Frontline - American Patriot: Inside the the Armed Uprising

[BladesNBarrels]

This was on Friday night on Colorado PBS, Channel 12 in Denver.
I had not really followed the Bundy and American Patriot story except for the headlines.
I thought this Frontline was pretty well balanced in its presentation.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZW5RCiEBpg

[Irving]

I'll have to watch it as I remember feeling like I sided with the Bundys from the information I got from here while it was happening.
Recently I've been listening to hunting podcasts with people that know much more than me about public and government owned lands who were very much NOT on the side of the Bundys. That left me realizing that I really don't have the knowledge I need to make an informed decision and wanted to learn more. Thanks for posting.

[Bailey Guns]

Pretty good watch. I wanted to choke the life outta that SPLC douchebag.

[Great-Kazoo]

Pretty good watch. I wanted to choke the life outta that SPLC douchebag.

You and 30 million other people.

[FoxtArt]

Pretty good watch. I wanted to choke the life outta that SPLC douchebag.

He has that "vibe" that he'd be egging you on to do it, and he'd enjoy it far more.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/c9OTWa7Oqtw/hqdefault.jpg

[Irving]

I watched the video. I'm not convinced that the Bundys were ever in the right. Their protest of returning public lands to local governments didn't at all match their actions in my opinion. There is an argument for returning public lands to local governments, but it's not at all clear cut. Local governments are great at managing some things, like wildlife, and bad at managing other things, like forest fires. The reality is that local governments cannot afford to manage the public lands in many areas. The funds to fight a single large forest fire would wipe out most states and then they'd just have to sell all the land off, then no one gets to use the lands. That's just an example of why it's not a black and white issue.

They had their propaganda down pat, and it was appropriately patriotic, but it fell short in my opinion.
There is no guarantee that just because the state is managing the land, that they wouldn't have found themselves in the same position.
Part of being American is the dream that you can come from nothing and make it, but there is never a guarantee that what you are doing will be your ticket to a comfortable life of that it will be sustainable. I understand that they were of the opinion that the government was standing in the way of making a living, but plenty of people think that and it's mostly a loser mindset. Using resources that aren't yours to build your business is never a sure thing and it's pretty weak to cry about it when the free money ship sales.

All that said, I agree with what Amon Bundy says toward the end of the video at the 51 minute mark. It doesn't matter whether they were right or wrong, they still made a difference, and EVERYONE, civilians and government should take note. I see a couple things of note here, I'm sure there are more.

-Socialists who think that no one can stand up to the government and it's only a matter of time before we all get with the program need to understand what happened here. Because if people who are in the wrong (IMO) can still successfully get the government to stand down, how do those who wish to limit our freedoms for real think it's going to go when people are in the right?

-Whatever needs to be said about gun control that is basically the same as above.

-Automation replacing people's jobs. Whenever I hear people discussing the idea of a national guaranteed income, it always comes up how many people are going to lose their jobs in a short amount of time. I'm not trying to discuss guaranteed income, that's for another conversation, it just so happens to be the topic that addresses this next particular point. Automation is already putting factory workers out of work, and people are predicting that the next industry it's going to hit is going to be trucking, which is apparently the next biggest blue collar industry. Apparently there is a concern that truckers will take up arms and block highways with their trucks to disrupt the entire country to force some kind of job safety for themselves. It's easy for white collar journalists to write about people learning to code when they lose their jobs so they can transfer into growing fields, but that is not the reality. Just like the Bundys who have been ranching for generations, there are millions of people who work in factories or drive trucks and don't know anything else. The percentage of recently unemployed 50 year-olds that * "learn to code" is going to be extremely low, and that's not even accounting for the difficulties of trying to get hired to a new job once you're in your fifties as it is. Right or wrong, if people rise up to demand a change, something will need to be done. This event sets an important precedent for all sides that it can be done.

Anyway, that was my take away. I think this event could prove to transcend what it originally was in the near future.

* If you're not familiar, there was/is a whole thing where people were getting banned from Twitter for life for simply Tweeting "learn to code" at others. It started when upity journalists were suggesting that anyone in a dying industry just simply learn to code and change jobs. It was so immediately insulting that people started trashing on journalist and tweeting that at them. Like any big movement, it started attracting trolls that would attach pictures of nooses and ovens and other things with the intent to rock the boat and Twitter's logarithm started just wholesale banning people for tweeting that, even with no other context. I think it started when journalists were complaining about the decline of journalism and people basically told them to STFU and learn to code.