The Oregon Refuge Affair

The Bundy brothers, true to their father’s (Cliven Bundy) spirit, have called a bunch of like-minded and well armed folks together to take control of a Federal Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. The excuse was support for two ranchers who have been convicted of several unlawful acts involving the refuge. However, the majority of folks in the occupation are from outside the area, and the ranchers themselves do not support the intervention. But the Bundy’s mission is way more than support for the ranchers and is actually a long-term campaign against the Federal government, in particular, Federal land-use policies. 

The issue of land ownership and use in this part of Oregon — like many parts of the West — is historically long and complex. There have been several good articles in The New Yorker and in the New York Times that have articulated these issues with fairness (I think). There is nothing I could add to these. My interest is in the Bundy mission itself.

The Bunds want the land “returned to the people.” That, in itself, is enormously complicated since one has to wonder which people should have the land returned to them. The Paiute tribe of Native Americans has a particular interest in that plan. But the Bundy’s are thinking about the more recent occupants, namely, the current ranchers and farmers. The main idea is that Federal government should withdraw and leave the land to free public access. Of course, they don’t really want “free public access” (I suspect) since they don’t want anyone else to encroach on the land that they believe is theirs. 

In a sense, what the Bundy’s want is a Marxist system in which the state withers away and the people are left collectively in control. But even Marx believed that the people would have to regulate the economy in certain ways so that all would be served their needs. How would the Bundys have that done? They have no answer to that, at least none that I have heard. Cliven Bundy just wants too run his cattle on Federal land without paying the government anything. But if the government abandons the land how will Bundy manage to protect his cattle from theft and keep others from running their cattle on the same land? I guess that’s what all those guns are for. The whole argument takes us back to the “social contract” where we have to choose between a state of war and life in a commonwealth under the rule of laws and institutionalized justice. Private property does not exist under the state of war; private property exists only in a commonwealth. The Bundys can’t have it both ways.