Oregon standoff reveals how leftists desperately want armed government to execute private citizens
by: J. D. Heyes
I’m talking about the mainstream media’s rapid assessment of the group that has taken over a building on federal land near Burns, Oregon. Needless to say, the assessment is more than a little bit hypocritical.
Not unsurprisingly, CNN – which will “host” President Obama’s anti-gun “town hall” this week – was one of the first to declare Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and their group, “terrorists.”
The network’s national security analyst and former Obama Administration official Juliette Kayyam said it first:
Who the heck do they think they are?
Let’s begin with what to call the Oregon anti-government protesters who have taken over a federal building. The men, heavily armed, urging others to come support their cause, and claiming somehow that, while peaceful, they will “defend” themselves whatever it takes, are — by any definition — domestic terrorists.
It does not matter that they insist they are peaceful or some sort of lawful militia; I can claim I’m 26 years old and a size 2 and that still doesn’t make it true. This group of men is wielding terror, and the threat of violence, as if it were their constitutional right.
Aren’t you sick and tired of the double standards of the leftist mainstream media?
Okay, so what the Bundys and their supporters have done may not have been exactly the right play at the right time, for the right cause. After all, the folks they purport to be supporting – Dwight and Steven Hammond, local ranchers unjustly sentenced to more prison time on federal terrorism charges related to a fire that spread beyond their land after already serving their initial sentence – have said they did not want any “militia” help (likely under the advice of their lawyer).
But calling them “terrorists”? That makes sense mostly to liberals in the media who claim ownership of the English language and what it is supposed to mean, and in what context.
After all, the “terrorism” moniker applied to the group in Oregon is coming from some of the same MSM folks who refused to apply it to the rioters, looters, shooters and masters of mayhem who ransacked portions of Baltimore, Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City this past year. Those actions were not committed by domestic terrorists, you see – they were committed by “freedom-minded Americans” who were simply seeking “social justice” for a perceived injustice (income inequality, “innocent” people being shot, etc.) Yet in those cases actual violence was employed, lives were endangered, and violence and threats were utilized to effect a political change.
That’s important to note, because OxfordDictionaries.com’s definition of terrorism is “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.”
Could there be a racial element to being labeled a “terrorist”? After all, the doers of violence in our cities last year were mainly African Americans; that action even spawned another political movement, “Black Lives Matter.” But the Oregon group consists only of white guys – and we know how much the liberal media likes to dump on “white males” these days.
Should the military kill these guys?
Oh, wait. That’s right. Those white guys have guns. So that must be why they earned the “terrorism” label. Only, there were shots fired during Ferguson demonstrations and in Baltimore as well. But that’s not terrorism to the lib media. That’s fighting for social change. Not only that but, as of this writing, no shots have been fired by the Oregon “militia.”
Then there is the issue of liberal “tolerance” hypocrisy, and in this arena, the award goes to daytime television talk host Montel Williams, who tweeted that the Oregon group ought to be massacred by the military.
After someone tweeted that the group’s real goal was to get attention, Williams responded, “Then let’s give them some – put this down using National Guard with shoot to kill orders.”
Nice, Montel. Calling for violence to intimidate peaceful protesters. Do you feel the same way about the protesters in Ferguson? Baltimore? The Left-wing environmental groups that attack legitimate logging operations and oil companies? I tend to doubt it, considering his glowing endorsement of Michael Brown of Ferguson, shot by police as he tried to beat an officer and take his gun – after a strong-armed robbery of a local convenience store.
You may not agree with the manner in which the Bundy-led group is attempting to draw attention to what it feels is a legal injustice, and you are entitled to think that. But by the lib media’s “terrorism” description – which it didn’t even apply to the jihadis in San Bernardino for days after their act of terrorism – every armed unlawful action is “terrorism.”
Except that it isn’t.