Here are Cliven Bundy’s remarks to a press conference of one revealed in their full, unedited glory. Make the jump for what Pat Dollard calls a HOAX EXSPOSED – the “edited version of Bundy’s remarks as promoted by the left-wing Media Matters and as reported in the NY Times.” Again, this is important because Bundy’s “cause” was tied-up with the armed militia men who rallied to support him and, by extension, American gun owners. Will this new version make any difference to the arc of the story (i.e., the left’s promotion of the idea that gun owners are red-necked racists)? Not a bit. But does it make any difference to you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbnRnhrNFEY

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

159 COMMENTS

  1. Sigh. I knew there would have to be a follow up. I don’t think I’ve seen this many comments on a TTAG post since Sandy Hook or the gay rights posts.

    • Doesn’t bother me to see the posts. I’ve actually liked seeing the dialogue. It’s seemed rather productive to me.

      • I don’t disagree – by my post count you can probably tell I like to talk.

        It can just get a bit emotionally exhausting!

        • This entire story, from ‘SAVE BUNDY SHOOT DA BLM’ to ‘SCREW BUNDY THAT MORON RACIST’, with all the rumors and half-truths from BOTH sides, has been emotionally exhausting to watch.

          And a lesson in herd mentality.

        • Eh, I’m over it. On to the Texas-Oklahoma border! Maybe we’ll see a state actually protect its citizens and sovereignty instead of a Senator turning park rangers into his personal army and the public lands into his own little fiefdom.

  2. Our rights are not dependent on us not being stupid, bigoted pricks. As has been pointed out before, there are far better causes to get behind than him. A bunch of people selling unprocessed milk and getting SWATed for it is an example. Of course, they may not appreciate the company of us gun folks.

      • ….but is his head of security happier in that job, or would he have been happier with a few chickens and….

        • Hypothetical:
          “Blacks in this country are worse off than the Jews in Germany in the late ’30s”
          TTAG and MSNBC “TTAG reader Michael in GA says blacks should be sent to the gas chamber”
          NO! I overstated the condition that blacks are in in order to show sympathy for their plight. I am not advocating for helping them out of the frying pan just to burn in the fire. I want them to get off the damn stove!

  3. I’ve been in conversation with a good friend over this. He gave me his thoughts in a way I respect & agree with. I’ll share that here, because I think he stated it more ably than I.

    Bundy is one of those topics that I hesitate to weigh in on, but as you know, in the face of political correctness, the only thing we can do is stand up to the disinformation. This man is near 70. Saying “colored”, or “negro” is not a slanderous term for his generation. To condemn a man, advanced in age, for using terms of his own time, as racist is bullshit. Second, the blacks in America ARE victims. As are the Native Americans. They have been destroyed by a GOVERNMENT (who facilitates the blaming of white people because if they’re going to get hung, they’re goddamn sure taking everyone they can with them) The same government who floods Mexican drug lords with weapons, and steals American businessmen’s cattle. A government who is looking to create an entitlement class. As a member of the entitlement class, are you free? Are you “liberated”? Or are you a slave to an insufficient check, lousy healthcare, and representatives who know they don’t have to represent you? If we take an honest look at the answers, Bundy’s logic is right on point. What was given was not liberty. It was a lesser form of slavery, as envisioned by the Great Emancipator, who had no intentions of “making voters or jurors of Negros”. Personally, I’m glad to see them making this “racial” issue. It shows just how facile the thought processes of the East Coast establishment is.

    • Your friend’s take on it made me think of my late grandmother. She used the same words to describe black people – sometimes making me cringe a little, but she was 80 and I guess those terms were acceptable back then.

      I went from “poor Mr Bundy” to what “an ass”, while completely forgetting that those words were acceptable back then.

      Grandma also used the term “icebox” when talking about a refrigerator, so maybe he wasn’t using them as insults. They are insults now when used by younger generations, but I doubt he was trying to insult anyone.

    • I don’t think there is really any kind of freedom that’s worse than slavery.

      Many years ago I read a poem, “They Buried Him With His Niggers.” Can’t find a current copy. I’ve always thought the faux outrage over words was invented by commie race baiters who needed a device to divide and conquer us.

    • I’m getting tired of the Lincoln as a racist narrative so allow me to add this.

      Lincoln advocated allowing Black men to vote at his last public address in 1865. John Wilkes Booth was in the audience and remarked:

      That means nigger citizenship,” he told Lewis Powell, one of his band of conspirators. “Now, by God, I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.”

      Until that point he had only planned to kidnap Lincoln.

    • There weren’t a lot of government handouts for black folks in 1866, or in 1896 for that matter. They got by even though fellows like Cliven were not inclined to hire them, just as his church would not admit them to membership. I’ll put 50$ up betting that Cliven uses illegal Mexican labor, cheap, to harvest melons on his melon farm. (I’ll only pay one person and once….) He has openly argued in favor of the illegals, while insisting he doesn’t have to pay no stinkin’ grazing fees. That’s rich.

      It’s remarkable, really, that Cliven sees fit to carry on about whether Medicaid and SNAP are worse than slavery, while he welshes on hundreds of thousands of dollars in grazing fees and refuses to comply with court orders obtained pursuant to a case Cliven lost, and for good reason given the arguments he put forth in his own behalf.

      The claims Cliven has made about how long “his family” has been ranching the land at issue is bunk. I’d call them lies. The only shred of truth is that their were some distant Bundy relatives living in the Virgin River Valley since the late 1870’s, though on different land in a different area. And yes, there are lots of Bundy’s, just as there are, surprise, lots of Youngs, Jeffs, and so forth in the region.

      I’m also not too amused to see the “militia” concept tested out to help back up Cliven’s statement that there will be a “range war” if the government tries to move his cattle off the land. Are we going to get a militia standoff the next time the federal government evicts an office tennant (they have many) for non-payment of rent? Oh, I get it, that’s not “open skies” enough.

      • It’s the entitlement mentality of the right and it’s what left libertarians consistently oppose.

    • I’m a “younger,” getting older kind of guy, who had older parents. Mom was born in 1934, Dad in 1926…this language was common. People easily forget that the words we use in our every day lives are manifestations of the times. We’ll be using new words a hundred years from now, and what we use today will likely be considered disrespectful. He said nothing that should offend anybody. Is he a whack job? Sure. That’s not the point.

    • The problem is that he wants rights and freedom… for the entitled wealthy white class, not for all humans equally. “Rights for me, not for thee”.

  4. The way Mr Bundy spoke about slavery is poorly said, in or out of context. However, the overall context of the conversation is significantly different than how it was being reported earlier today.

    • He speaks of ‘Spanish people’ as ‘yeah, they came here unconstitutionally’ but ‘they’re hard workers with better family values than many of us’.

      Good message.

      I’m confused on this story.

      • Bad message.

        Correction, awful message.

        Unfettered immigration is the grease on the skids of downward mobility. Let the Bundys and the Zuckerbugrs of this country pay their dues to the hard working people who are paying for his government land.

    • The Government subsidy/slavery metaphor is not an original thought by Cliven Bundy. Several prominent black intellectuals have pontificated this very theme albeit much more eloquently than Bundy.
      If your problem is with the term “negro” then I submit to you that many birth certificates issued 40 and more years ago when describing the race of the black baby used that very term. To me, the term “black” is inaccurate at best, as is the term “White” to describe Caucasian. I’ve been called worse but since I don’t feel like a victim, it doesn’t bother me.

      • Really. In the Philippines there is a race of bush people who live a near-stoneage existence, and are rarely seen by westerners, called “negritos” because they are small and dark. It’s a description, like “negro”, not an insult.

        • We’re not living in either the Philippines. By the way, we don’t live in Latin America either.

          If we were writing each other in Spanish you might have a decent point but here and in American English “Negro” is an archaic term and not exactly the most respectful to use in a modern context.

  5. Wow. That stupid, “better off a slave”, “let’s get rid of everything that has a chance of pulling tem out of poverty” rhetoric has got to go. This asshole doesn’t represent me, maybe we should stuck to supporting gun rights, not entitled takers.

    • Better off locked up on a farm in Mississippi to make money for an at least marginally productive plantation owner; or in jail somewhere else, justifying union salaries for some completely useless leech? Who the heck knows. I’m sure it sucks either way.

      But at least poor Cliven is sharp enough to have seen through the ruse that government anything is even designed to pull anyone out of poverty; instead of ensuring they are nice, pliant subservients for the progressive oppression to do as they wish with. That at least puts him ahead of most people in this age of pervasive indoctrination.

      • Yeah, because slavery was a party where loving, considerate slave owners took such good care of their slaves.

        Go read what you just said and then go watch 12 Years a Slave – that isn’t fiction. Then go read some Douglass, Washington, Du Bois and catch up with the rest of us that paid attention in middle school history.

        • Then stop by a prison, where seemingly most of the descendents of the so called “freed” slaves spend at least their younger years, these days. No doubt being a slave sucks. It would be an awful lot better if everyone was armed sufficiently close to each other that any arrangement between two parties were, without fail, voluntary both ways. Which they obviously weren’t for “colored” people back then. And equally obviously isn’t for anyone as of now. After all, even a century of near universal progressive indoctrination, doesn’t make slavery somehow OK, just because the slave master gets to pass himself off as “deeeemoocraaaticlyyyyy eleeeected.”

    • No, what we need is news media that are not a bunch of Democratic party operatives with a byline that pretend to be objective and apolitical. The cynical way they “advance the narrative” and coordinate coverage to advantage their political views and to disadvantage everyone else’s is an outrage.

      We stopped the paper years ago. The Oregonian called a couple years ago offering to deliver the paper for free – I turned them down. I can’t even stomach the WSJ any more (except the editorial page). It’s pitiful. It is only by accident that things like the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter – things with a decidedly non-progressive point of view – ever become popular.

      It’s funny how they avoid criticizing islamic fundamentalists, but don’t hesitate to rip into christians, tea partiers or second amendment supporters. I hope they enjoy the fruits of the incentives they’re creating in how they treat different groups.

    • He’s an old guy talking as he talks with no PR rep.

      No, he’s no politician. No, he’s no spokesperson. He does not have the makings, charisma or understanding to be a national leader. No, he does not represent me.

      And that said, his statements are being mischaracterized to draw a dominant narrative; that white people, especially white people with guns, are just mean old racists. Because that’s what makes them easy to dismiss, demonize, ignore & condescend to.

    • Paul McCain is right — the youtube vid VERIFIES what his critics were saying, it doesn’t ameliorate it one bit. Bundy denied on Alex Jones making the very statements that have now been revealed for the world to see and hear. Are we done with this clown turd now?

      This man is a loser that only deeper, more pathetic losers follow. Taking up arms to fight his cause is as stupid as defending Adam Kokesh.

        • What is racist about it is that Cliven felt the proper focus of the subsidy question was…black people, not poor people. The majority, numerically, of very poor people and people on, for example, food stamps…are plain old white folks. (It is true that they tend to be rural white folks…) But no, Cliven has to take up the utterly irrelevant issue of their “happiness” in a housing project versus under slavery. His mind at work.

          I’ll say it. Cliven may need a PR coach, but he also needs a fact coach. His family hadn’t been ranching the Bundy farm/ranch since the 1870’s. They moved to the Virgin River Valley in 1948, when the bought the farm. They first leased grazing land for which their farmland qualified as a base in 1954. They did not lease continuously, but at least once gave up the lease, for whatever reason. All the talk about ancient rights is baloney.

          I’m only eight years younger than Cliven. I can’t see that his age gives him a bye. He and his children have put forth very many untrue statements out about the history of their family’s ranching. I disdain the cause that feeds me such distortions, and leaves me slowly to find out the facts, read the court opinions, and discover that their claims have been ludicrous.

          I won’t even start on the flag waving, except to say that Cliven and his children reject the sovereignty of the United States over what I consider federal lands. And I will note that Arizona had extremely few residents at the time the U.S. bought the land at the conclusion of the war with Mexico. For some reason I’m reminded of that great Arizona conservative, the late Senator Barry Goldwater, who built a reputation calling for smaller government and less federal land ownership. The Goldwaters established themselves in Arizona by becoming sales agents provisioning horses and mules for…the U.S.Cavalry, without whom the Goldwaters would not have been able to occupy the place because…Indians and Mexicans.

          I’d like to see the service records for Cliven, his father, and his sons…before they take another horseback ride with U.S. flags in hand. He can carry a little homemade Bundy flag. Fine.

      • Helping some guy to fight the government, is always a noble thing to do. I may not agree fully with everything the guy says, but in a standoff between some guy whose never done me a lick of harm, and a bunch of goons who has dedicated their scummy lives to rob and harass me…..I mean, is there even a contest?

  8. It was all over the network news. Wondering what Fox is going to say. I DON’T give anyone a pass for asinine comments just because they’re OLD. I’m old. Bundy’s got foot in mouth disease.

    • All you had to do was watch FOX to see that they are tar a feathering Bundy in lock step with the “white guilt” crowd.

  10. I do not expect today’s left leaning media to ever report the facts. Their job #1 is to promote an agenda not actually report on a story — they are for all intensive purpose and extension of the politically party they favor — it is more propaganda than news. The left will lie and cherry pick but we already know this as gun owners.

    Listening to the whole video, I don’t think he meant what he said the way he said it or is the evil person the media has made him out to be.

    We already know from many past events involving guns, the media will go out of its way to spin as they want it to be versus how it is. They really have no integrity.

    This was an event where the anti-gun media took another shot a demonizing gun owner and they saw him as the perfect devil to do so. It has been all about the guns. The real story which has been brewing for over 30yrs on how the BLM has trampled tribal land will never come up.

    I still do not believe he is a hero, but he sure is not the devil he is made out to be.

    • I think you summed it up well Pascal. I genuinely don’t agree with what Bundy said, as I am from a very racially mixed city and have many successful black friends & neighbors, but this is just a convenient distraction from the real issue at hand. Remember how, in 2007 or 2008 Joe Biden was pretty much given a pass by the liberal media for saying Obama was the first clean & articulate black man to be a public figure? Like Bundy, I don’t think he really put a lot of thought into what he was saying, but no one accused Biden of anything more than being inarticulate. Typical double standards.

      • Absolutely. Particularly horrid considering Bundy is essentially a hermit and Biden has spent 40 years feeding at the public trough, pressing the flesh and pretending to be a public servant.

  11. Told ya so…..

    Lying sums of beatches twisting this guys words up in a pretzel. You know that gay radicals have a term for this crap. Its called JAMMING. Basically it means that you do anything necessary to destroy your opponent. It is how they are destroying traditional values in the world. What you see here is the left jamming this guy. Great opportunity to lie, twist, distort what Bundy is about and what he said. Make him the poster boy for evil white men. I bet that they would love to actually kill this man and his family. What I am wondering is how this White House is co-coordinating with the leftist media to fight asymmetrically against folks like Bundy. They couldn’t shoot him with all the cameras around so now they will destroy him in the public arena.

    • If it were not for the militia pretenders, the media would not have been there. If neither was there, does ANYBODY believe Bundy and his family would still be alive? And however big a jackass he is, should he have been shot for it? How about to provide Harry Reid’s family with more free money under the table?

  12. “because Bundy’s “cause” was tied-up with the armed militia men who rallied to support him and, by extension, American gun owners”

    Completely effing disagree, RF. The way I interpret “Militia” is ALL of us. Not just the organized groups that train together and run around in camo. We are all Militia. All citizens. So if some organized groups went running out to Bundy’s, that don’t mean shit to me. Don’t try to wrap me up in Bundy’s claim. That’s where you went wrong from the start, RF. We are all the Militia. Look what happened at Valley Forge in 1777 (hence my tag). That’s the root of the 2A. That’s what militia means. The people, that can be formed into an Army at any time. Not just some organized groups that somehow represent me as a gun owner because they are ‘the militias’. BS.

    As for Bundy, well… as some have said, to some degree, he is a product of his generation. When he was a kid, black people weren’t allowed go to the same schools, weren’t allowed to drink from the same fountain, etc. The world has moved on. Bundy hasn’t. I don’t think he’s a malicious racist, out burning crosses. It reminds me of something my Grandmother would say, when she’d refer to black people as ‘coloreds’ and I’d have to correct her and say “Grandma, we don’t call Black people that anymore. That’s offensive and harkens to the old days of segregation”. And she’d say something like “oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean any offense by that. Why we had a wonderful negro maid when i was a child and we loved her like an aunt” …and I’d just cringe a little and change the conversation. She passed away and with her and her generation also goes some of the quiet racism of our collective past. And so too will happen with Bundy.

    Bundy doesn’t taint me any more than my Grandmother tainted me… or than Leland Yee tainted all of the Anti’s. Does it look good? No, but I sure wish we didn’t have all of the Bundy posts on this site to drag us into his dispute.

  13. I’ll only comment on one part of this; his slavery comments as they were presented this morning here were to be shunned. However, hearing this entire paragraph in full, he was simply using a rhetorical device by saying that he believes many blacks are so bad off under the policies of our government and the war on poverty, that they may have been better off as slaves. He was using slavery as a terrible standard and opining that the condition of some people currently is comparably bad. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s not — it’s an opinion, but it ain’t racist.

    • When you talk about how “the negros” are aborting kids and putting themselves in jail based on their race because they don’t know how to pick cotton, I just don’t see how it can be anything but racist.

      • You got to work real hard to make it anything but. Somehow though Bundy’s got plenty of people carrying his water.

        • When he said, “picking cotton”, he was using it as a metaphor for “working Hard”, which is exactly what picking cotton was. It was hard, back-breaking, the thorns made your hands and arms bleed, and it was tedious to the point of maddening. It was the kind of work that most people can’t do, because they are not in good, physical shape. It is very hard to get off of welfare, when your school and community culture have made you ‘unemployable’.

          He said it badly, and never should have used that metaphor, but his intended point is still true. Most of the people in the ‘welfare class’ are trapped there, because they were never taught how to work hard to make a living for themselves. It is nearly impossible to get off of welfare when your schools and the culture of your community have made you ‘unemployable’.

        • Thanks, Bob. I was starting to wonder if I watched a different video than most other commenters here….

          The entire purpose of “welfare”, is to create a class of people completely helpless and unable to even get by, without having to beg the political class to take care of them. That way, they can reliably be counted on to serve as front line cannonfodder in the political class’ war on everyone else.

      • Hannibal, have you not paid attention to the ideas of black conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, or Herman Cain? Although they are certainly better spoken, their worlds more carefully nuanced, each has decried the exact same destruction visited on black families and black social structures by government programs and bureaucratic meddling that Bundy talks about. However maladroitly presented, Bundy’s point that the black underclass is enmeshed in a new kind of slavery is essentially right and would be readily recognized by the above mentioned individuals. It’s ok, if you don’t like Bundy’s style or just don’t much like Bundy himself. It’s also ok if you don’t like the militia whose timely presence stopped another Waco or Ruby Ridge from happening. I have a feeling they don’t much care.

        To be sure an obscure rancher in rural Nevada is an unlikely choice for a hero, but Cliven Bundy and the true Americans who arrived to help him have struck a blow for freedom and liberty. The sound is a loud fundamental, although you may not hear it.

        • Exactly, E W Jackson who was recently a candidate for Lt. Governor of Virginia basically made the same argument during a speech as Bundy, but more eloquently. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMyV9632PZA I guess he is a racist, too.

          Are black people even offended by Bundy? All I am seeing are usual lily white liberal commentariat laying on the white guilt trying to get every politician to fall over themselves trying to prove they aren’t racist. Bundy is just a private citizen with an opinion, it’s not like he is a sitting U.S. attorney general selectively prosecuting on the basis of race.

        • Oh, yeah, and we seem to have one of those, who also selectively prosecutes based on political leanings, irrespective of laws.

  14. If you recall (some of you under 35 may not), this is the exact same thing they did to Randy Weaver and his family (Ruby Ridge) right before they raided it. Randy went to some meetings after being invited, but disagreed with the Aryan Nation views and never went back. However, the media and other forces road this card out – accusing Weaver of being an out and out racist. (The reason they knew this is because the person that invited him was an alleged undercover) Randy Weaver was not politically correct either, but he didn’t deserve what happened to his family either.

    They did this to distance the American people from the Weavers before the attack.

    Keep this in mind – don’t let it leave your head.

    Why do you think they are doing it now to the Bundys?

    Honestly, I don’t fault my friends for any racist/racial views that they have – and having an actual American Indian mother and a Norse-English father, I’ve heard it all. From every race.

    Here is the other problem; Quentin Tarantino can use the N word all day (and get paid for it ). Samuel L, Jackson can force you to say the N word (and laugh), the United Negro College Fund is still the United Negro College Fund (they are fine with the name) and the NAACP can use the term Colored People (they didn’t change their name either), but God help if Cliven Bundy uses the later two terms out of respect for oppressed folks – and people get bent out of shape just because he’s a white guy? Who is really being racist?

    Just remember this – they have to demonize Cliven Bundy before they attack the family – please don’t help them.

    Not one of us is a saint. (Romans 3:10)

    Cheers,
    JJ

    • Instead of trying to make sense out of what the oppression and their media sycophants are namecalling people; it’s much simpler and more accurate to just accept that absolutely not one single word from the mouths on pens of any of them, correlate any closer than random with actual reality.

  15. Sometimes the 5th amendment is not just a constitutional right, it’s a downright a good idea to STFU.

    Allowing cattle to graze for free on someone else’s property really is not any better than taking a government welfare check.

    We are all a slave to something, looks like Bundy is a slave to his own ego.

    • “Someone else’s property”. It’s public land. To which he had grazing rights. Another genius who has zero understanding of grazing rights. People all over the west graze their cattle on public land.

    • People all over the west do raise cattle on federal land. They don’t have grazing rights. They have grazing leases. The Bundy family were late-comers to that business. All their talk about the 1870’s ranching is bunk.

  16. I often wonder why people can’t control what come out of their mouths but that goes double, triple, quadruple when speaking to cameras, media, police, wife etc.
    Also note who got credit for the video scoop. I f you don’t know who they are, you really need to look them up. They are a 501 (c) (4) tax exempt group, the kind that the IRS targeted only they are super left wing liberal, so of course they weren’t targeted. Go read their mission statement. It is something else. MediaMatters.org

  17. No, it doesn’t make a difference.

    Because this isn’t about Mr. Bundy’s views on race, politics, or government.

    If the feds surrounded Al Sharpton’s house (Big Al is demonstrably a racist) with 200 armed swat ninjas, shot his pest, taserd his supporters, and then threatened to burn everyone in the house alive over Sharpton’s unpaid tax debts from his organization. We should all get in the way of that as well. Just as those who fell in to protect Mr. Bundy.

    This is about GOVERNMENT ABUSE. Not Cliven Bundy or rangeland or cows.

  18. “because Bundy’s “cause” was tied-up with the armed militia men who rallied to support him and, by extension, American gun owners”

    I can’t call BS on this enough. This is where you went wrong, RF. The ‘armed militia men’ do not represent me anymore than any other American citizen. We are ALL the Militia. All citizens. Not just the organized crews in Camo.

  19. Sounds about how I expected it. I don’t think he’s quite what his biggest enemies portray him as; I doubt he really wants to go around whipping black people to pick his cotton. At the same time he doesn’t sound all that opposed to the peculiar institution as romanticized by many who have never had to be subjected to it personally.

    Seems to me like the kind of uncle you wouldn’t want to have meet your black fiance, even if he may not wear a white hood. Also not someone to be held up for the pro-gun movement.

  21. Everyone missed the gist. His point was, the government had control over those living in the projects and on government assistance. That’s what I think he was trying to convey to the people. But, at 70+ years, I’m sure he see things a bit differently than some.

  22. +1 Hannibal. My old white racist dad wasn’t invited to my wedding to a beautiful black woman. It wasn’t until he fell into SENILITY that he met her. Or his grandsons. Quite unlike my wonderful black mother-in-law.

  23. I don’t give a damn about Bundy’s thoughts on race.

    What I want to know is whether his claims about having rights to the land he is grazing on predate BLM management of the lands, and whether he actually has a legitimate case.

    I don’t think that the facts substantiate his claims, but would love to hear from some lawyers on the issue.

    • I think when he tries to make himself out to be a freedom fighter his views on liberty for all come into play.

    • Frankly, it doesn’t take an attorney to discover that Bundy’s claim that his family have been been ranching the land since the 1870’s is a lie. Certainly he had at least a maternal grandmother living not far away in the area. But Bundy’s father bought the current mellon farm in the current location in 1948, and first applied for a federal government grazing lease in 1954. They gave up the lease once, then reapplied, keeping the lease until early 1993. There ain’t no “ancient use” involved.

  24. Just gives another example of why you shouldn’t get your news in soundbites. The abbreviated quote was all over talk radio today, with precisely zero context, until I saw this video.

    • The “context” makes it worse. It shows Bundy lives in a fantasy world. And has way too much company.

  25. So what’s wrong with the term Negro? People of that race are no more “black” than I am “white.” I am a Caucasian, and I’m totally unoffended by that term. If you listen to Bundy with unbiased ears, you’ll recognize that he was postulating the idea that “black” people are just as enslaved today as they were 150 years ago. The only difference is that they were previously enslaved by wealthy landowners and businessmen. Today, they’re enslaved by self-serving oligarchs who have managed to trick them into thinking the government is a better master than a plantation owner.
    I’m not a racist, and I’m not advocating a return to slavery. All people, regardless of ethnicity, deserve to be free. I do, however, advocate a return to personal liberty, personal responsibility, limited government interference, and rejection of political correctness and media bias.

    • If he had just used the word ‘negro’ I don’t think this would be an issue. An old white man thinking that he has the perspective to tell black people they were better off as slaves than with welfare is the problem.

      • My dearly departed Grandmother used the “N word” the way you and I say “blacks,” or “black people.” She meant nothing hateful or slanderous by it; she was simply the product of another time and era. While that term is offensive to most people today, for people like Bundy, it’s just a word. As someone else has already observed, “racist or not, the man needs some serious PR help.”

  27. Perhaps I’m just not as politically aware or as dedicated to the cause as I should be, but I’m starting to reach George Zimmerman levels of IDGAF with this guy. The fundamental conflict is complicated legal wrangling involving now centuries of contracts and law with a sprinkle of possible corruption in the Nevada state government. Everything else has been sturm und drang and people with agendas rushing in to get their faces on TV. At this point, screw Bundy, screw the BLM and their ridiculous “First Amendment zones”, screw Harry Reid, screw the militias, screw the whole damn thing. Olaf the Snowman said it best: http://m.imgur.com/ywvBBZI

    • Bundy is just full of bullshit, and you don’t need the latest youtube to prove it. His family moved onto that ranch in 1948, there is no 1877-pre-federal-land claim in the least:

      “I’ve lived my lifetime here. My forefathers have been up and down the Virgin Valley here ever since 1877. All these rights that I claim, have been created through pre-emptive rights and beneficial use of the forage and the water and the access and range improvements,” Bundy said.

      Clark County property records show Cliven Bundy’s parents moved from Bundyville, Arizona and bought the 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt.

      Water rights were transferred too, but only to the ranch, not the federally managed land surrounding it. Court records show Bundy family cattle didn’t start grazing on that land until 1954.

      The Bureau of Land Management was created 1946, the same year Cliven was born.

      “My rights are before the BLM even existed, but my rights are created by beneficial use. Beneficial use means we created the forage and the water from the time the very first pioneers come here,” Bundy said.

      http://www.8newsnow.com/story/25301551/bundys-ancestral-rights-come-under-scrutin

      • Even if his family was there, historical use doesn’t mean much without established legal ownership in this country… ask the Cherokee.

      • Well of course Bundy had some family in the area. Just take one branch, the descendants of his maternal great-great grandfather, Dudley Leavitt, who moved to Bunkerville with the United Order, LDS, and Edward Bunker. Dudley quit the group in dissatisfaction and moved across the river. “When the Virgin River flooded, he moved again and was contracted to carry mail across a 180 miles (290 km) round trip distance from St. George, Utah to St. Thomas, Nevada. He placed his FIVE FAMILIES in various locations along his route. Mary Jane Leavitt’s family (Cliven Bundy’s great-grandmother) was kept at Leavittville, Arizona.”

        Gives a whole new meaning to “going postal.”

  30. Econ and history geeks will recognize Bundy’s musings as the exact same thesis/question addressed in Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Fogel’s book, Time on the Cross. Exactly the same.

  31. Said in Jeff Foxworthy voice: If you find yourself beside an interstate in front of one camera and one reporter pontificating about the “negro” and the “Spanish,” you might be a complete f’ing clowntard.

  32. My grandmother, who if alive today, would be 110 years of age grew up in an age that young people worked, young whites and young blacks, and young browns. They all worked. Near the end of her life she saw the sugar teats of the Johnson government offer government aid, which broke up families, compromised the centrality of the African-American church, but as the racist Democrat President LBJ said, he made sure the “N…………” (his word, not mine) would vote Democrat for 50 years.” When my grandmother inquired of young people to come do some work for her in her declining years, she could not find any in her region, but her grandson had to travel a long distance from out of town to do those things for her. I am not complaining, I enjoyed every minute and every memory, but explaining the change in youth from the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.

  34. Just a comment about poverty. What ‘pulls you out of poverty’? A Job. Anything that tries to help someone out of poverty that doesn’t lead to or help them obtain a job is not helping.

  35. Although his delivery is terrible, he speaks a broad truth. Its too bad everyone jumps ship at the first whiff of racism whether the words are right or not.

  36. At least Bundy didn’t say that Obama is “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

    Harry Reid said that. Maybe there’s something in the Nevada water.

    • I still say his objective is to make the people of the gun look stupid and racist, to clear the way like a sapper for Bloomberg and friends. I could be wrong, but WHY did this get so big so fast? WHO is Cliven Bundy? We know he is a Mormon and that he is the last rancher out there. Both of those are potential red flags or they could mean nothing.

      Who is to say this guy is any different than Coonan? Who is to say this isn’t the role of a lifetime for him? I don’t think “Harry Reid” & son could have picked an opponent to better serve current liberal causes if he tried. Maybe that is EXACTLY what they were trying to do?

      *did not mean to reply to your post Ralph – It is shocking though, how so many Democrats actually feel about Obama. It makes me wonder about the degree of collusion between the Republicans and Democrats, especially behind the scenes on issues like the 2A. Could they be using dialectics to try and strip us of our rights gradually by manipulating public perception?

      • “It makes me wonder about the degree of collusion between the Republicans and Democrats, especially behind the scenes on issues like the 2A.”

        “As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.” -Eugene V. Debs

        The capitalist class has a vested interest in keeping us disarmed and helpless.

  37. Bob, honest to god, you believe that the phrase “picking cotton” is used as a metaphor for hard work? How many mental gymnastics did you have to perform before you convinced yourself of that claim?

    • I lived in so many cotton camps when I was young that I can’t remember them all. Picking cotton is hard work, not a metaphor. But, hey, at 10 cents a pound it paid good.

  39. Why do people keep posting the “unedited” video…it makes no difference. The man honestly believes blacks were better off picking cotten as slaves and when he was provided a chance to clarify his remarks he only made them worse, opining that slavery was a relatively benign institution in which Black families were able to stay together raising chicken and vegetable gardens on Massah’s plantation.

    Listen to him here:

    http://youtu.be/hnpCjWflSkA

  42. A lot of folks don’t understand that the Democrats were the folks that didn’t want to give up slaves , and there were a lot of white landowners in the South did not own slaves , and there were many white sharecroppers in the south PreCivilWar , that were treated just as bad as some of the worse treated black slaves . So along comes LBJ and pretty much signs into law rights and freedoms for black folks , that should have been given many years before , proposing that black folks would be so thankful , that they would join the political party that gave them these rights without thinking back to the fact that it actually was the Conservatives that first freed them from slavery . Then the democrats brought in the give-away programs that just made the black folks pretty much sub-serviant to the federal government , and pretty much brought about the buying the vote of the black folks , by pushing the idea that if you voted for the Democrats you kept the “entitlements”, but if you vote for the big bad bully “conservative” Republicans you would lose those benefits , this is called social engineering and the communists have learned to use it well . I am 58 I grew up in Mississippi and still live here , I can also remember how old folks used to talk about black folks from that era and even alot of them today , as for racism here today , most of it is just propaganda put out by a Government wanting to keep all of us divided and keep attention away from the real problems that the government is causing . So if ya’ll want to call me a racist go ahead , but just don’t do it because I am from here , or because of the history here , there are more problems in this nation than to fight among ourselves . He may have been a Democrat but JFK did have it right when he said his statement about “Don’t ask what your country can do for you….”I feel that he pretty much meant that volunteer work to help out the community you live in to grow , prosper , work toward becoming more independent from needing government assistance , not more government assistance . After all of my ranting I feel that Cliven Bundy is ok , that racebaiters and the government are trying to make out Mr.Bundy as the bad guy anyway they can to keep up the division between us again . Be prepared and ready . Keep your powder dry .

    • The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists. They were a liberal and progressive party at their inception, being openly abolitionist was an outrageous and extremist position at the time, on par with advocating gay marriage in the 1990s.

      During and after the Civil War, socially liberal Republicans found themselves allied with economically conservative wealthy business owners in the North. The political power of the crony capitalists in the Republican Party led to the “Gilded Age” that followed the Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt opposed this, and after his presidency, he took a lot of the progressive Republicans with him to the Bull and Moose party. This followed a lot of drama between him and Taft with Taft taking the Republicans in a more economically conservative direction.

      Those progressive former Republicans found a new home in the Democrats, especially the northern Democrats who had never been that much into the whole slavery gig. By the 1930s, the Democrats had adopted a socially liberal and economically liberal platform. The corruption of the Republicans (inescapable because of the political power they’d wielded while Democrats were on the downswing, see “Teapot Dome Scandal”) meant that the Democrats were able to get FDR into office, and he was a wildly popular president. The socially liberal Democrats were the ancestors of the abolitionist Republicans, and they began pushing for an end to segregation. They got support in many cases from moneyed interests, because the Socialists and Communists were doing a good job of pointing out the lack of racial freedom in America and tying it to capitalism, so a restoration of racial freedom would weaken the cause of those damned dirty reds. And so it did.

      A big first step in establishing racial freedom was Truman’s desegregation of the Armed Forces. This was pushed for heavily by returning black WW2 vets. This 1948 desegregation and wider pushes for the same by the national Democratic Party led to a splinter faction of segregationists breaking off from the Democrats in 1948, a group called the Dixiecrats. These guys assumed control of the state-level parties in nearly all of the Southern states. In the 1948 election, they took Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi. They continued to be an electoral force up until George Wallace in 1968 took Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.

      During the height of the civil rights movement, the Republican Party realized they had a political opportunity, particularly the wealthy economic conservatives. They could go after all these alienated Southerners who were former Democrats, and bring them over to the Republicans. It had been a hundred years since that most hated Republican, Abraham Lincoln, had left the scene. And now under the direction of northerners, the Democrats were definitely coming on strong for racial equality. This led to the Southern Strategy, and it’s why there was never a George Wallace style run past 1968. The segregationists and white supremacists had a new home. As Nixon’s political strategist Kevin Philips put it:
      “From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that…but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.”

      His words were prophetic. By courting the Negrophobe whites, the Republicans have never since got more than 10 to 20 percent of the vote. Every state that was part of the Democrat “Solid South” is now part of the Republican “Solid South”, and the only thing that changed is which party has the segregationists and its descendants as its members.

      This is why when people say “Well the KKK was mostly Democrats” or “Republicans are the Party of Lincoln!”, they’re right in a way, but wrong if you know anything about 20th century American electoral and party politics.

    • All the “racism” talk is such BS. As far as I can tell every group in every country is racist. As southerners were wont to point out in the sixties, few groups were more anti-black than the Irish Catholics in Boston, the political base of the Kennedy family. Name a group and I’ll find you their racist actions and statements. That even goes for Chicago blacks and SoCal Mexicans.

      The Bundy story is one about the impact of the forcing together of developer interests and those of the votaries of the 1973 Endangered species act. Clive Bundy is just a straw dog within that story. His claims of very long-standing livestock ranching on the Bunkerville Allotment land are…bunk.

      The use of racism claims is nothing but a tool of polemics in pursuit of self-interest anymore, meaningless. It used to mean beliefs in another ethnicity’s inherennt inferiority. It never before meant “you like to live and work among people that look and believe as you do.” Every group on earth has that preference. Most groups believe in their own superiority, no matter what mental gymnastics they require to get to that belief. Whether it’s the English, Japanese, Germans, Jews, Blacks, Spanish, or Mormons…every group believes in their own superiority, whether moral, intellectual, or spiritual. How, I might ask, could it be otherwise? The alternatives are only “we never perceived any difference” (which always turns out to be a lie) or “we’re worse than others.”

      • I see a distinction between personal racism and institutional racism. Odds are that everyone is racist to some extent or another, people tend to think very easily in terms of stereotypes. Everyone has that really overt old racist relative. There are lots of communities with racism as an integral part.

        The problem is when that personal racism becomes institutional racism, like with the Boston Catholics or with Southern segregationists. When racism becomes a matter of policy, then you see some serious inequality and injustice beyond some old crazy guy ranting about negroes.

      • Agreed. I went to USAF pilot training in Selma, AL in 1969, and was astonished at the open racism against blacks which still existed there. After graduation, I went to advanced training in Clovis, NM and was astonished that blacks and whites joined arms in discriminating against American Indians. When I returned from Vietnam, I was based in Del Rio, TX and discovered that EVERYBODY got together to disrespect Mexicans. I guess in some way it must be human nature, and I’m sure I have it in some way, somewhere.

  44. Pg, you are dodging the questions. What other wonderful conspiracy theories do you harbor? Do tell. It would be more entertaining than TV.

    So, do you, or do you not, believe that Blacks were better off picking cotton as slaves?

    • I’m your huckleberry! I believe it is a question worthy of discussion, IOW a close call. Especially interesting is the question of whether the current deplorable state of black Americans is the result of deliberate planning by our political elites, whether Republican or Democrat. I’d also question why anyone would wish to silence that debate. Do you want to step up to that question?

    • Wouldn’t it be great, with how often people throw around “paid shill”, if we actually got paid for this? Man, I’d love a job like that. Work from home, set my own hours, I’d save on gas money that’s for sure.

  45. If you think you’re on to some great wisdom or unique insight by realizing that welfare can harm its recipients and Democrats use it to buy votes, you’re not. Anyone of reasonable intelligence understands this. (Yes, even liberals. How do you think they thought of it?) One of the things that made Bundy look the fool was him standing around talking about really obvious stuff as if he were the first person to figure it out. That kind of behavior is called narcissism. Another was “wondering” whether welfare was worse than chattel bondage. If you have to “wonder” whether you would be better off on welfare today or as an antebellum slave, then you’re a fool like Bundy. The sooner everyone unties from this fool’s dock, the better.

  46. From this Black man’s perspective, Bundy is still an ignorant old fool. He passes through a black neighborhood an assumes, from just that pass-by that “colored people” and “Negroes” (which I’ll comment on in a bit) have nothing to do because government made it that way Bull-F*****g-Shit. His glittering generalities, and ignorant viewpoints about my people aren’t worth the excrement I flush down the toilet.

    As for the terms he used about my people, let me tell you a story.

    I was working in a small town in Louisiana several years ago. I went into a store I’d never visited and found some sweet knives, one of which I wanted to buy. As the old white woman was ringing me up, she casually said to an old white man that she would be right with him once she rang up the knife for “this boy.” She meant me. I was 53 at the time. I don’t care how old a white person is, you do not call me “Boy” in that context and expect me to support your establishment with my money. And you certainly don’t call an adult black male “Boy” in this day and age, no matter what your history. Not in that context I left the store and never returned.

    The same thing with Bundy and the terms he used. He’s lived long enough to know that those terms are no longer acceptable. He certainly doesn’t need to use the term “African American” – which I personally don’t use – but he can at least use the term “Black.” And to put my comments in context, I have many old, white conservative friends from the South who consciously decide never to use those terms, even if they grew up using them. And even though they and I don’t agree on some things,they show a healthy respect my people by calling us men and women, not derogatory terms.

    Bundy doesn’t see us that way, to the point that Fox News – the Conservative/Republican mouthpiece of cable news – has disowned him. That says a lot to me.

    • “she would be right with him once she rang up the knife for “this boy.” She meant me. I was 53 at the time. I don’t care how old a white person is, you do not call me “Boy” in that context and expect me to support your establishment with my money. And you certainly don’t call an adult black male “Boy” in this day and age, no matter what your history. “

      Do you live in the south or were you just passing through?

      “Boy” is a common term for any male…she may have been a racist pig but she may not have been. Hard to say from just this one comment; you were there, though, so there may have been more to it than just “boy” in terms of non-verbal clues and tone of voice, etc.

      But back to my point…we call each other “boy” all the time. Wives refer to “night out with the boys” or similar. Hell, my nickname for a while was “John Boy” and there’s a popular morning radio host out of Charlotte named that.

      I remember in middle school, a lot of guys got their underwear in a bunch about being called “boy,” especially by the girls, and would sometimes come to blows over it.

      By high school, it was “Hey, boys, what you doing this weekend?”

      There are popular and traditional southern folk songs that refer to “men” as “boys,” including (but not limited to) “The Boys Are Back In Town” sung by Patty Lovelace where she’s talking about sailors coming into port.

      Patty Lovelace, Boys Are Back In Town

      I get that “boy” CAN have racial undertones, but it does not necessarily HAVE to…at least that’s my read having lived in the south all but one of my 48 years.

      Cultural (and sub-cultural) use of language is a tricky, tricky thing. One man’s normal can be another’s major insult (even unintentional), and that’s true all over the world as well as at home.

      • I have lived in the South my entire life. I have never once heard a white person refer to another white person as “boy.” “Boys” is in no way shape or form similar to “boy” in meaning. There is nothing tricky about what “boy” means.

        • Really. Never? I regularly call both of my sons my boys, in front of them and not. My 39 and 33 year old sons. And I have called hundreds of other men “boys” as well. So, really. Never?

        • Maybe it is regional even within the South, then. I cannot speak to other areas of “the South.”

          I have heard grown men of all races, jobs and stations in life called “boy” in the Carolinas…for over four decades…and with no insult implied or intended or taken.

        • Paul…wow. You just called a few million people in my part of the world “obtuse” based solely on your own bigotry.

          At least you are consistent in demonstrating the old saying…”better to be thought a fool than to {type a comment} and remove all doubt.”

          Geez, man. You are a trip.

        • JR, “wow” I was born and raised in the Deep South … I know all about what it means when a white man refers to a black man as a boy. If you want to stick your head up your … er … in the sand and make-believe this is not the case, that’s your problem.

      • I live in the south. All sides of my parents’ family are/were (that generation has now passed away) is from the south. But that doesn’t matter. I’ve lived in this world for almost 59 years. I’ve lived through a lot during those years. “Boy” in that context is unacceptable. Period.

  47. ” My People” MJ?? really??… one of your people married one of my people… or did one of my people marry one of your people?.. .. either way, we had sex, and had one of ” those people”.

  48. “I saw it on TeeVee” McCain, is your day job at the SPLC not paying enough? Your comments are as hilarious as they are transparent.

  49. Some good comments above. Nice job, folks.
    Clearly Bundy is in the wrong in his dispute with the Federal BLM. Clearly the Feds tried to provoke some sort of incident where they could arrest Bundy, or worse. The” Milita Groups” rushing to his “defense” not so clear. Seems like a mix of being duped by Bundy’s “predicament” and overly anxious to act-out their paranoid feelings about the Federal Government.
    Insofar as Bundy’s remarks about American Africans, while his words and phrases were “racist-speak”, poorly chosen and downright offensive, it comes off to me as saying what many of us have said. Many Black people have become victims of the Race Discrimination Industry in collusion with the Federal Government (or vice versa, if you will) at the expense of Americans of all races and ethnic backgrounds who work productively, pay their Taxes and try to provide the best they can for their children. These people were NEVER better-off as slaves. Bundy clearly has no concept of what Black Slavery was really like, nor apparently, the difficulties American Africans have faced since “Emancipation”. They are trapped in a lifestyle little better than slavery because it is a lifestyle of dependence, hopelessness and low self-esteem. It would be a massive and, I think, it is a necessary undertaking to change this situation for the better. The Federal Government seems to have no appetite for even advocating that we should take it on. One comment posted the very telling quote from President Lyndon Johnson, which probably sums the whole thing up pretty concisely ” but as the racist Democrat President LBJ said, he made sure the ‘“N…………” (his word, not mine) would vote Democrat for 50 years.'”.
    Right now many, many Americans are struggling in a weak economy, so it is unlikely even the general public would find motivation to want to put an end to this shameful and unjust situation. The policies of the current Democratic Socialist controlled Administration are aimed at making it worse as they contrive to “redistribute wealth” and expand Government dependence through Obamacare, unrestrained spending on “Social Programs” and runaway borrowing against an already colossal National Debt.
    I don’t see any good answer on the horizon…do you?

  50. May be a Racist, could be a Racist, might be a Racist, is not the Point! Government Being assholes are! Spin from the lying Government just like Waco and Ruby Ridge, helps the White apologist feel better,

  51. Some people don’t know when to quit while they’re ahead…I don’t care what Bundy “thinks”, it’s when the filter between brain(questionable) and mouth goes awry is when my support starts to wane…

    Bundy had it made, had the support of a nation, and like all before him, came out and said something so ignorant and, so offensive, the only support he’ll get now is from hardcore KKK and like groups…

  52. Everyone seems to think it’s an either/or case. Why can’t he both be an ignorant racist, and have a valid insight into how government “anti-poverty” programs are a trap to most people who use them? I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive.

    Either way, I’m pretty much over this guy. Not because he said “Negro” and “picking cotton”, but because he’s an undisciplined idiot. Stick to your issue. Don’t get drawn into making comments about other issues. Just because a TV camera is on doesn’t mean you have to jump in front of it and start blathering on.

  53. I never did see anything “racist” is what Bundy said, even the edited version by Media Matters ginned up to push their own agenda.
    Once again the left is caught in a lie. The intellectually dishonest libs and their Media Matters mouthpiece touted this wtih an effort to disgrace, or at least diminish, another person standing up for freedom against a tyrannical government, something the left detests. On the way to work today I heard on of those on Serrius, Ari Rabin-Havt- a particular dishonest hack, ranting about how “racist” Cliven Bundy was. He had some similarly misinformed callers agreeing with him. Listening to this guy makes me nauseous but one must be aware of what the enemy is doing.
    The question is, will the left somehow find enough character to admit they are wrong? Doubtful but we can always hope. If history is any indicator, they will double down on this, milk the lie like a cheap cow and move on.
    Typical.

    • I don’t think slavery is better than anything. What Bundy was doing was asking a question, that question being how is one better off, what is the difference if you will, being beholden for your entire existence to either a government or a person. Slavery can exist with either of the two as master. It is a good question. Bundy was not being “racist”. As I stated, the attempts to label him as such is an attempt to marginalize him, his actions and his followers as credible. This is an all to familiar tactic of the statist liberals.

  55. TTAG, what an unexpected hotbed of political correctness. So much so, that it weakens the credibility of the site itself.

  56. So he’s NOT an ignorant racist redneck, just a plain old ignorant redneck. Does it matter? To me it doesn’t. There is no clause in the bill of rights that says any of those rights are contingent on not being an asshole.

  57. His heart is in the right place and he seems to have no ill will towards minorities, he just has a very old extremely un-politically correct way of thinking and words things very poorly.

  59. And he does it again … now Bundy is giving lectures about what Martin Luther King said and rambling incoherently about sitting on a bus with Rosa Young.

    The guy had a chance to back away from his idiotic remarks and only made it worse, calling for the right to refer to a “black boy.”

    You’d think Bundy might have somebody around him who would be able to tell him to keep his mouth shut, but apparently they all share his propensity for stupidity on an impressively titanic scale.
    http://youtu.be/1Bf-AxkBp-0

  60. And now it appears that the Democratic Socialists have divided us again , which is the plan of the communist left in government . Be prepared and ready . Keep your powder dry .

  61. Cliven said they were better off with families than without. His out-dated language offended the current crop of liberals. Take a chill- pill, people.

      • None other than Jesse Jackson said basically the same thing as Mr Bundy but you don’t see him chastised as a racist for it.

        Also for those critizing Bundy for not paying his fees, he refused to pay the Fedreral Gov his fees, he was perfectly willing to continue to pay the State or County Gov those fees as he always had. He made a stand against the Feds over reach that most of us wouldn’t have the guts to do.

        If you think grazing cattle on public land is taking a handout you are very ignorant of how hard it is to work cattle much less on scrub land that has very little grass.

        http://m.timesdispatch.com/news/stat….html?mode=jqm

        Quote:
        Jackson suggests welfare has been worse than slavery

        At a Juneteenth event in Newport News, E.W. Jackson, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, said slavery did not destroy black families, but government welfare programs launched in the 1960s caused them to deteriorate.

        Speaking before a small crowd Wednesday at King-Lincoln Park, not too far from where the first African slaves entered the Colonies, Jackson referred to his great-grandparents, who were slaves and sharecroppers in Orange County. “I am a direct descendent of slaves. My grandfather was born there to a father and a mother who had been slaves. And by the way, their family was more intact than the black family is today,” Jackson said.

        “I’m telling you that slavery did not destroy the black family, even though it certainly was an attack on the black family. It made it difficult,” he said.

        Juneteenth marks the day in June 1865 when enslaved blacks in Texas learned that the Civil War was over and that the Emancipation Proclamation was in effect. Democrats began circulating a video of Jackson’s speech late Wednesday.

        “The Cuccinelli-Jackson-Obenshain ticket cannot go a week without dividing and offending Virginians with their extreme rhetoric,” said Charniele Herring, chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party.

        “This Republican ticket’s preoccupation with comparing things to slavery is insulting, as is E.W. Jackson’s dangerous suggestion that legislation in the 1960s was somehow worse for African-American families than slavery,” Herring said.

        Jackson claims that new welfare programs created in the 1960s caused the deterioration of black families. “The program that began to tell women, ‘You don’t need a man in the home, the government will take care of you,’ (and) that began to tell men, ‘You don’t need to be in the home, the government will take care of this woman and will take care of these children,’ ” he said.

        Jackson was referring to the Food Stamp Act of 1964, which attempted to address the nation’s problem of hunger by providing another means-tested program for the poor, the disabled and single-parent households, in the form of food stamps. “In 1960, most black children were raised in two-parent, monogamous families,” Jackson said. “By now, by this time, we only have 20 percent of black children being raised in two-parent, monogamous families with a married man and woman raising those children. It wasn’t slavery that did that, it was government that did that, trying to solve problems that only God can solve, and that only we as human beings can solve,” he said.

        Shawn Utsey, chairman of the Department of African-American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Jackson may not have been far off the mark with his assessment of the relative impact of slavery on families, but that he was oversimplifying things for political purposes.“There is some merit in what he was saying about the resilience of blacks during and after slavery,” Utsey said. “However, it is difficult to transpose a contemporary definition of a family unit back in time and apply it to a group of people for whom that definition didn’t exist.”

        A mother and father and husband and wife were not a reality under slavery, Utsey said.

        “So it’s suspect to take the definition of a family of today, a mother and father who are in a long-term relationship and raise children, and apply that retroactively to make an argument,” he said

    • The fact that you have refused to answer the question, refused to condemn Bundy’s racist idiocy, only proves that you are not part of any solution, only part of the problem.

      Here’s a comment from another thread well worth repeating here, facts that the Bundy-supporters just can’t handle:

      These are really simple facts. Bundy has been making a huge profit off government assistance for decades. Rather than pay up for the benefits he is getting, he formed a militia to threaten and intimidate Federal law enforcement officers.

      All of his claims for beneficial use, homestead, or land improvement re obvious lies. When Nevada became a state in 1864, its citizens gave up all claims to unappropriated federal land and codified this in the state’s Constitution. His neighbors recognize him for what he is, a moocher who refuses to pay his bills (http://americablog.com/2014/04/cliven-bundy-seditious-liar-patriot.html)

      In order to get support from right-wing hate groups, he had to recruit from out-of-town, because the locals have no interest in helping him promote his scam.

      It is not his land. He has paid no property taxes, and has no “rights” to the land. Even if his homestead claims were true, we are talking about 160 acres, not thousands. He is trespassing, pure and simple. Bundy is a freeloading, welfare rancher who thinks that he deserves an entitlement program that everyone else should pay for.

      Bundy’s philosophy is that if his cows find green grass, then his cows have first claim, even though the state paid the appropriate fee to let the wildlife graze. The BLM prevented unpaid grazing as a practice because it was a subsidy of lawbreakers at the expense of people who played by the rules.

      Once Bundy calling for a “range war” and saying it was time to take back the country “by force,” he changed his crime from “stealing from the Federal Government” to “pointing guns at federal officials.” The latter is a more serious charge. His racist rants are really just a minor personality failure compared to the idea of killing law enforcement personnel.

      If he is so opposed to blacks getting government subsidy, then why is he willing to commit treason to maintain his government subsidy?

      If he is willing to call for hundreds of terrorists to come help him defend his welfare benefits, then why can’t he ask them to chip in a few dollars for his grazing permit? After all, the government is not supposed to be picking winners and losers, and the other 15,000 people with similar permits are paying their bills on time.

      The bill, by the way, is about $1.35 per animal per month. This is pretty much unchanged since it was imposed by Reagan after the Sagebrush Rebellion. Bundy has run up fees of about $1 million during the last 20 years by refusing to pay any of the fees his competitors are paying.

      Guess what? I don’t like to pay my bridge tolls, either. But forming an armed militia to threaten the toll-booth operators is not the act of a patriot, it is the act of a thug. If Bundy and his supporters were black, they would all be in prison by now. Or worse.

      • I did answer your question in the thread in which you asked it. I also did so promptly. So, either you missed it or are a liar. Which one?

        BTW: I didn’t read that wall of text you posted up here. Your games are rick-diculous. I might waste the time later and then again I might not.

  63. IMO, the Cliven Bundy supporters have hooked their wagons to the wrong horse, and it’s NOT because of his comments on race.

    It appears he did NOT have family grazing that land before the BLM started managing it, so a big part of his justification for defying the BLM is bullstuff.

    He had his day in court, and lost.

    Now, perhaps it is ridiculous that the Federal Government owns 87% of Nevada.

    There is no doubt (among sane humans) that the Federal Government’s fetish with endangered species such as snail darters, certain mice species, and in Bundy’s case, the stupid desert tortoise, is obscene and ridiculous.

    But these are issues to be decided by legislatures.

    When you have your day in court – like Bundy did in the 90’s – and lose, then pay your damn fees (to the right agency), hire a better lawyer (than yourself), and appeal. If you don’t pay your fees (or pay them to a different agency), you aren’t a hero, you are an incompetent doofus.

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