The situation
Still the strangely placating, gentle, tactful note when law enforcement talks about the armed men occupying an isolated federal building in rural Oregon.
The FBI has taken charge of the law enforcement response to an armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, saying that it will work with local and state authorities to seek “a peaceful resolution to the situation.”
“The situation” – aka the violent takeover of a government building by armed men. I say “violent” because the men are armed, which is unmistakably a threat of violence.
The occupation of a remote federal wildlife refuge followed a peaceful march and rally held over the weekend to support two local ranchers convicted of arson.
It wasn’t peaceful. They should stop calling it peaceful. The marchers were armed. Can you imagine what would happen if lefty marchers started showing up armed? Nobody would call it peaceful and nobody would back off and wait politely for them to go home.
Bundy’s father, Cliven, is a Nevada rancher who has sparred with the government for years and who in 2014 had an armed standoff with federal agents trying to prevent him from illegally grazing his cattle on federal land.
So much tact! Cliven Bundy pulled a gun (or many guns) on federal agents who were attempting to enforce the law. He didn’t “have” an armed standoff, as one “has” a cold or an appointment. He violently resisted legitimate law enforcement – because he wanted to go on stealing grazing from federal land.
#TamirRice
They don’t have to be armed. Earth First! doesn’t carry arms, but they weren’t regarded as peaceful. Occupy didn’t carry arms, but they weren’t regarded as peaceful.
Perhaps if these guys were holding signs – “Rich Lives Matter” – then people would get all in an uproar? No, wait, they’d still be white, right?
Thank you for bringing up lefty organizations. While I agree with the people who say if they were non-white, this would be treated very differently, I also feel certain that if this was an environmentalist or Occupy group, armed or unarmed, they’d be treated as a serious threat and met with violence
(I’m not sure because I haven’t been following this gang’s activities closely, but I seem to remember that a group of locals protested the arsonists’ sentence outside the courthouse in the usual way, without guns. The Bundy Bunch came in a day or so later and hijacked the issue, I gather to the disgust of the locals. So maybe the earlier demonstration referred to really was the peaceful one?)