the way to last night’s convention, I boarded a bus from our hotel with my Uncle Bill who is a resident of St. Petersburg, Florida. One of the first things Uncle Bill said once the bus left the hotel parking lot, headed for the Republican National Convention was, “Where is he going?” Followed up a few minutes later with, “He’s going the long way around. Why isn’t he taking the direct route?” and “This bus driver must not be from this area. He must just be following signs and will end up getting us there much later than we should.” Uncle Bill was correct, the bus ride that should have taken 25 minutes, took 40 minutes. We were the lucky ones. The other bus, which happened to be carrying most of our delegation and which left the hotel within a couple of minutes of the one I was on, took 3 hours to reach the Convention Center. One of our delegates who was on that bus and riding in the seat immediately behind the driver and immediately across the aisle from an armed security guard, overheard the guard speak into his walkie-talkie reporting that their bus was lost after they had already been on it for an hour and a half. The bus driver had two, yes two, GPS units guiding him.

All of this could certainly be purely accidental, a bus driver who was brought in at the last minute from some far away state to transport people to and from the Convention Center without knowing the roads. Except it was not just this bus. I was waiting outside the Convention Center to receive delegate credentials for one of our delegates who was staying off site and did not want to waste the fuel and the time to drive all the way to the hotel that morning to pick up his credentials. Since I was waiting outside, I was visiting with many of the volunteers who were stationed to check credentials as people were entering, and was standing where all who entered must pass right by me. Buses were coming in in waves, four or five at a time, and did not cease until after 8:00 p.m. The Convention convened for the day at 7 p.m.

Maybe it was purely coincidence and poor planning on the part of the RNC, but within the early line-up of last night’s business was a tribute video to Congressman Ron Paul and a speech by his son, Senator Rand Paul. Neither of these, nor any of the other early speakers of the night, were well attended due to the late arrival of so many delegations. Once again, I am not going to claim a vast conspiracy by the organizers of the RNC to ensure that these events were not well attended, but considering that the two fights from the previous day were led primarily by Ron Paul supporters, it does seem incredibly coincidental that this snafu happened on the night of these two events. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that they sorted Ron Paul supporters out and just held them up. It was all delegates, from all delegations who were held up. If this were intentional, it would have had the effect of ensuring that there was a small audience for the tribute video and for the speech of his son.

After the fact, I heard rumors of an accident on one of the bridges where a car caught on fire. I have not heard whether or not this is true, it was a rumor. I also heard that one entire road was shut down because of a couple hundred Occupy Wall Street protestors which caused several buses to be rerouted. Again, this is a rumor and I do not know the accuracy of same. There could be legitimate reasons for the snafu and, if so, I hope the RNC gets the problem fixed tonight.

Shortly after the majority of the delegations did finally arrive, many delegates, from many states, led by the Texas delegation, led a protest of the new rules that were forced upon us by walking around the Convention Center. This protest was designed to give an idea of just how many delegates were not pleased with the rule changes and the behavior of the leadership on the preceeding day. It remains to be seen if they take notice.

In spite of all the snafus, hold ups, and protests, the Convention was electrified. In deference to the 5^th commandment, I secured a delegate badge from one who was leaving early and got Uncle Bill seated on the floor with the Colorado delegation. Although we are philosophically opposed in our political ideology, he is my uncle and my elder, so I did what I could do to give him the opportunity of his lifetime. If nothing else, I feel strongly that we need to treat each other with respect, even when we don’t agree with them. This is the only way that we can educate others to the message of liberty: be respectful, build relationship, educate. It is difficult to educate without relationship, and relationship only comes when there is mutual respect.

Convention Corruption

Where to begin? If there is anyone who actually watched the blood curdling drama of the Republican National Convention on C-Span yesterday, then you might have gotten the smallest inkling that this was not a party united. However, I feel that I can confidently say that whatever feeling may have come across through the camera lens is most definitely not even giving even a glimpse of the real feeling there on the floor of the Convention. To begin the day, the Rules Committee was going to meet while the preliminary speakers were keeping the crowd entertained, in an attempt to hammer out any differences with the goal of avoiding a floor fight that might embarrass the GOP on national television. The leader of the opposition is a very well known, highly respected delegate out of the state of Virginia, Morton Blackwell. The Virginia delegation bus arrived at the Convention center, and was routed by security out and away from the Convention center. After driving around for approximately an hour and a half with fully half of the Virginia delegation on board, the bus was finally allowed to return to the Convention center where the Virginia delegation was allowed to then go through the security screening and enter the facility. Needless to say, by the time they arrived, the Rules Committee meeting was over and Mr. Blackwell was unable to speak about any changes to the proposed rules.

Shortly after the Virginia delegation arrived, the RNC finally got around to the first official item of business, approving the credentialing committee report. The RNC knew that this vote would be controversial since they illegally unseated duly elected delegates from many states, especially Maine. When the chairman announced that the results of the voice vote were in favor of the ayes, the floor erupted with a show of support for the displaced delegates. In response to this display of resistance to the illegal activity, the establishment Republicans on the floor acted like good little communists and started chanting “USA” in an attempt to shout down their contemporaries who believe in the rule of law and who were seeking to have their voice heard.

Within a couple of minutes of this “vote” it was time to vote for the controversial rule changes. Once again, the voice vote was incredibly close, and it was clear to the chairman, and all who were paying attention, that even alternates, guests, and the paid Romney staffers who were stationed around the entire forum with each state delegation were voting. At this point in time, the chairman should have called for a roll call vote to ensure that the vote accurately reflected the will of the people. What the chairman did, however, was to continue to read from the script in front of him, whereby he read, directly from the teleprompter, “In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.” It is fascinating to me how the programmer of the teleprompter knows what the results of the vote will be before the vote is actually taken. It is also somewhat unfortunate for the RNC that they placed the Colorado delegation where they could read the teleprompter right along with the speaker.

Ahhh, but the show must go on, and we cannot let minor details such as “rule of law” and “the will of the people” impede progress. Let’s just bring up the next speaker please. What may be the ultimate irony of this entire situation is that the Republican party is the party that is vocal about the need to eliminate voter fraud. They are the party that is seeking to require all voters to provide photo identification before being allowed to cast a vote. How can the Republican party, and any Republican legislator, ever again speak of this with a straight face when they refuse to practice vote integrity within their own party? And how can they hope to win an election when they, through such corrupt practices, disenfranchise fully twenty percent of their base?