Oregon Standoff: Isolated Event Or Sign Of Things To Come?
Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,
The nation's attention turned to Oregon this week when a group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom seized control of part of a federal wildlife refuge. The citizens were protesting the harsh sentences given to members of the Hammond ranching family. The Hammonds were accused of allowing fires set on their property to spread onto federal land.
The Hammonds were prosecuted under a federal terrorism statute. This may seem odd, but many prosecutors are stretching the definition of terrorism in order to, as was the case here, apply the mandatory minimum sentences or otherwise violate defendants’ constitutional rights. The first judge to hear the case refused to grant the government’s sentencing request, saying his conscience was shocked by the thought of applying the mandatory minimums to the Hammonds. Fortunately for the government, it was able to appeal the decision to judges whose consciences were not shocked by draconian sentences.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, some progressives who normally support civil liberties have called for the government to use deadly force to end the occupation at the refuge. These progressives are the mirror image of conservatives who (properly) attack gun control and the PATRIOT Act as tyrannical, yet support the use of police-state tactics against unpopular groups such as Muslims.
Even some libertarians have joined the attacks on the ranchers. These libertarians say ranchers like the Hammonds are “corporate welfare queens” because they graze their cattle on federal lands. However, since the federal government is the largest landholder in many western states, the ranchers may not have other viable alternatives. As the Oregon standoff shows, ranchers hardly have the same type of cozy relationship with the government that is enjoyed by true corporate welfare queens like military contractors and big banks. Many ranchers actually want control of federally-held land returned to the states or sold to private owners.
Situations like the one in Oregon could become commonplace as the continued failure of Keynesian economics and militaristic foreign policy is used to justify expanding government power. These new power grabs will increase the threats to our personal and economic security. The resulting chaos will cause many more Americans to resist government policies, with some even turning to violence, while the burden of government regulations and taxes will lead to a growing black market. The government will respond by becoming even more authoritarian, which will lead to further unrest.
Fortunately, we still have time to reverse course. The Internet makes it easier than ever to spark the ideas of liberty and grow the liberty movement. Spreading the truth and making sure we can care for ourselves and our families in the event of an economic collapse must be our priorities.
We must help more progressives understand that allowing the government to run the economy not only leads to authoritarianism, it impoverishes the lower classes and enriches the elites. We must also show conservatives that militarism abroad inevitably leads to tyranny at home. We also need to continue exposing how the Federal Reserve feeds the welfare-warfare state while increasing economic instability and income inequality. This week’s Senate vote on Audit the Fed is important to our efforts to help the American people learn the full truth about our monetary system.
One thing my years in Washington taught me is that most politicians are followers, not leaders. Therefore we should not waste time and resources trying to educate politicians. Politicians will not support individual liberty and limited government unless and until they are forced to do so by the people.
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too early
No, Ron Paul was too late.
Keep going, Ron Paul.
Hell yea. Fuck this Trump shit. Ron Paul and the like all the way!
"People listen to him, and believe he may be raising white horses someplace and he’s going to ride in. Because he is almost the opposite of a libertarian, because it’s not like ‘I want to give you your freedom and your liberty to run your life as you choose. Your civil liberties are absolutely yours, you can’t hurt anybody, it’s your own money you can spend it any way you want.’ But he sounds like the person: ‘I know the answers and I’m going to do this and I’ve done this, I’ve done this, this and this." - Ron Paul
Yeah, I agree with 95% of what "The Donald" says and I do not support Trump. Tempting, but he's just another stooge of the Bush/Clinton crime family.
Call him the Don. That suits his criminal associates best. Or call him Tramp. That suits him in every way. He is a grifter, a charlatan, carpet bagger, beholden to his money lenders who bailed out his numerous bankrupt companies.
He owes them, and now he will pay them back by doing what they cannot do: appear in public and schmooze the voters. It is chutzpah.
From a psychiatric diagnostic point of view, Trump is a classic Narcissist who thrives on his own sense of grandiosity - it drips from him in every speech, especially when he talks about polls. On the other hand, Hillary is a run of the mill power made sociopath, which matches about 99% of the politicians worldwide. Bill is a little more complicated, because he's also a compulsive pervert who needs to have sex with children. The CFR neocons are a mix of sociopaths and psychopaths. Remember, a good sociopath can always find a raving psychopath who enjoys killing. Sociopaths prefer not to get their hands dirty. Psychopaths need to get their hands covered with blood.
Ron Paul is so different from all of these psychos that I'm amazed he ever got elected in the first place. He should contact Tulsi Gabbard and get her on his side.
True.
Where I live in the spring and summer the government hires goats to eat the grass near the highway for fire control.
That is what the ranchers do for free. Those who are against it are just plain stupid.
ron paul and his son are complete elite tools. do not think he means anything.
So tell me why should I think you mean anything?
Here is something to ponder when you consider how the FedGov prosecuted the 2 guys for arson or whatever the charge was:
The Yarnell Arizona Fire: I'll just paraphrase but you can google for exact facts. I have a friend who lives in Yarnell. They had a big fire there a couple of years back. Lightening struck on public land and the Yarnell Az volunteer fire department rushed to the location to put it out. When they arrived the fedgov rangers told them to let it burn. The fire then got out of control and burnt like 121 structures in Yarnell and some people died. PEOPLE ACTUALLY DIED. Now the wikipedia entry does not mention how the government actors prevented the VFD from putting out the original fire but my friend was on the fire department for quite some time and lives there.
When he told me this story all I could think of was that the federal gov had gone full on hostile towards legal citizens. No one went to jail. Heck I could not find any references to the feds preventing the VFD putting out so the story has a blanket thrown over it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarnell_Hill_Fire
contrast this with a couple of acres of federal land burned / no casualties / no structures burned.
"Trump is a classic Narcissist who thrives on his own sense of grandiosity"
Too simple, yet.
If you really think Trump is a "classic Narcissist," then don't pretend to be able to analyze him.
Trump's inner workings are still an unknown, in this context.
Trump is a nationalist, that is someone who cares for the country.
Narcissists can't care for anything but themselves, so this a flat out wrong diagnosis.
Whoa... you actually BELIEVE that shit? excuse me while I laugh in your face.
It's obvious Trump is a better bet than anyone else. Anybody who expresses a different opinion is either a mind numbed social justice warrior or one of the paid government trolls sitting in a basement somewhere sowing FUD.
These are men who have learned that garnering support for half truths is the best they will ever idealisticly hope to accomplish. Once in power they fall back in line. Programmed failure - this is identical to investment trading, borrowing money for a business or seeking govt support for building roads and bridges and it's the same methodology the vampire squid and JPM use to screw us daily using the myth of fair markets and honest government, but in actuality its another case of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The stock market, the banking system, the two party political system - they're all closed systems. Nothing will change because nothing can change as long as its held captive.
It's like the cartoon showing two guys stretched out and chained to a wall ten feet off the ground. One turns to the other and whispers, "Now here's my plan."
there is no candidate worth voting for. not wasting my pedal power and the tyme to lock my bike and see a fucking bunch of idiots voting for hope and change.
give me a real choice!
i am so fucking sick and tired of this political season of sharades i could puke. the whole thingy is getting under my skin with no relief in sight. it is everywhere. bumber stickers are the worst. so many idiots and so little tyme. it is too late and we all intelectually know that. so cog dis check tyme. tyme to admit it is too late to change the system. that is my reality check. we are on auto piolt to some kind of a reset/crash and rework to who the fuck know what...
"so cog dis check tyme. tyme to admit it is too late to change the system."
I understand the sentiment. The sad reality is "We the People" have not yet begun to capitulate. For crying out loud, there STILL isn't a bonafide third party candidate worth considering by those who have become exasperated by the 'system'. Trump is sucking all the air out of that balloon by acting like a third party candidate while remaining 'Republican".
Simply brilliant.
Not to say a third party candidate is the answer. But the veil of denial is broken down in stages. Before you give up on your conditioning, you always try to bargain with your conditioning.
There are many miles to fall before "We the People" break......down.
i sat down one night and started writing down the consequences of changes to right the course. ex. 10 percent budget cuts accross the board. econ chaos ensues. money out of politics.
audit the fed. term limits. on and on. quite the mental task needing an in depth analysis of each.
then i realized that for any of these "evolved" issues to be changed or righted to the oringinal law and/or intent of the constitution, i or we the people need a democracy that works. so i stopped and realized then and there it is futile til revolution via violence. i don't advocate violence unless no other course can be taken to protect life and liberty.
IMO the next step is nullification. Many states are doing this with the marijuana laws. Texas recently tried this with its refusal of refugees + passing a bill to start up a gold bank. Montana has nullified many gun laws. And so on.
While 100% of the media attention goes to the Presidency, in reality the state representatives are much more reachable, and you have better odds of nullifying locally than repealing nationally.
And that is precisely how Trump is being positioned, as the next great hope and change....just like Obama was in 2008.
yes, tried and true. works everytyme. i got burned believing the jesse ventura jib (and woke up). it was the beginning of my life awakening to a new understanding that i was a smart idiot that needed to question everything and peel back the layers of cog dis. i'm a work in process. thanks to you and many others for unleashing new realities,(and some anger too)! ha...
in the meantime--the enemy of my enemy is my friend----
That Tramp will ruin the USA, as will Hitlery. They are two sides of the same corrupt coin: nazionists.
Rubio is the same poison. All contenders for the Presidency swear allegiance to Israel first or they don't get on the list. That is rule by foreigners, the Rothschild led City of London, for its pet fiefdom, genocidal Israhell.
You won't like reading that, but that is how the world beyond the front yard views it.
Americans have become very stupidly insular, and implosion comes to the USA, by your own will.
End the Fed.
could it be as simple as the worship of the almighty currency of power?
some nationalities are better than others...
Sorry newbie this society is too complex and too integrated for anyone to be able to pack up their marbles and go home. You can’t withdraw unless you are willing to go live under a bridge somewhere. And, even then, you’ll have to hide from the man. Ballots are a far better choice than bullets. If you want to unseat the system, join the anti-incumbent movement. Vote out every sitting politician and judge from this time forward.
While you are voting against the establishment, realize that there is no political solution to the end of empire. Like old debased and debauched nobility, we can hang on to the trappings for a while, but in time, the tired old tapestries give up the ghost and the charade they conceal is exposed. When that happens, we are recognized as the bankrupt beggars we are.
As individuals we may be able to construct islands in the stream for some of our family and small segments of our communities but we cannot save it all. Embrace the collapse and go with it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/09/opinion/steve-israel-confessions-of-a-...
"The only hope for reform is to replace the majority that is stopping reform at every turn." == "Choose how to do the revolution".
You want revolution? Pick up a gun and do it, and stop asking others to die for your armchair sophistry.
FFS. I am so fed up with nazionists, urging revolution, and mass killing, all for their Talmud.
Demdere,
Perhaps your sort never died in the War of Independence or the Civil War. You write like a foreigner, urging Americans to do again what your sort never did: free yourselves.
We Americans have our Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is enough to hold wrong doers to account under law or let them die by their otc derivatives as they are about to do, and their nasty lil nazionist cabal will go down with them.
V, i wasn't working at the tyme the nevada grazing thingy was unfolding. i was sooooooo close to loading the car and revisiting veda. i was close. it confirmed in my mind i will be somewhere near the front line being very smart about strategy and will rise to the occasion shall the need arise. i just hope others understand that i would rather be dead than a slave or live with lose of liberties.
Cool hands. Smart minds. Live another day. We must not die for the lies and greed of others. Peace be with you, brother.
If the time comes to fight, so it will be. We are not afraid. But we most certainly are not stupid enough to die for liars.
Our people have been through all this before, and there is no need to rush into the fire.
Steady, aim...hold.
nothing to be afraid of. read "the tracker". you won't put it down once you start...
it will insure your survival no matter what. go into the woods and loose that fear once and for all. it is life changing.
It is like raising kids..especially teens. CHOSE your battles. Be smart and intelligent just like the old days investing in the stock market. No emotion until you decide to need it.
I think we probably have to place our hope in our grandkids. I don't think it's a fight we can win right now. Maybe not ever. Orwell was an optimist.
If you could combine Ron Paul's intellect and dedication to Liberty, with Trumps aggressive presentation, then you'd have something.
Ron Paul was great and I voted for him. But he didn't have the 'sizzle factor' that Americans (raised by t.v. and with short attention spans), seem to need.
It's not just the sizzle factor, he misses the mark on understanding human behavior and how to counter it....
It's also like, if he was really, really real..they WTF isn't he dead?
Ron Paul is an intellectual not a leader.
Trump is a leader which is badly need at this point.
Plus what I didn't like about Paul was he would let the corporations run wild
with no controls at all. Hell, he would probably leave the borders open too.
No, no, and no. The last thing we need is a fucking leader. Jesus. Shit flinging monkey conciousness at it's finest. Must have strong-man leader to pull us out ooga booga. You're asking for another fucking tyrant to rule you. I accept nobody's rule.
Afuckenmen.
Penn Motherfucking Jillette.
TRUMP is the new OBAMA. The more they say they'll change things, the worse things get.
Here, here! Corporations, foreign, or domestic. Are subjects to those that they serve.
Lock 'em up as hostiles (including politians).
Ronnie needs to go to the back porch and sit in his rocker and fade into the sunset.
If it's too early, please clarify what more freedoms must be stripped away, or how many times more must the Constitution be used as toilet paper, before you think it would be a good time exactly?
If the line hasn't been crossed yet, what is it going to take?
What will it take ? Probably what it took the 1930s-40s Germans.
Complete devastation and defeat.
Sadly.
not answering for cog, but we have passed the point of no return. as i said we are on auto pilot til twists and turns as in the bundy uprise. if enough don't join, then the path of well intentioned idiots will lead us to tyranny by the ptb using their puppets to fool the usefull idiots called citizens thinking they are electing these puppets, ha...
Too Early? Meeeh,
When Public Union Employees (aka big government and the people that work for them) decided to make the "common everyday American" the "common everyday criminal" by conjuring up then enforcing the 12,000 new laws made all across this country each and every year, all to justify the cushy lifetime jobs for themselves and their "union brothers", it became too late!
When government employee's are paid 6-7 figure salaries, without the possibility of ever getting fired, not making a damn thing to help our country GDP all the while scrutinizing then FUCKING with the people that are actually doing something, building something, making something via more and more BULLSHIT rules and regs..... with threats of facing outlandish fines and/or business closure and/ or jail,
It might be too late.
When government (and their union employee's) wields more power, pays themselves more money, then go and do whatever the fuck they want to do, DESPITE the rules and limits WE THE PEOPLE set out in the US Constitution,
IT''S TOO FUCKING LATE!
Which is why I believe, sadly, Ron Paul is a plant and yes it's too late. They want to secure or have a revolution.
It all starts locally. In your neighborhood. Watch polls. Hold the local councilmen to the law. Hold the local party conduct to the line. Hold the mayor accountable.
Until those habits are ingrained locally, the state legislature will continue to be a mess. Once the state legislature is sorted out, then the state's congressional delegation can be held more accountable.
Its trickle up politics.