Oregon has hit the national news with the armed takeover of BLM offices in the Malheur area of Eastern Oregon. This is clearly civil disobedience. Is it like that of Martin Luther King or the Quakers?
Obviously the fact that the protesters are slinging AR-15s is a clear distinction and undermines the underlying point of what they are trying to protest. If they end the occupation peacefully and are willing to go to jail for breaking the law, fine. If not, they are just criminals and nothing more and delusional at that. But what are they protesting? This is the important part of this story that is being ignored or given cursory treatment by the media and it needs to be heard for the long term health of this country.
Rep. Greg Walden, the only Republican Congressman from Oregon, gave a very impassioned floor speech about the Hammonds, the ranchers going to prison. They are good people that he has known for 20 years and they are the victims of an arrogant, vengeful, and out-of-control Federal agency, the BLM. As Walden notes, 53% of his District is owned by the Federal government and the BLM and other agencies are treating the ranchers and farmers there like serfs in medieval England. The article about his speech is definitely worth reading, as is watching the video of it. A link is also attached with a background piece in National Review that reaches the same conclusion: the Feds are out of control.
The Road to Serfdom is a book published in 1944 by Austrian-born economist Friedrich von Hayek that outlines where he saw the philosophical currents taking the United States. His work is very prescient because the Federal government is out of control and BLM's actions in the West are but a foretaste of what is to come. If the Left continues to have its way, we will all be serfs.
(Tip o' the hat to George McGreer)
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