Looks like the authorities are going to make sure the crazy guys with
guns in a National Wildlife Refuge building in Oregon are going to get cold,
hungry and lonely. Violence isn’t necessary—after a while, they’re going to
have to get out of the building and face appropriate charges.
The only reason I am mentioning this obscurely wacky episode in the
Wild West is that I noticed a compelling pertinent point in a column today by
Dana Milbank on WashingtonPost.com.
Milbank points out with obvious dismay that too many Republican
representatives in Washington are actually supporting or taking the side of the
misguided ranchers.
Milbank also cuts sharply to the quick when he debunks the claim some
are making about the “civil disobedience” in this little shack in the Oregon
woods.
“Civil disobedience is when people break laws they think [are] unjust
and then peacefully face the legal consequences. The takeover of a federal
wildlife facility in Oregon by armed men is sedition.”
My dictionary says civil disobedience is “refusal to comply with laws
as a peaceful form of political process,” and sedition is “conduct or speech
inciting people to rebel against the authority of the state.”
Civil disobedience happens when folks deliberately break laws and then
get arrested and go to jail and stuff like that to make a political point and
get publicity. Folks who are doing civil disobedience don’t carry guns.
If the ranchers in Oregon hadn’t carried guns with them there wouldn’t
be much of a fuss. They’d be a wacky one-time story on the nightly news. With
guns, they’re dangerous and they’re criminals.
They can’t be allowed to get
what they want.
That’s all, folks.
Copyright
© Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.
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