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Terrorist Rancher Family? BLM: A Blind Pimple Or Worse? – Dennis Linthicum
Hammond Family
TND Guest Contributor: Dennis Linthicum
As eMails fly around the Web supporting the Hammond family, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) shows a striking resemblance to a bad case of acne. My suggestion is that the BLM needs a thorough scrubbing.
A blind pimple is a red, painful, raised area that does not yet show the soft white head of a facial Vesuvius which is about to explode. Pimples are caused by overactive glands which are producing excess oil. When the skin’s pores become clogged, the debris builds and pimples form.
On one’s face the results are quite common, although extremely frustrating.
Our federal government has what is akin to a bad case of acne. Daily, we witness excessive regulations, exorbitant costs and swelling inefficiencies which stem from the debris left by overactive and over-reaching government policies.
The results oozing from these unmanageable bureaucracies are the outright loss of individual freedom, devastating community conflict, incalculable economic ruin, personal pain and immense suffering. The accumulated layers of this non-consensual regulatory rubble is both harmful and costly to our Republic’s character.
The circumstances engulfing the Hammond family represent all of the above.
Oregon’s Honorable Senators, Wyden and Merkley and House Member, Walden, have all been on the job while the debris has been building. The coming explosion should do more than just ruin their starched white shirts. These men should bear the burden of accountability.
To stop tragedy from occurring Congress needs to rein in rogue federal agencies. They need to stand for the people they were elected to represent. This means squeezing out the excess puss before federal agencies leave devastating scars on local landscapes.
The Hammond story is a long and twisted tale. The Feds claim the Hammonds, “knowingly and willfully combined, conspired and agreed to commit” crimes against the US.
The Grand Jury Superseding Indictment erupts on the scene in 2012. It highlights purposeful back-burn fires and other extraneous incidents, some of which were up to 15 years prior. It also categorizes the Hammond’s actions as “malicious attempts to damage and destroy” property of the US.
What it doesn’t document is any moral failings or malicious actions by federal employees. Somehow, through decades of interaction, the BLM deserves only glory for their moral rectitude and innocence. While the Hammond’s apparently deserve nothing but our contempt and 60 months in a federal prison.
The real story should be filled with men and women, on both sides of the issue, who made choices. Sometimes the choices were made under great duress and sometimes they were made with well-thought diligence.
Choices made by individuals and organizations will never be perfect, regardless of which side of the fence they are on. After all, history’s record is swollen with mankind’s fallenness.
The Hammond’s story should also describe men and women who showed genuine care and concern, but who were hamstrung by over-zealous regulators. Washington’s reckless quest for more re-election campaign contributions adds conflicting burdens from crony capitalists, environmentalists and other special interest groups.
My conjecture is that the vast majority of actions at the federal level are aimed at building a federal empire of absolute control.
Our Congressmen have been continually surrendering their legislative authority for decades. They have consistently squandered their rightful constitutional responsibility of managing national affairs via the historic principles of personal responsibility in free-markets and sound money.
Hudson Institute fellow, Christopher DeMuth, notes, “Since the early 1970s, Congress has delegated broad lawmaking authority to a proliferating array of regulatory agencies, from EPA [, BLM] and OSHA in the early years to numerous executive councils, boards, and bureaus… In the new dispensation, members of Congress vote bravely for clean air, affordable health care, and sound finance, while leaving the real policy decisions to executive agencies.”
This is the making of a blind pimple of enormous proportions. It has been festering below the surface for decades and with the Hammond family we finally see the sickening whitehead.
The Hammonds are being subjected to a minimum of 5 years imprisonment under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Does anyone really believe this is an appropriate categorization for Dwight and Steve Hammond?
The Armageddon-like usage of this legislation is not designed to terrorists at bay or keep you and your family safe. Rather, it represents a larger strategic goal focused on ensuring empire through regulatory tyranny and abusive legislation over our food, water, air and land.
The Hammonds’ conviction turned on 139 acres of public land being destroyed during back-burn operations. Does this make them terrorists?
What about the millions of acres destroyed annually by the BLM and USFS? Are there any terrorist charges pending against these organizations or their employees? No, the cabal of error, vengeance and greed would never allow that.
The federal government has been positioning for absolute control and martial law for years. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012, and its annual renewal efforts, highlights my conjecture.
The NDAA allows for indefinite-detention-without-trial. This provision is not only for foreign combatants but also applies to US citizens. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the National Security Administration’s (NSA) mass surveillance measures are used non-stop to gather millions of phone-calls and eMails without warrant. Additionally, massive resource confiscation provisions exist, via executive order, for the White House to exercise as long as the “emergency” label gets properly affixed.
This is more than a blind pimple festering under the surface.
This is the loss of liberty that the Founders so poignantly identified.
”Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”
– Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
We must not allow our modern congressional profligates their imagined rewards. Instead, support the Hammond family and fight for freedom!
For more information and source documents please visit: http://landrights.org/or/Hammond/index.htm or http://bundyranch.blogspot.com/2015/11/hammond-information-update.html
About the author:
Dennis Linthicum is the founder of the Dirt Road Economist, where he spotlights issues of concern to all Americans, including the loss of individual freedom and economic opportunity caused by unconstitutional political meddling. These intrusions are so common and seem so normal that the average American has little to no idea of how far our Nation has strayed from our Founder’s original intentions. Dennis recognizes the beauty and power of free-market systems in solving modern problems of governance. He has been an outspoken advocate for the traditional, conservative principles of Liberty. While serving on the Board of County Commissioners, in Klamath County, Oregon, he gained first-hand experience in dealing with federal over-reach. Today, he has vast expertise in dealing with federal bureaucracies and the community harm that stems from their needless interventions in predominantly local issues.
Dennis received a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics (UCLA) and a Master’s Degree (BIOLA University). He excelled at software and database application development with Hughes Aircraft, furthering his strategic, managerial and technological expertise which he later applied within the real-estate and insurance industry, ultimately serving as Vice President of Information Systems at Pacific Mutual Life.
Click here to visit the Dirt Road Economist website. Click here to visit the Dirt Road Economist Facebook page. Click here to contact Dennis.
Source: http://thenewsdoctors.com/terrorist-rancher-family-blm-a-blind-pimple-or-worse-dennis-linthicum/
Since I think we’re of a similar mind, politically speaking, I’ll try not to be rude.
How about, instead of concentrating your efforts on making comparisons between government and pimples, and carrying on about general big-government ineffectiveness and corruption, you explain in your article what exactly happened to the Hammond family.
I could shorten your article to this:
The Hammonds are being subjected to a minimum of 5 years imprisonment under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
The Hammonds’ conviction turned on 139 acres of public land being destroyed during back-burn operations.