We'd Like to Say...

... that the armed men occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are pawns of the current administration, their actions designed to ensure a Democratic victory in November, but there's no room for humor in our current social climate so we won't. (Oh wait, we just did!)

All joking aside, there are right and wrong things happening on all sides of the issues at the center of the current occupation situation in Oregon, because there are humans on all sides of those issues.

With regards to this case, many people who live in the rural West have at least one story (some have many) of a rancher - themselves or a friend or acquaintance - who held out when the government tried to buy them out for some reason and were subjected to sometimes years of harassment and abuses of power, some even jailed as terrorists, meaning they could be held indefinitely or at least until their ranches could be seized through foreclosure if nothing else. One can only judge the veracity of a story based on the perceived knowledge and honesty of its teller, but some of these stories are well-fleshed-out and come from sources that seem honest, level-headed, and somewhat objective.

At the same time, federal officials are doing the jobs they've been hired on behalf of the American people to do, and most or all can tell stories of inappropriate behavior from those they serve, ranging from misconduct through threats to violence. Many federal employees who spend time in the field in the course of their duties are now encouraged to go out in plain clothes for fear that the sight of their uniforms alone will incite violence from miners, ranchers, loggers, and recreational users, some of each of whom are incredibly abusive to the land they use.

One begins to see how these interactions start to take on animosity on both sides, and that improvements can always be made in the process.

In this case in particular, there are some pieces of information that seem often to be falling by the wayside, with resultant arguments as to who's right and who's wrong or even what the issues are being made on faulty premises. We'll list here a series of facts regarding some of the common misconceptions we've been seeing bandied about in articles and comments sections regarding this drama in our neighboring state:

1. The buildings being occupied - by Mr. Ammon Bundy's account all seventeen he says exist on the refuge - were closed for the holidays but do in fact actively office about a dozen workers over the winter who are currently unable to work. Those buildings are the infrastructure for an active wildlife preserve during the months it's open for business (see MNWR link above). The employees will most likely be compensated for time lost, but in the meantime they're not getting paid and bills are still coming due. Schools and some other federal offices are also being closed as a precautionary measure.
2. This is now the fourth occupation of its kind in the almost two years since the Bundy Ranch showdown. Cliven, Sr. and Carol Bundy have yet to pay their grazing fees, no arrests have been made despite numerous broken laws, many of which should result in felony convictions for the people involved, but also no human blood has been shed in any of these five actions.
3. Mr. Ammon Bundy received a $530,000 Small Business Administration loan in 2010. Mr. Cliven Bundy, Sr. is charged $1.35 per cow/calf pair per acre to graze his cattle on federal land, as opposed to about a $12-15pp/pa going rate on private property, but owes over four times as much in fees and fines (over $1 million) as all other ranchers combined, according to the BLM (courtesy E&E News), and continues to graze his herds on federal land. A 2012 attempt by the BLM to round up some of the 900 head of cattle he grazes on land designated for 150 was met and rebuffed with threats of violence as well.
4. Few if any of the men involved in the current 'mission from God', as Mr. Ammon Bundy calls it, are from Oregon, and the men they're ostensibly there to help denounce their actions. The focus of their protest has shifted from 'justice for the Hammonds' to 'returning the land to We the People'. 'The People', referring to US citizens, largely feel the land is already being stewarded for our use, and in this particular case arrangements between local native tribes, landowners, and the government to share and use the land appropriately are working well to serve all involved, and are addressed as needed between various parties when things got jammed up one way or another. Not everyone's always happy, but things are worked out between the government, the natives, and most landowners in the area in largely civil and productive ways.
5. The Hammonds were not given a second jail sentence, nor does double jeopardy apply as they've not been tried twice for the same crimes. They were given a sentence that didn't meet the mandatory minimum for the crimes of which they were convicted - which were not all the crimes with which they were initially charged thanks to a plea deal - and, very likely due to the nature of those crimes (setting fire to federal lands and endangering firefighters) coupled with the terribly bad wildfire seasons of the last couple of years, the 9th Circuit Court decided they must finish serving out the full MM sentences. The Hammonds agreed to do so and reported as directed at the appointed time.

We, Peace and Dude, Sr., have no solutions to offer as to how best to end this impasse. If the ranchers manage to coerce a show of force, or if one is brought without coercion, either of which is possible, there will be bloodshed. Blocking the occupiers off and cutting off their resources leaves the buildings vulnerable to weather damage and gives the occupiers an excuse to cry, "Cruel and inhumane punishment!" If they leave quietly without consequence there'll be anger, rage, maybe even dangerous fury amongst those who feel these men should be jailed (or worse, but those who are calling for heads on pikes are strongly overreacting) and an even greater sense of invincibility among their group. Short of Dude, Jr.'s solution, their leaving quietly is the best option but it's hard to imagine there won't be an adverse reaction, perhaps even a severe one, if that course of action is taken with all of this coming on the heels of a year of so much violence.

Dude, Jr., though, is ingenius. He says, "Scare them out." We thought about a couple of options for that - his initial idea was to just drive a tank up to the door and leave it there without firing, but then we thought that might be the catalyst that starts things down a bad road, so we thought about things like causing indeterminate noises in the building via some kind of aural projector and/or equipping coyotes with collars that transmit noises that sound like much larger, more dangerous animals, then dropping them off nightly as close as possible to the compound while avoiding detection.

That line of thinking led to the thing that sounds quickest and most effective, which would be to set up a large neodymium (or stronger, if the Feds have one) magnet near enough the refuge to have its effect and let 'er rip... the guns right outta their waistbands. The magnet operator would necessarily be at a distance, so no human targets to shoot at even if one of the ranchers is strong enough to control their gun under those circumstances. If the magnet would create a risk of bullets popping off spontaneously this wouldn't work, but if that were not the case and it did work it would be bloodless and effective in neutralizing the threat, allowing the occupiers to be rounded up and arrested as they rightly should be, no matter how sympathetic one might be to their purported cause.