re: #147 goddamnedfrank

These Bundy Ranch people are fucking crazy. They apparently believe that Article 1 Section 8 Clause 17 of the Constitution has been violated.

Get it? The land was never purchased from the State of Nevada. Well guess what, that’s because federal government ownership of the land predates the creation of the State of Nevada. The land was won in the Mexican American war, and curiously enough Article 1 Section 8 has something to say about that too:

So yeah, that’s a little bit inconvenient for Bundy, inasmuch as the creation of a State doesn’t automatically give that State government ownership of federal holdings previously established within it. The State never owned that land, that’s why they aren’t the ones going after Bundy for fees. Bundy doesn’t own it either, or he’d have a deed to the property.

Bundy’s argument basically amounts to “I own the land by right of fuck you!” He’s claiming his ancestors have been using the land to raise cattle since the 1800s, so he automatically has dibs despite having no paperwork to show that the land was passed down to him. And of course his refusal of the federal government’s authority has absolutely nothing to do with his decision 20 years ago to stop paying grazing fees because he didn’t like the changes the BLM made to the lease.

In other words, he’s a freeloading squatter who’s becoming a wingnut icon because he’s also a sovereign citizen loon who knows all the right cards to play to convince the fellow loons that he’s a “victim.”