The takeover of a vacant wildlife-refuge building in a remote part of Oregon by some two-dozen armed ranchers and their supporters is moving into its fifth day, with protest organizers saying they are there for the duration and local law enforcement inviting them to leave.
Television talk-show hosts have challenged the protesters for breaking the law, and they have suggested they leave it to the rule of law and the federal government to make sure things are right.
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But what if it is the federal government that has been taking the role of the thug, the aggressor, the intimidator, in the dispute?
Attorney David French, a staff writer at National Review, explains his research into the history of the case involving Dwight and Steve Hammond, their offenses, their conviction and their jail sentences suggests something like that is definitely in the air.
Under the headline, "The Case for Civil Disobedience in Oregon," he describes the circumstances that led to activists for Western ranching rights, led by Ammon Bundy of Nevada, to take over a building at Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and threaten not violence but a long-term stay until a resolution is reached.
"What if the government viciously and unjustly prosecuted a rancher family so as to drive them from their land? Then protest, including civil disobedience, would be not just understandable but moral, and maybe even necessary," he wrote.
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French cited the court documents in the case that led to the conflict.
"What emerges is a picture of a federal agency that will use any means necessary, including abusing federal anti-terrorism statutes, to increase government landholdings," he explained.
Those documents, he said, reveal the beginning of the conflict was not with two range fires the Hammonds allegedly used to control noxious weeks, but "the creation and expansion of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge."
Opened by President Theodore Roosevelt, it has been expanded multiple times, he said.
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"Protesters allege that when private landowners refused to sell, the federal government got aggressive, diverting water during the 1980s into the 'rising Malheur lakes.' Eventually, the lakes flooded 'homes, corrals, barns, and graze-land.' Ranchers who were 'broke and destroyed' then 'begged' the government to buy their 'useless ranches,'" French wrote.
"By the 1990s, the Hammonds were among the few private landowners who remained adjacent to the refuge. The protesters allege that the government then began a campaign of harassment designed to force the family to sell its land," including revoked grazing permits and barricaded roads.
He said the fires for which the ranchers were convicted of terrorism were among the routine variety Western land owners use to control weeds and for other purposes.
French noted a judge found that it had merely damaged "juniper trees and sagebrush," and the damage might total $100.
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The other fire was no more than "trifling," he said.
Nearly a decade after, the government "filed a 19-count terrorism indictment against the Hammonds that included charges under the Federal Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which mandates a five-year prison term," he said.
At trial, the local judge said the penalty was too much, and gave them lesser terms. They had accepted a plea agreement to waive their appeals rights and accept the jury verdict, but the government despite whatever agreement that may have been in place, appealed, demanding the full five-year terms.
The Hammonds returned to prison this week to finish serving those sentences, saying they were not connected to the protesters.
Incidentally, French reported, at the time the Hammonds were trying to pay a $400,000 civil settlement with the federal government, "the terms of which gave the government right of first refusal to purchase their property if they couldn't scrape together the money."
French concluded, "There's a clear argument that the government engaged in an overzealous, vindictive prosecution here. By no stretch of the imagination were the Hammonds terrorists, yet they were prosecuted under an anti-terrorism statute. The government could have let the case end once the men had served their sentences, yet it pressed for more jail time. And the whole time, it held in its back pocket potential rights to the family's propery."
One of the protesters, John Reitzheimer, told CNN on Tuesday, "We came very well prepared. We're in it for the long haul."
There's really been no "standoff" as of yet, since authorities are leaving the protesters alone and the protesters have promised they'll only defend themselves if attacked.
The FBI announced it was working with the Harney County sheriff's office and others "to bring a peaceful resolution to the situation."
Bundy is the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, whose fight with the federal government over grazing fees in his state created an armed standoff lasting days in 2014. Eventually the government backed away from plans to confiscated Bundy's cattle.
Ammon Bundy at one point said the protesters would be satisfied "when the people of Harney County can use these lands without fear: once they can use these lands as free men."
WND has reported that the conflicts between federal bureaucrats running land in the West, and ranchers who also run their own, are deep and persistent.
"Those sipping lattes, they have no clue how the ranching economy, the Western economy works. They believe ranching destroys the environment, that ranching is a vestige of a bygone era," said attorney James S. Burling, the litigation director of the Pacific Legal Foundation.
The Pacific Legal Foundation has considerable experience litigating issues of land, water and grazing rights across the American West, where Washington owns or controls a majority of the land in some states.
The Congressional Research Service documents that the federal government owns about 640 million acres of land, about 28 percent of the 2.27 billion acres in the U.S.
Four agencies administer 609 million acres of the land: The Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture, the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service, all in the Department of the Interior.
Most of those lands are in the West and Alaska.
Of the 365 million acres in Alaska, nearly 220 million are owned by the feds, or about 60 percent of the state.
In Nevada, the feds control about 56 million acres, 81 percent of the state. In Utah, the feds control 63 percent of the state; Washington, 27 percent; New Mexico, 29 percent; Montana, 29 percent; Wyoming, 48 percent; Oregon, 26 percent; Arizona, 41 percent; California, 40 percent; Colorado, 35 percent; and Idaho, 61 percent.
The CRS report noted the conflict over land is nearly as long as the nation's history.
"During the 19th century, many laws encouraged settlement of the West through federal land disposal," the agency said, a major factor in the control Washington now possesses.
"The formation of the U.S. federal government was particularly influenced by the struggle for control over what were then known as the 'western' lands – the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River that were claimed by the original colonies. The original states reluctantly ceded the lands to the developing new government; this cession, together with granting constitutional powers to the new federal government, including the authority to regulate federal property and to create new states, played a crucial role in transforming the weak central government under the Articles of Confederation into a stronger, centralized federal government under the U.S. Constitution."
Even then, there were two visions: "reserving some federal lands (such as for national forests and national parks) and selling or otherwise disposing of other lands to raise money or to encourage transportation, development and settlement."
The CRS report said some lawmakers have expressed interest in selling federal lands to balance the budget or at least reduce the deficit.
The "FY2012 Budget of the United States: Analytical Perspectives" estimated the value of all federal lands in 2010 at $408 billion, CRS said, not including property taxes that would be assessed on the value.
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