Domestic Terrorist Now Cool

Senator Harry Reid’s description of defenders of the Bundy ranch as “domestic terrorists” has created a backlash and perhaps to the Senator’s chagrin has turned the phrase cool.

“If we get approval from the Bundy family we are going to sell ‘domestic terrorist’ car magnates,” said Nevada Assemblyman John Ellison. “ And send the profits to the Bundy family to help them.”

Last week over 200 armed BLM agents stopped their effort to round up some 1,000 head of Bundy cattle at the family ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada after facing hundreds of Bundy supporters many of whom were also armed.

The BLM’s retreat was a first for any federal agency and raised the morale of the morale many in the anti-federal government movement especially in the West.

Even the Southern Poverty Law Center which in the last two decades has become the primary privately funded antagonist to the ‘patriot or militia’ movement admits that the numbers of various groups has grown almost exponentially in response to victory at Bunkerville.

According to some estimates some 50,000 new members have signed up for various militias or similar organizations in the last week alone.

The retreat and the victory celebration first prompted Senator Reid description of the groups as domestic terrorist shortly after the BLM rangers withdrew. A few days later in a debate with fellow Senator Dean Heller, Reid repeated the phrase on television. For his part Heller called the protesters patriots.

“I thought it was completely uncalled for,” Ellison added. “The people out there were by no stretch of the imagination terrorists. In fact they were exercising their rights to protest.”

If the was a hero in the Bundy Ranch standoff it was Ellison who when most other Nevada political leaders were heading as far away from the range war as possible, Ellison charged in and just may have prevented the standoff from exploding.

 “Everybody was saying that it wasn’t in their jurisdiction.” Ellison said in an interview with the High Desert Advocate. “That was the biggest load of BS I ever heard. There were 100’s of federal agents and 100’s of protesters all on Nevada land all armed and it wasn’t in our jurisdiction to make sure people stayed safe? Come on.”

 The assemblyman made it his business to get Clark County and Las Vegas Metro officers to the scene despite the reluctance of their administrations.

 “I don’t really have an opinion on the Bundy case, except to say as a rancher I know the difficulties of dealing with the BLM,” he continued. “What I was a afraid of with all those guns around both from the federal agents and with some of the protesters was that a shooting war would start by accident. I think the presence of local deputies and officers put a cushion between both sides.”

 The deputies and Ellison’s presence at several stand offs may have been a factor that kept passion cool and could have also factored into the BLM’s decision to retreat from the fray and return the cattle back to Bundy.

 “I really don’t think this is over by a long shot,” Ellison observed. “The BLM got embarrassed and they could be back.”

 However Ellison’s public and prolific support of Nevadans may have spurred his more cautious colleagues to take note and perhaps stand up and be counted should the need arise again.

 “We were elected to defend the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Nevada,” he added. “That is our jurisdiction.”

Ellison and later other elected Nevada officials support of the Bundy’s underline just how different the current protest against the federal government is than the militia movement of the 1990’s.

Then the movement was virtually co-opted by virulently anti-Semitic white supremacist groups such as the Aryan Nations and the Order who preached armed rebellion against the United States or by religious cults such as the one founded by David Koresh in Waco, Texas.

In addition to preaching rebellion some of those groups actually practiced it and earned the attention of law enforcement.

The tragedies of Ruby Ridge and Waco coupled with Timothy McVeigh’s bombing in Oklahoma City first cast a cloud over the militia movement and prompted more law enforcement actions.

In a rather strange irony those actions cleansed the movement of its racist and anarchists elements that no amount of self policing ever accomplished.

Say what one will about Cliven Bundy and his supporters they are not Nazi’s or belong to any weird doomsday cult. They are however Americans who have a legitimate argument with the federal government.