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Apparently, because FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM! or some such other ambiguous crap, The Gadfly is supposed to feel affinity with and sympathy for these putzes:
Republican Arizona lawmakers are upset with a brewing showdown in Nevada between the federal government and a rancher who claims rights to graze his cattle in a remote area about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
Rep. Bob Thorpe of Flagstaff said Thursday he is among about three dozen state legislators sending a letter to federal and Nevada officials about the standoff between rancher Cliven Bundy and Bureau of Land Management officials.
Federal officials say Bundy has racked up more than $1.1 million in unpaid grazing fees over the years while disregarding several court orders to remove his animals.
Thorpe says lawmakers aren’t arguing over whether Bundy has broken laws or violated grazing agreements. They’re more concerned with what they perceive as government heavy-handedness and how officials are restricting protesters to “free speech zones” near the closed off federal land.
Tea Party Republican state Rep. Kelly Townsend tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal she was shocked after seeing the video where federal police used a stun gun on one of Bundy’s sons.http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2014/04/11/tea-party-lawmaker-nev-cattle-roundup-reminded-me-of-tiananmen-square/
Oh horror! The authorities used a stun gun on some right wing cowboy who was breaking the law. Oh fucking woe is us!! The world has never seen such brutal, unwarranted and counterproductive behavior by law enforcement people before!!!
Except of course it has:
Over 80 people were arrested in downtown Manhattan during a protest against Wall Street on Saturday. Protestors are complaining that police used excessive force. Judge for yourself.posted onhttp://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/violent-pictures-from-occupy-wall-street-protests
Now -- if you go to that buzzfeed link right above, you'll see photos of a bunch of peaceful, unarmed, non-aggression minded Occupy Wall Street protesters exercising their right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for redress of grievances. For you Constitutional scholars, you might recognize that language as being a core tenet of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. What you will also see at the link is the overly aggressive response of law enforcement authorities to those Occupy protests, resulting in not only in taserings, but also physical violence by the authorities.
And The Gadfly recalls very fucking clearly that when news broke of the Occupy Wall Street violence by the law enforcement authorities against protesters, the right wing crowd could not contain their glee -- in fact they laughed at it and complemented the cops and praised their actions.
So now the shoe is on the other foot huh? And they want The Gadfly to admire their protest against the government to uphold long established federal law of disallowing private usage of public lands without permit just because their hero is claiming some bullshit, manufactured stake to sovereign citizenship.
Fuck them. The Gadfly is tired of their hypocrisy. They are all for protecting the rights of a single, obstinate asshole who has been warned for 15 fucking years that he was breaking established law, yet some college students and Americans who wanted to publicly protest and express their views that Wall Street is a bloodsucking leach on the American soul, deserve to get their heads bashed in by cops for daring to exercise their right to assemble and peacefully protest? Sorry - it don't work that way.
You can't have one form of freedom for one segment of society and another, inferior form of freedom for other segments. It's all or nothing for everybody - equally - and the sooner the right wing conservatives get that very uncomplicated principle through their thick fucking skulls, then perhaps our philosophical and political movements can find some common ground with each other.
----TFG
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