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Editorial: Oregon standoff should end with jail time

Tue., Jan. 5, 2016

Anti-federal government occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon are not getting much support, nor should they.

Even Stuart Rhodes, president and founder of the right-wing group Oath Keepers, released a video in which he says, “The Oath Keepers will not be involved in an armed standoff that’s being manufactured by potheads who want a fight because this is going to be a bad fight, not a righteous moral high ground fight.”

Before seizing the building, brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy and their band of armed insurrectionists staged a rally in Burns, Oregon, to protest the imminent incarceration of Harney County ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond, who were convicted in 2012 of committing arson on public lands. The pair served time, but a federal judge determined they were released too soon, according to federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

The Hammonds turned themselves in Monday without incident. Through their attorney, they’ve said they don’t want to be associated with the standoff. So what exactly are Cliven Bundy’s sons, neither of whom are ranchers or Oregonians, trying to accomplish invading a refuge created by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908?

Their muddled rationales include the bogus claim that the land doesn’t belong to the federal government. But the allegedly oppressed people of Harney County aren’t rallying to the cause. In fact, many residents are irritated because the standoff has caused disruptions, such as closed schools.

The Hammonds do have a long history of battling the feds over public lands. A 1994 article in High Country News chronicles their arrest over cattle illegally trespassing on refuge lands. When the feds tried to erect a fence to keep the cattle out, the Hammonds showed up armed and confrontational. They were arrested for obstruction, but the charges were eventually reduced.

But, again, the Hammonds want no part of this occupation, which is why Oath Keepers and others who would normally be sympathetic are keeping their distance.

Nobody wants this to blow up into a Ruby Ridge. The best strategy is waiting out the occupiers. However, once this is over, the feds should file charges against the participants. Protesters got away with aiming rifles at law enforcement officers during the 2014 Nevada siege at Cliven Bundy’s ranch. There should be consequences this time.

The occupiers may continue to try to change the laws, but doing so by force will never be acceptable. If they don’t want to do the time – like others throughout U.S. history who have engaged in civil disobedience – they shouldn’t do the crime.

Public land ownership has been contested across the Western states, including Idaho, but neither the U.S. Constitution nor state constitutions support people advocating takeovers. Whether they go by the name “patriots” or “sagebrush rebels,” their peculiar legal interpretations have not stood up in court.