Monday, April 14, 2014

Who owns the Bundy Ranch?

I know some people are complaining that the Bundy's don't actually "own" the land they live on, much less the BLM-claimed land they have been using.

That land belonged to the Native tribes before being stolen by some "white" settlers or a "white" government. Then it was bought or leased from the thieves.

Yeah, and before that the Native tribe who lived there at that time stole it from some other Natives who lived there and who had probably stolen it from someone before them and so on since the first humans came to North America. The story is the same world wide.

It's sad, and WRONG, to take land (or any other property) which doesn't belong to you. But, Mr. Bundy* didn't steal that land. No one who originally owned that land before someone stole it is still alive, and some undoubtedly left no descendants whatsoever, having been wiped out in the process of having their land stolen.

Sometimes there is just no way to fix a past wrong. What are you going to do? Obsess over it and hate everyone and everything until perfection is achieved?

As I have said multiple times in the past, at some point you just have to wipe the slate clean and forgive past offenses and say "Never again!" That, or you'll never have any peace.
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*I'm not saying he is necessarily a wonderful guy. I don't know him. Everyone- including myself- has flaws and faults. He may even frequently recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or "support the troops", or something hideous like that. I'm speaking narrowly here. If you can't stand up for the rights of a bad guy when you see him being violated, your support of the good guy in the same situation is cheapened. And no matter how bad Bundy may or may not be, the thugs calling themselves "government" are always worse, and are the ultimate bad guys in this situation. I'm glad they got beaten in this first skirmish of the war. I hope if they try to attack again their loss is even more dramatic.

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