Cliven Bundy and the Culture of Entitlement

Let's talk about Cliven Bundy.

As soon as I saw the story reported on Nightly News, I knew it was going to bring out the anti-government wingnuts from the woodwork.

Turns out I was right. Responding to allegations that the federal government has "seized" his property, right-wing militia groups swarmed to Nevada to turn what should have been fairly routine and peaceful into a tense stand-off.

The government backed off, not wanting bloodshed (which would have only fueled the fire), so they backed off - for now. Bundy and his supporters are claiming victory.

At first blush, it certainly looks like the wingnuts are right - that this is "big government" seizing a private citizen's property by force. But when you dig deeper, Bundy begins to look less and less like a put-upon citizen and more like a leech:

This conflict arises out of rancher Cliven Bundy’s many years of illegally grazing his cattle on federal lands. In 1998, a federal court ordered Bundy to cease grazing his livestock on an area of federal land known as the Bunkerville Allotment, and required him to pay the federal government $200 per day per head of cattle remaining on federal lands. Around the time it issued this order, the court also commented that “[t]he government has shown commendable restraint in allowing this trespass to continue for so long without impounding Bundy’s livestock.” Fifteen years later, Bundy continued to defy this court order.

Last October, the federal government returned to court and obtained a new order, providing that “Bundy shall remove his livestock from the former Bunkerville Allotment within 45 days of the date hereof, and that the United States is entitled to seize and remove to impound any of Bundy’s cattle that remain in trespass after 45 days of the date hereof.” A third federal court order issued the same year explains that Bundy did not simply refuse to stop trespassing on federal lands – he actually expanded the range of his trespassing. According to the third order, “Bundy’s cattle have moved beyond the boundaries of the Bunkerville Allotment and are now trespassing on a broad swath of additional federal land (the “New Trespass Lands”), including public lands within the Gold Butte area that are administered by the BLM, and National Park System land within the Overton Arm and Gold Butte areas of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.” The third order also authorizes the federal government to “impound any of Bundy’s cattle that remain in trespass.”

Source: Ian Millhiser

To sum it up: Bundy has been illegally grazing his cattle on federal land for decades - even after receiving a court order to stop. Even a court order wasn't enough to stop him, though, and he just continued trespassing on federal land - perhaps hoping for a confrontation so that he could become the next braindead conservative hero.

There are several ironic points here. The same right-wingers who are constantly screaming about personal property rights are some of the same people now gleefully trespassing on federal property to prove some "point" about big gubmint. One wonders what the effect would be if I bought several head of cattle and allowed them to graze in a Tea Partyer's front lawn.

It's the gubmint, though, so it's totally different, right?

Even more striking, though, is the sense of entitlement that these people - who prattle endlessly about the so-called "culture of entitlement" - seem to have. They're trespassing on federal property, but they expect the government to just let it happen because...they're "sovereign citizens" or some bullshit like that. The rules apply to everyone else, but not Cliven Bundy.

But it's not just this issue; take the "controversy" over IRS tax-exempt status. Many conservative groups are virulently anti-IRS ("abolish the IRS!" and "audit the fed!") and openly political. And yet they expect the same government agency they endlessly denigrate to just hand them tax-exempt status, no questions asked.

To do otherwise would be the gubmint out of control!!!111

Perhaps conservatives who rail against "entitlement" see something of themselves in those that they criticize....