Ammon Bundy Wants National Effort to Buck Coronavirus Rules

a reply to: Boadicea

That's his choice. Many of us have decided a little bit of safety isn't worth the loss of freedoms. I don't care how many lives it costs, point blank.

Time to get people back to work. We have a country to run. If we let a small risk cause this kind of chaos, what message are we sending to terrorists and mortal enemies like China/Iran/etc

a reply to: burdman30ott6


It's just that freedom isn’t unlimited. That’s an existential fact.

Lofty principles are always moderated by nuanced, often unspoken, reality.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: themessengernevermatters
You didn't have to experience it...

No, I didn't have to experience it, and I certainly don't need to be experiencing this one with its massive government overreach and economic destruction.

Well we all have the right to defy the government or anything else we want; including the law. The outcomes and consequences of expressing those rights will be their own reward or punishment.

The reason I pointed out the 1918 epidemic, is because it is quite clear the government has the right to enforce quarantines. It also shows that even though the government exercised that right, it eventually returned to relative normalcy once it passed.

As, far as this take over of the government, that happened long before any of us were born, we entered federalism in the 1800s that is what that war was really about. The states most clearly lost their rights and have been allowed to pretend they still have them ever since. Look at the cannabis issue, every state could legalize it and the federal government could still it is illegal and still exerciser federal law in any of those states when so ever they choose.

Federal power has been ceaselessly growing ever since and we have lived under it for a long time, without people changing it.

In 1918 people didn't like the quarantines either and they didn't have the benefit of the endless devices of entertainment the people have now, but they complied with them. Not only because they knew the government would force them to comply, but also because they felt a civic and patriotic duty to their country and their neighbors. They actually cared about the nation more than themselves.

In the 1930s the government began manipulating the money and the currency, they seized and took control of the entire marketplace with subsides and the federal reserve banking system. No one changed it no one opposed them then. It was that take over that has lead to the hyper inflated economic mess that we have now. And anyone that thinks this virus brought all those spinning economic plates to come crashing down, wasn't paying attention to what quantitative easing really was and why with the new bills it is now infinite quantitative easing.

In the 1950s with the rise of the nuclear age and the cold war the government took any vestiges of privacy and freedom with the ever growing need for NATIONAL SECURITY. Not only did the government begin to spy anyone and everyone they chose and decide what information is truly fit to be seen by the people. Even their entertainment was severely curtailed with morality and decency rules. Noone stood up and changed it then either. Along with the fear of the Russians and nuclear holocaust, they still had their feelings of civic duty to the nation and to their neighbors.

in the 1960s, they murdered a president and from then on took control of every presidential candidate since then and all those candidates have supported the globalist policies that have lead us where we are today as far as our production base goes. And yes ever president is controlled and plays the game or by hook or crook they will be removed. And yes there really are no good guys in power. No one changed it then either. Or since even. It was only in the 60s that the widescale breakdown of civic duty to the nation and ones fellow citizens really began to break down. The day they performed the ritual of the killing of the king.

Now you have the culmination and fruition of all these policies. The economy was broken before the virus and the federal reserve was on overdrive trying to prop it up and the virus was just an act of god to blame when they took it all down. And yes they are taking it down, but it needed to be taken down. It was broken and unsustainable. In addition to overall state of the economy, the state of technology is changing everything. Those jobs that left the united states are never coming back really. When the new factories are built most of them will be fully automated and need only fifty to a hundred people to run. Machines and 3d printing are set to take over production and make manual labor obsolete. AI programs are already putting many skilled technicians and scientists out of work, being able to run thousands of tests at the same time. The labor pool is shrinking and human labor obsolete, just as the automobile made the labor of horses and oxen obsolete.
I new way of living and doing things will have to be created. It is simply the shifting of the age and it is shifting, the world that was before, just isn't useful going into the future. But humanity will adapt, survive, grow and evolve into that new world. And no one is going to stop any of that either. Nor should they.

originally posted by: Willtell
You good folks don’t understand the philosophical principles behind a so-called civilized society...

Yes, I do! Well, I at least I have certain philosophical principles for a (so-called) civilized society. And I think we agree with each other in spirit, but not in practice.

You, intrinsically being a citizen, have only unlimited freedoms and rights, so the macrocosmic society as a whole (represented by the elected leaders) can order you to do things in times of peril that will impact on the common good.

No. Being a citizen is a position of power, not weakness. All of us (kindasorta), as citizens, have agreed to live under a Social Contract granting limited and enumerated authorities to government for the common good -- i.e., benefitting most if not all citizens -- but also with enumerated but not limited citizen rights. In times of peril, their actions should not impact upon the common good, so much as benefit the greater good for the common good. The measures taken should never prevent the individual -- the smallest minority -- from doing what is in his/her own best interest.

You want your garbage picked up?
The firemen to come when needed?
The army to fight for your freedom when needed?
You want your kid to go to a school where he won’t get a disease?
What if people walked around naked in your community?
So we are forced to pay taxes...

Virtually every one of those provides other options to the individual. We can take our garbage to the dump. There are areas around here which are not served by municipal or county fire departments, and have to purchase private fire service, and if they don't it will burn to the ground (it's happened). I'm not silly enough to think kids can go to a disease-free school! There are communities where people can walk around naked, and people can walk around naked in their homes and maybe their backyards.

We pay taxes because we recognize certain common services are not just good for the individual but for the entire community, so we pool our resources to provide a reliable and accountable solution or service. And we usually do so while still allowing private options as well.

Societal coercion is a part of any civilized society. It's an existential fact!

Yup... name 'em and shame 'em! Just don't coerce them.

Now, in this case, I understand the dilemma since people are forcibly being kicked out of work so this principle here is under great strain.

The solution to this is compensating the people for that forced sacrifice

I agree -- and have stated as much previously -- that if government is going to take our "property" in the form of our right to provide for ourselves and our families, as well as other rights, that the government is obligated to compensate us fairly for that "property." The government must also explain and justify their actions to us, with as many facts and as much truth as possible, not the propagandized crap we've gotten from all sides. And at the very least, any and all such infringements on rights should have clearly stated measurable goals, with a specific end date.

And thank you for a very thoughtful and reasoned comment. Very much appreciated!!!

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Willtell

With due respect, you're looking at this from a majorly different angle than rural American like Bundy. That's part of the disconnect. I guarantee you Ammon Bundy doesn't worry about someone picking up his trash, the fire department keeping his house from burning down, or even police reporting to a call he makes. Rural America handles their own trash, they help their neighbor put out a fire, and they handle their own property security, we homeschool our kids, we skinny dip ponds, and we don't give a damn for taxation...

The stuff you're listing as intrinsic "benefits" of society aren't factors of benefit in the eyes of people like Bundy (or myself, being honest). I understand your confusion, because you're seeing "major benefits" so you comply fully with society, but consider someone to whom those benefits are considered non-factors, and maybe you can see why a lot of rural America sees your society as nothing but a cost to them and their freedoms.

Excellent observation. Very very true.

It also occurs to me that these are exactly the people these Draconian mandates harm most. If you depend on your neighbors to help you put out a fire engulfing your home, but they're not allowed because "social distancing and self-isolating", then your home burns to the ground. And you hope and pray that's all.

a reply to: Nyiah

I can't add to that. Too much truth in your comment to even try. So I'll just let it stand.

We can do so much more and so much better for ourselves than government ever can or will.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Willtell

The problem with all of that is that the US Constitution is absolutely a restriction on government directed partly at restricting what the government is allowed to demand from the citizens in that pact. They CANNOT demand citizens surrender their Right to freedoms enumerated in the Constitution and remain a Constitutional Republic.

Yes...like voting. It's a biggie and I suspect the slime balls in the federal government AND the SCOTUS will make good use of this opportunity.

In November, this virus will be coming back around, and there will be panic.

I expect some order which will prevent people from going to the polls and the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to whatever solution government comes up with.

Right now, I'm thinking it will be 'moving the date.'

AND, I have a feeling that the solution won't be mail-in ballots...

In a statement, U.S. Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer said:

"The Postal Service appreciates the inclusion of limited emergency borrowing authority during this COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Postal Service remains concerned that this measure will be insufficient to enable the Postal Service to withstand the significant downturn in our business that could directly result from the pandemic. Under a worst case scenario, such downturn could result in the Postal Service having insufficient liquidity to continue operations."

They may be tanking the United States Postal Service.

Under the guise of *protecting the right to vote*, the Supreme Court will decide that online voting is a secure and adequate system that can be implemented to preserve voting rights. And I bet they use the open source voting system that's already waiting in the wings to persuade SCOTUS and implement it.

If not that...then something else that's just as terrible to 'free and fair elections' as the Help America Vote Act and hundreds of other bogus court challenges & rotten decisions, over the last two decades.

At some point in the not too distant future, there will be claims that the contract which formed our Republic (the Constitution) has been violated and the Republic is void and, frankly, anyone making that claim isn't wrong. This likely won't, but certainly should result in some states calling for separation from the Republic because the federal government failed to uphold their end of that deal.

Oh, how I wish and hope...it may soon prove to be the only recourse we have.

A lot of your comments have resonated with me, over the last several weeks. We're on the same page about our rights and what we need to do.

originally posted by: JBurns
a reply to: Boadicea

That's his choice. Many of us have decided a little bit of safety isn't worth the loss of freedoms. I don't care how many lives it costs, point blank.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure it is saving lives. I think it's everywhere, that it has been for a very long time in some places, and not so long in others, and that unless and until we help people know how to properly treat themselves at home -- how to nurse, nurture and sustain our own body -- that the same exact number of people are going to develop the same exact complications and experience the same result.

I also know that much of what we're being told and ordered to do is quite unhealthy.

We have no reason to trust those who take away our rights and our ability to take care of ourselves and our loves ones, while giving us bad information, based on faulty data, and outright propaganda.

It's actually making me very angry now that so damn little information has been provided to the public about the most fundamental knowledge we need to have. What we get is propaganda.

originally posted by: Boadicea
a reply to: MotherMayEye

Terrifying.

Worse...there are a lot of people convinced actions, like this, are for our own good.

It is terrifying. I honestly don't know if people just don't see the room for abuse... or if they think it just won't happen. Or maybe they really believe it won't happen to them but everyone else deserves it.

I really don't get it. And no one wants to have that discussion it seems.

I haven't spoken to my BFF for two weeks because this discussion is off-limits for him. He is distraught that everyone can't get on the same page, but what he wants is for everyone to get on HIS page. One COVID-19 death is too much, in his mind, and if I stray from the topic of how awful it is for the patients and their families, he takes the position that I am heartless and selfish to consider anything else. After a few weeks, I got fed up with just listening to him and never being able to get a word in edgewise -- and laid into him.

So, he's asked that when we talk, we just don't talk about this virus.

Therefore, I told him to f-off and we don't need to talk about anything, at all.

We'll make up eventually...but, any discussion with him about this is an exercise in futility. He insists the solution lies with the government using any and all means they happen to argue is 'best.' The more extreme, the better.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

Shaking my head here... when it comes to survival, I guess it depends on which side of the coin you find yourself. When my nephew's wife came down with pneumonia, and the ER doctors told him to take her home again and if she turned blue to bring her back, he had a huge wake up call. The guy that always said he didn't believe in natural remedies. But when he couldn't take care of his wife and she couldn't take care of herself, and doctors wouldn't take care of her, he decided those natural remedies might just be better than nothing.

When he was unable to source some things, in part because of panic buying and in part because of small business shutdowns, so he couldn't even get her the things that might actually help her heal -- all for our "own good" -- he became angry.

And as he's seen his wife finally start to improve, breathe easier and breath deeper, actually have a voice again -- you know, all that good stuff! -- he is very much rethinking things.

So, who knows? Maybe we just need enough more people to have the flip side of government "protection" hit them upside the head.

originally posted by: Willtell
a reply to: burdman30ott6


It's just that freedom isn’t unlimited. That’s an existential fact.

Lofty principles are always moderated by nuanced, often unspoken, reality.

You're right, it's not unlimited.

Therefore, it is also the other side of the line in the sand where your freedom to feel safe by force ENDS when it costs another their livelihood or legal income.

a reply to: themessengernevermatters

Very well said. Most will ignore your post but they wont be able to ignore your ideas for long. Change is coming and isnt going to stop. We either get on board or get left behind. Romantic notions will be a plenty but in the end thats all they will have been shown to be. Its painful when the magic is revealed because it becomes a loss or prospective loss of identity, which was foolish to begin with. Its only our world temporarily, then its not. Getting mad at new ideas is like getting mad at the wind and snow.

a reply to: sputniksteve

What a special little bubble you live in.

Those are mighty big words. We'll see what happens together

Hypothetically, it seems prudent for those who would resist the government to have a meeting place. If they went full nazi and started stripping rights hand over fist, they'd simply have to cut off the internet and we'd have no way of setting up a rendezvous. Hypothetically, of course.

originally posted by: Schmoe11
Hypothetically, it seems prudent for those who would resist the government to have a meeting place. If they went full nazi and started stripping rights hand over fist, they'd simply have to cut off the internet and we'd have no way of setting up a rendezvous. Hypothetically, of course.

Indeed. Hypothetically, of course.

originally posted by: Schmoe11
Hypothetically, it seems prudent for those who would resist the government to have a meeting place. If they went full nazi and started stripping rights hand over fist, they'd simply have to cut off the internet and we'd have no way of setting up a rendezvous. Hypothetically, of course.

originally posted by: Boadicea

Indeed. Hypothetically, of course.

Not hypothetically, they'd head that kind of thing off by locking people in their own homes.

originally posted by: Schmoe11
Hypothetically, it seems prudent for those who would resist the government to have a meeting place. If they went full nazi and started stripping rights hand over fist, they'd simply have to cut off the internet and we'd have no way of setting up a rendezvous. Hypothetically, of course.

Hypothetically, if a resistance plan was organized online and FULLY transparent, and the plan provided that the cutting off of internet communication was one signal to begin mass resistance...perhaps that would remind the government who is really in charge and provide some protection for the hypothetical organized group from mischaracterizations.

a reply to: Boadicea

No. Being a citizen is a position of power, not weakness

True, free people have power, but again, not unlimited power.

a reply to: Nyiah

I've read the Constitution, a number of the Federalist Papers, and more than a few period treatises on the mentality that went into the founding of the USA... I've never seen any reference to a Right to feel safe, freedom from fear, or that the country owed the individual liberty from personal responsibility of their individual mental and physical well being.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

True, but then the government would know all about it if they monitor us loony conspiracy nuts. They more I think about it, the more daunting the logistics of it all.