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Showing posts with label Nevada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nevada. Show all posts

Thursday, April 17, 2014

The importance of "Moral Authority"



      It was like a scene out of a Hollywood movie ( a cross between "High Noon at the OK Corral"  and "The Hunger Games") where the little guy stood up against the big bad government and won!  Last weekend we saw the Bundy Ranch face-off end with no guns fired and the BLM workers step back.    It was amazing to watch men and women on horseback with nothing more than flags in their hands stand up to men in military "camo" carrying semi-automatic weapons and flying around in helicopters.

      I have heard many "legal arguments" showing that the Bundy's have no legal leg to stand on.  Arguments such as the fact that Nevada has in its constitution declarations that much of its land is owned by the federal government and that two to the Bundy's efforts in court have failed to change that.  While I agree in principle the Bundy's may have no legal authority, they do have moral authority on their side.   For without a moral authority to back up the legal authority the men of the BLM cannot enforce their so-called rules and regulations.   (I hope that the people support Bundy took notice that it was not the militia's showing up with their guns that ended the confrontation, but instead unarmed people banding together on horseback that did the trick)

    We as Americans have always been for freedom and fairness in our country.  Anyone who looks at
Federal Land in red
the situation in Nevada must feel that something is wrong where a federal government owns over 80% of a state.  How can that be?  Does New Jersey or New York or Virgina have large swathes of land that is not theirs even though it is within their own borders?    Obviously not.  Who of us would buy a parcel of land if we found out that the neighbor next door controls your backyard and has a legal right to use it however they wish?  Would we not say that such an agreement made in the past should be revisited and be changed?  Should not Nevada also be free to change their constitution and reclaim its land for its own use and prosperity?

     Yes, you can quote all the laws involved (Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 or the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976) or sight the court cases like "United States vs Gardner"  but if the will of the people and their view of what they see as morally right does not support you then you have no way of enforcing those laws.   We saw this during last weeks stand-off when we saw that armed men with shiny little badges from the BLM were no match unarmed men and women on horseback armed only with flags and cell-phones.   On many occasions they threatened to shoot if they came past the gate (which BLM erected), but in the end they knew what they were doing was not right and they could not pull the trigger on these people.

    Moral authority trumped legal authority.

    To those who quote these ancient rulings and regulations, does it ever occur to you that the law may be wrong?  Maybe these laws need to be re-written?   That peoples freedoms for years have been trampled on and now its time to rectify the situation?    Could it be that when these laws were passed that our government which was run mostly by people on the east coast over stepped their bounds?

     Simply put:  Laws that are not challenged are never changed.

    The Bundy's may not have a legal leg to stand on, but in the eyes of the people their moral authority is in good standing with the court of public opinion.

    Of course the battle is not over with the Bundy Ranch and the federal government is weighing its options for its next course of action. But for now the scoreboard reads:

                                                   BUNDY:  1     FEDS:   0

FINAL NOTE:

   Government must realize that the law enforcement is a two-way-street.  If they are not willing to abide by their own laws and the Constitution then also they are inviting others to do so as well at their own peril.  For Senator Harry Reid to talk about people disregarding the law while he and President Obama have bypassed the rules laid out by the Constitution is nothing short of astounding.  "We The People" restrain ourselves because we see our government restrain itself.  We abide by the law because we see our government and its officials abide by the law as well.