I would like the progressives on this board who thought the actions taken by the Bureau of Land Management against Bundy over a debt were not over the top to understand that this new "militarized" mind set by government agencies and the police can and is being brought against many Americans now that they are witnessing what is happening in Ferguson.
We've been talking about this militarization and over the top responses by police forces across the nation and many on the board have been poo pooing us.
I hope Ferguson is a wake up call for many.
Disclaimer: I have been pro law and order for many a year. But what has been happening lately is deja vu. And I'm not getting a warm and fuzzy witnessing our current state of policing in the nation.
I'm not sure how both events are related.
The Bureau of Land Mgmt only went in and removed the cattle from its grounds 20 YEARS AFTER giving Bundy warning after warning after warning.
The Feds didn't just arrive down there and militarize the whole area. They only went down and took care of the problem they had with a rancher not paying fees every other rancher pays to allow their cattle to graze on federal lands.
When retarded and other paranoid white anti-gubmint types heard that the BLM was down there to remove the cattle, they organized protests in which they were armed, blocked regular civilians from moving by creating armed checkpoints, and positioned themselves where they were filmed pointing weapons at the feds.
Even after all that, the Feds de-escalated the situation.
In Ferguson, the police killed yet another unarmed black guy and in the past few days have led an ugly offensive against our 1st amendment rights to peacefully protest.
The police have talked about people "bombing them" and massive violence by citizens, yet there is no proof of these apparent "bombings" and only story after story of innocent civilians and media being tear-gassed, bullied, and arrested for filming law enforcement.
These people are unarmed and they've been treated like garbage by an overzealous and totally paranoid police department.
If black people were to surround the police with weapons aimed at them, just like the white militia people did in the south, you can be sure that the police would kill more black people if they could instead of de-escalating tensions.
The Bundy ranch and Ferguson are two totally different events and they've played out much differently. The first was a case of law enforcement using prudence while the second is law enforcement running amok over civilians because, hey, who really cares about black people anyway, right?