12 Apr 2014

ThinkProgress Weighs in on Nevada Standoff

Big Brother 33 Comments

Over the past few days, whenever I jump in the car I check NPR to see if they even give a passing reference to the fact that there could very well be shooting in Nevada at any moment. Nope. And it’s not like the rancher standoff is being displaced by coverage of Ukraine; there are all sorts of “human interest” stories about a novelist realizing her potential as a woman in India etc.

In that context, I was intrigued to see that ThinkProgress has weighed in on the matter. As you can imagine, my Facebook Friends are somewhat skeptical of the federal government’s position on this issue. So it was interesting (from a sociological perspective) to see the 180-degree-opposite perspective from Ian Millhiser, in a post they titled, “Armed Right-Wing Militia Members Descend On Nevada To Help Rancher Defy Court Order.” My favorite part is the caption under the opening photo: “A protester kicks a police dog during an altercation between law enforcement and supporters of a Nevada rancher.”

If shooting does start, my Facebook Friends will obviously call it murder by the BLM. ThinkProgress will exclaim with horror that Tea Party racists have used their chests to ruin perfectly good bullets.

33 Responses to “ThinkProgress Weighs in on Nevada Standoff”

  1. Josiah says:

    Hey, the Think Progress guys are just following the NAP. Those militia folks are trespassers, so anything they do to resist constitutes aggression.

    • guest says:

      Collectives can’t own something; Only individuals can.

      And the only legitimate authority that a government can have is delegated authority, so for the government to claim an authority that does not derive from delegation is for it to presume authority it does not have.

      And since the government can only be delegated authority by individuals (see above), and also since no individual has come forward to claim ownership of the “public land”, the BLM is violating all individual’s rights to do anything they want with unowned land.

      If the land WAS privately owned, then the Bundy’s would be in violation of that person’s property rights.

      And if the BLM was protecting that particular individual’s property rights, the next issue to address would be that it was stealing property (taxes, monetary inflation) on behalf of that individual. The defense could be justified in this case, while the stealing could not.

      • scineram says:

        “Collectives can’t own something; Only individuals can.”

        Statists can’t declare law. Only your words are law.

      • Josiah Neeley says:

        Collectives can’t own something; Only individuals can.

        Says who?

        • Ken B says:

          It’s a logical requirement for the Rothbardian notions of property to not generate contradictions. So they simply assert it.

          • Major_Freedom says:

            You only believe they “simply assert it” because you yourself are ignorant of the reasons they assert it, and you “simply impute” that same ignorance on them.

            Try reading what they are actually saying, before criticizing it. You have a bad habit in this.

        • Major_Freedom says:

          Not who, but what. The what is reason and evidence.

          You take any seeming “collective” ownership, and what you would actually be talking about are specific individual owners and (excluded) specific individual non-owners.

          You aren’t actually attributing ownership to a mental construct that refers to real world human beings, when you say “collective” ownership. You are attributing ownership to specific individuals.

          For example, take the case of a home owned jointly by a family. Collective ownership right? Actually no. What is owned are couplets of share-individual. Each individual owns a share of the house, and that share is what is actually owned. The whole house is actually separately owned shares. In this case, the share is use-rights for locations and time (not bits and pieces of brick).

          What guest is saying is that the 5 family members don’t collectively own the house. They each own their own shares of use of the house. That includes personal use, and possible use in acquiring money from others as well.

          • Philippe says:

            “In this case, the share is use-rights for locations and time (not bits and pieces of brick).”

            So who owns the actual bits and pieces of brick?

            • Ken B says:

              More pointedly, in Rothbardistan you can own people. So you, Bob, and I own Mf with majority rule for disposition of the asset, such whether we kill him. Not partible, is he? Now look what happens when Bob dies and someone inherits. The Rothbardians both assert Bob’s heir owns the inheritance AND that the contract ended when Bob died. Try working that out. Or instead of dying Bob sells his interest. Can the terms of sale affect our agreement? Etc.

              • guest says:


                The Rothbardians both assert Bob’s heir owns the inheritance AND that the contract ended when Bob died. Try working that out.

                You have to give something to a specific person before you die – and that person has to consciously accept it – otherwise the thing becomes unowned.

          • guest says:


            What guest is saying is that the 5 family members don’t collectively own the house. They each own their own shares of use of the house.

            I differ a bit on this issue.

            My position is that it’s not shares that are owned, but the actual building and land.

            Philippe’s question is actually a good follow up.

            A specific person owns the building and – if we’re talking about legitimacy of authority, here – one of the spouses contracts with the other to live there. (Even if, practically, the desire to parse this out never arises.)

            The alternative position would be absurd: the absense of the ability to resolve disputes based on legitimate authority, since no clear authority in such a scenario can be presented.

            That’s why the concept of “collective ownership” reduces to no ownership.

            • Philippe says:

              how does your theory work in the case of a company owned by shareholders?

              • Ken B says:

                It doesn’t. Look at my slave example above. And THAT is why guest denies ownership can be split. It’s a logical necessity for his theory.

              • guest says:

                The shareholders individually contract with someone to do XYZ.

                The individual in the corporation entering the contract is only permitted to manage the specific amount of money that the shareholders voluntarily invest.

                At no point does the individual within the corporation gain ownership of any other property not voluntarily invested by the individual shareholder.

                As an aside:

                Power and Market by Murray N. Rothbard
                Chapter 3—Triangular Intervention (continued)
                R. Policy Toward Monopoly
                http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap15d.asp#3R._Policy_Toward_Monopoly


                Finally, the question may be raised: Are corporations themselves mere grants of monopoly privilege? Some advocates of the free market were persuaded to accept this view by Walter Lippmann’s The Good Society.[77] It should be clear from previous discussion, however, that corporations are not at all monopolistic privileges; they are free associations of individuals pooling their capital. On the purely free market, such men would simply announce to their creditors that their liability is limited to the capital specifically invested in the corporation, and that beyond this their personal funds are not liable for debts, as they would be under a partnership arrangement. It then rests with the sellers and lenders to this corporation to decide whether or not they will transact business with it. If they do, then they proceed at their own risk. Thus, the government does not grant corporations a privilege of limited liability; anything announced and freely contracted for in advance is a right of a free individual, not a special privilege. It is not necessary that governments grant charters to corporations.[78]

              • Philippe says:

                who is this individual that you are talking about? Is his supposed status as the sole owner of the company stated in any contracts?

              • guest says:


                who is this individual that you are talking about? Is his supposed status as the sole owner of the company stated in any contracts?

                Only individuals can consciously agree to do anything, so contracts are between individuals.

                If a shareholder contracts with someone to manage their invested money, the manager of the money is the company owner.

                Under contract, the company owner trades with the individual shareholder his services which are to be performed in certain ways.

              • Philippe says:

                are you arguing that the true sole owner of a company (owned by shareholders) is the CEO?

              • guest says:


                are you arguing that the true sole owner of a company (owned by shareholders) is the CEO?

                If you’re talking about the building, maybe and maybe not.

                If you’re talking about the contract between the individual shareholders and the manager of the money, then yes.

                Let me quickly qualify that the attempt to arrange a contractual obligation where a Board of Directors decides who the manager is violates the owner’s property rights since, again, contracts cannot be made with collectives.

                A Board of Directors doesn’t have legitimate authority.

                What a “Board of Directors”-like function would look like in the free market is an arbitration service whose employees contract with an individual to contribute ideas, with the ultimate arbiter being the owner.

              • Philippe says:

                So in your mind the true owner of a company owned by shareholders is the CEO.

                That’s laughable.

              • guest says:


                So in your mind the true owner of a company owned by shareholders is the CEO.

                Oh, so “owned by the shareholders” was a quality you deliberately made part of your scenario, rather than a slip in which you were merely expressing a bias that the answer ought to be this and not that.

                OK, we can play that way, if you want.

                My modified response is that your question presumes the conclusion for which you are attempting to argue – which is circular reasoning.

              • Philippe says:

                “Definition of ‘Shareholder’

                Any person, company or other institution that owns at least one share of a company’s stock. Shareholders are a company’s owners.”

                http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/shareholder.asp

                “A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution (including a corporation) that legally owns a share of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders are the owners of a limited company. They buy shares which represent part ownership of a company.”

                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder

                You claim that a company, whose contracts and other founding documents clearly state that the company’s owners are the shareholders, is really owned solely by the CEO.

                Laughable.

              • Philippe says:

                “Definition of ‘Shareholder’
                Any person, company or other institution that owns at least one share of a company’s stock. Shareholders are a company’s owners.”
                (investopedia)

                “A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution (including a corporation) that legally owns a share of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders are the owners of a limited company. They buy shares which represent part ownership of a company.”
                (wikipedia)

                You claim that a company, whose contracts and other founding documents clearly state that the company’s owners are the shareholders, is really owned solely by the CEO. t

                The fact that this isn’t stated in any contract anywhere is of no concern to you. It’s all a conspiracy or something.

                Laughable.

          • Josiah says:

            You take any seeming “collective” ownership, and what you would actually be talking about are specific individual owners and (excluded) specific individual non-owners.

            This (along with the rest of the comment) is not an argument against collective ownership; it’s just a restatement of the position that there’s no such thing as collective ownership using more words.

            But leave that aside. Let’s suppose that what we think of as examples of collective ownership are really just a convenient shorthand for more complicated arrangements of individual ownership. In that case, how does the impossibility of collective ownership mean that the militia guys aren’t violating the NAP?

      • Tel says:

        Collectives can’t own something; Only individuals can.

        If collectives could own something then the owner would be the State of Nevada, so the Federal agents are trespassing.

        • Philippe says:

          why would it be the state and not the federal government?

          • Tel says:

            Because all powers not explicitly enumerated in the US Constitution cannot be claimed by the US Government… and the US Constitution does not transfer ownership of state land to Washington.

            • Philippe says:

              ok, but that land isn’t defined as state land, is it?

              • Tel says:

                I don’t understand the question. Are you disputing the borders of the states?

                Are you questioning the existence of US states prior to the US Constitution? In which case, who agreed to that Constitution?

              • Josiah says:

                Are you questioning the existence of US states prior to the US Constitution?

                I think it’s pretty clear that the U.S. Constitution predates the existence of the state of Nevada, which is only part of the United States because the federal government bought the land from Mexico.

    • Ben B says:

      These militia folks are only trespassers if Clive Bundy considers them so.

  2. BlackDog says:

    So, do a little homework on this whole thing, or is that too much to ask?

    Try this for starters — there is now a temporary no-fly zone, directly over Bundy’s Ranch —
    http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_4_1687.html

    And this is probably the REAL reason this is happening at this moment in time —
    http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/info/newsroom/2013/december/state_office__oil.html

    and this —
    http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/energy/oilgas-search-fracking-comes-nevada

    and this, with Harry Reid’s fingerprints all over it —
    http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/nv/field_offices/las_vegas_field_office/energy/dry_lake_sez.Par.3790.File.dat/FAQs%20Oct2012.pdf

    So it’s really NOT about cows and turtles, huh?

    And if you missed this, since when does our government get to determine, and enforce, a First Amendment Zone?! We already have a First Amendment Zone — it’s called The United States of America. Duh.

    And finally, for everyone that says Mr. Bundy OWES the Federal Government, and specifically the BLM ANY money at all, please do just a bit of homework on a legal concept (dating from the beginning of our country AS a country) called PRIOR USAGE RIGHTS. Mr. Bundy’s family was punching cattle on that very land 69 years before the creation of the BLM itself. In fact, the Bundy family has been punching cattle there since before Nevada was a state. So who really has ‘rights’ on the land? And, Mr. Bundy has repeatedly stated that he has no problems paying the grazing fees to the State of Nevada, whom he has a contract with. But he has NO contract with the Federal Government.

    Wake Up! This is about your freedom, too!

    • Tel says:

      But it was a Federal court that ordered him to abandon the land.

  3. Ken B says:

    I wonder how this fits with some of the comments we have seen on FA in the past few days. Not well with a lot of them.
    http://abcnews.go.com/US/nevada-cattle-rancher-wins-range-war-federal-government/t/story?id=23302610&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drudgereport.com%2F

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