The site: http://www.libertyjournal.com/liberty_forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=8&Message_ID=5954
The article:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Shun the feds
by J.D. Tuccilli
A recent AP wire story led, "[m]ore than 70 managers of national wildlife refuges across the country have experienced threats or harassment..." A November 22 article in High Country News, an environmental news service, began, "[a]fter enduring a year and a half of what she calls Nevada's 'fed bashing,' Gloria Flora couldn't take it anymore. The supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest national forest in the lower 48 states, submitted her resignation Nov. 8." Pardon me while I weep in sympathy for ... no, the moment passed.
Oh, it's not that the drones at the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the like are particularly bad compared to other federales. No, while Forest Service people all too often reduce the stewardship of government-owned lands to the level of some kind of neo-pantheistic tree-worship where humans are bad, bad, bad, they don't hold a candle in malevolence to numerous other government agencies. Closing dirt roads and banning campfires is annoying, but it doesn't compare to kicking in doors, harassing opponents of the holy War on Drugs, and torching religious settlements — all favored activities of modern law-enforcement agencies at all levels of government. But the recent, widely reported revolt against federal employees shows signs of vestigial backbone among Americans — especially in the West — who are harking back to Whiskey Rebellion forebears and telling the busybodies where to get off.
Government sympathizers will point to scattered violent incidents as evidence that the folks giving them such a hard time just aren't nice people — as if the authorities never use violence for their own ends. The late Donald Scott could testify on that point, if his objections hadn't been so permanently silenced during a raid that the Ventura County, California, District Attorney described as "motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit [his] ranch for the government." Best-selling author Peter McWilliams might have a few words to add on the government's violent suppression of critics of the War on Drugs. Nonetheless, there are real objections to be raised against people who initiate violence, whether they do so for the government or on their own.
But, legitimate concerns about violence aside, the tactics that seem to strike the deepest are the simple ones of harsh criticism and public shunning. According to a Washington Post article mentioning the above-noted Gloria Flora of resigning-her-post fame, "[a]nti-federal fervor has reached such a pitch in rural Nevada … that Forest Service employees have been refused service at restaurants and one was kicked out of an area motel after the owners learned who is employer was." Poor babies.
The glory of such peaceful and wonderfully rude tactics is that they make it clear that opposition isn't the sole property of some isolated militants, but that it's pervasive and grassroots. Repeatedly being told to take your empty belly and weary bones elsewhere — preferably back across the Potomac River — strike deeper than violence ever could. It's a constant reminder that many good people across the country simply have no use for that organized crime syndicate known as "government," and obey its edicts not at all, or only under threat of force. A millennia-long line of imperial representatives stationed where the natives are restless could have told Ms. Flora that her discomfort is nothing new.
Western resentment of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management is understandable; after all, the federal government controls vast stretches of land throughout the West, giving it make-or-break power over livelihoods and whole communities.
But there are even better targets for criticism and shunning than the folks in green shirts and big hats. The Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, for example, are wholly illegitimate tentacles of government that exist to stop people from doing what they have every right to do, or at least to make doing those things difficult and expensive. Where Forest Service employees might be charged with abusing their mandate, BATF and DEA agents can legitimately be charged with simply existing — and doing so forcefully, with an impressive body count. The Federal Bureau of Investigation might claim some legitimacy for its activities — arresting killers and bank robbers is a good thing, after all — but the Bureau's current starring role in the renewed Waco investigation is ample evidence that Hoover's minions haven't abandoned their founder's arbitrary ways. All three of these federal agencies are more deserving of the cold shoulder than high-handed forest rangers.
Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada at Reno, told the Los Angeles Times that, "[a]t the heart of the unrest are rural folks tired of being told what to do by people 3,000 miles away in Washington. They want to call their own shots. And the attitude is spreading."
If that spreading attitude were to extend beyond Smoky the Bear's over-enthusiastic buddies, a host of abuses might be nipped in the bud. What if drug cops, gun-law enforcers, and federal thugs of all varieties couldn't so much as purchase a cup of coffee once they passed outside the D.C. city limits? Their behavior might change; or even better, there could be a mass exodus for private-sector jobs where the opportunities for stomping people and property are somewhat rare.
Am I being too optimistic about the potential for simply being unfriendly toward the government's enforcers?
I don't think so. The disfavored federales themselves suggest that such tactics are effective. There's Gloria Flora's resignation, for starters, as Exhibit A. And in a brief article quoting the National Field Director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a sort of rah-rah group for those Forest Service types who've made themselves so unpopular in the West, High Country News writes that "if the threats and attacks continue, some employees may be less willing to do their jobs."
Well, that's the idea, isn't it?
There are no guarantees, but these recent headlines about unhappy forest rangers suggest that Americans can peacefully make the current crop of high-handed and over-confident overseers very uncomfortable. And uncomfortable overseers might find reason to tone it down or find productive employment where they can't do so much harm.
[/quote]
------------------
John/az
"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
The article:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Shun the feds
by J.D. Tuccilli
A recent AP wire story led, "[m]ore than 70 managers of national wildlife refuges across the country have experienced threats or harassment..." A November 22 article in High Country News, an environmental news service, began, "[a]fter enduring a year and a half of what she calls Nevada's 'fed bashing,' Gloria Flora couldn't take it anymore. The supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest national forest in the lower 48 states, submitted her resignation Nov. 8." Pardon me while I weep in sympathy for ... no, the moment passed.
Oh, it's not that the drones at the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the like are particularly bad compared to other federales. No, while Forest Service people all too often reduce the stewardship of government-owned lands to the level of some kind of neo-pantheistic tree-worship where humans are bad, bad, bad, they don't hold a candle in malevolence to numerous other government agencies. Closing dirt roads and banning campfires is annoying, but it doesn't compare to kicking in doors, harassing opponents of the holy War on Drugs, and torching religious settlements — all favored activities of modern law-enforcement agencies at all levels of government. But the recent, widely reported revolt against federal employees shows signs of vestigial backbone among Americans — especially in the West — who are harking back to Whiskey Rebellion forebears and telling the busybodies where to get off.
Government sympathizers will point to scattered violent incidents as evidence that the folks giving them such a hard time just aren't nice people — as if the authorities never use violence for their own ends. The late Donald Scott could testify on that point, if his objections hadn't been so permanently silenced during a raid that the Ventura County, California, District Attorney described as "motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit [his] ranch for the government." Best-selling author Peter McWilliams might have a few words to add on the government's violent suppression of critics of the War on Drugs. Nonetheless, there are real objections to be raised against people who initiate violence, whether they do so for the government or on their own.
But, legitimate concerns about violence aside, the tactics that seem to strike the deepest are the simple ones of harsh criticism and public shunning. According to a Washington Post article mentioning the above-noted Gloria Flora of resigning-her-post fame, "[a]nti-federal fervor has reached such a pitch in rural Nevada … that Forest Service employees have been refused service at restaurants and one was kicked out of an area motel after the owners learned who is employer was." Poor babies.
The glory of such peaceful and wonderfully rude tactics is that they make it clear that opposition isn't the sole property of some isolated militants, but that it's pervasive and grassroots. Repeatedly being told to take your empty belly and weary bones elsewhere — preferably back across the Potomac River — strike deeper than violence ever could. It's a constant reminder that many good people across the country simply have no use for that organized crime syndicate known as "government," and obey its edicts not at all, or only under threat of force. A millennia-long line of imperial representatives stationed where the natives are restless could have told Ms. Flora that her discomfort is nothing new.
Western resentment of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management is understandable; after all, the federal government controls vast stretches of land throughout the West, giving it make-or-break power over livelihoods and whole communities.
But there are even better targets for criticism and shunning than the folks in green shirts and big hats. The Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, for example, are wholly illegitimate tentacles of government that exist to stop people from doing what they have every right to do, or at least to make doing those things difficult and expensive. Where Forest Service employees might be charged with abusing their mandate, BATF and DEA agents can legitimately be charged with simply existing — and doing so forcefully, with an impressive body count. The Federal Bureau of Investigation might claim some legitimacy for its activities — arresting killers and bank robbers is a good thing, after all — but the Bureau's current starring role in the renewed Waco investigation is ample evidence that Hoover's minions haven't abandoned their founder's arbitrary ways. All three of these federal agencies are more deserving of the cold shoulder than high-handed forest rangers.
Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada at Reno, told the Los Angeles Times that, "[a]t the heart of the unrest are rural folks tired of being told what to do by people 3,000 miles away in Washington. They want to call their own shots. And the attitude is spreading."
If that spreading attitude were to extend beyond Smoky the Bear's over-enthusiastic buddies, a host of abuses might be nipped in the bud. What if drug cops, gun-law enforcers, and federal thugs of all varieties couldn't so much as purchase a cup of coffee once they passed outside the D.C. city limits? Their behavior might change; or even better, there could be a mass exodus for private-sector jobs where the opportunities for stomping people and property are somewhat rare.
Am I being too optimistic about the potential for simply being unfriendly toward the government's enforcers?
I don't think so. The disfavored federales themselves suggest that such tactics are effective. There's Gloria Flora's resignation, for starters, as Exhibit A. And in a brief article quoting the National Field Director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a sort of rah-rah group for those Forest Service types who've made themselves so unpopular in the West, High Country News writes that "if the threats and attacks continue, some employees may be less willing to do their jobs."
Well, that's the idea, isn't it?
There are no guarantees, but these recent headlines about unhappy forest rangers suggest that Americans can peacefully make the current crop of high-handed and over-confident overseers very uncomfortable. And uncomfortable overseers might find reason to tone it down or find productive employment where they can't do so much harm.
[/quote]
------------------
John/az
"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
. (Years ago, my wife waited on two ATF agents... let's just say she made the most of that opportunity)