Welfare rancher Cliven Bundy not only demands that the gubmint provide free pastureland for his cattle because freedom, he expects the feds to maintain fences to keep his mendicant moo-cows off the gubmint interstate:
A Las Vegas woman has sued Cliven Bundy after she crashed into one of his cows on Interstate 15.
Danielle Beck was riding in a car that collided with the animal April 14, two days after federal authorities backed down from an armed confrontation with the scofflaw rancher and his supporters in a dispute over unpaid grazing fees, reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The cow was killed [:(], and the 40-year-old Beck suffered broken bones and other injuries when her boyrfiend crashed into the livestock and drove over an embankment about 10 miles from Bundy’s ranch in Bunkerville.
[snip]“It’s a state problem, it’s not our problem,” Bundy said. “We really feel bad when it happens. We sure don’t want it to happen, but we’re not liable.”
[snip]Bundy said he was within his rights to make a claim against Beck for the loss of his livestock.
“The person whose car hit that cow is liable to me,” Bundy said.
That cow might be alive today if the feds hadn’t backed down. (Or it might be a pot roast.) Anyway, can this fucking mooooocher finally go to jail now?
Christ, I can only imagine the reception I’d get if I refused to pay taxes for 20 years and then demanded that the government shoo my chickens out of the street. I guess I need moar guns!
Belafon
You’ve missed Bundy’s point: If the state hadn’t put that damn road so close to his ranch, the car wouldn’t have gotten so close to his cow. Now, it would also be the state’s fault as to why it’s so hard to get his cows to market.
glocksman
IANAL, but why wouldn’t he be liable?
If my boxer got loose and caused a motorcyclist or bicyclist to crash, I’d be liable.
Do cattle ranchers have no liability for damages their livestock cause to others?
cmorenc
I hope the only reason the feds have held off taking on Bundy is to wait until enough of the volunteer posse comitatus protecting him has drifted off to make confronting him to make arrests and seizures without a gun-battle more feasible without creating another Waco or Ruby Ridge type incident. But at some not too-distantly protracted point, they need to take on assholes like Bundy and also the bunch of ATV vandals near Blanding, Utah who insisted on riding through a canyon filled with fragile Anasazi archaeological sites that was restricted against motorized access. Call out the National Guard if necessary, as Eisenhower did in Arkansas back in 1957 to enforce school integration, despite the resistance and opposition of local authorities, including then-governor (and arch-segregationist) Faubus.
Turgidson
This is sort of amazing.
His cows, which you’d think he’d value enough to keep track of but apparently no, wandering out onto a highway is the state’s problem. And his cows getting hit while wandering onto said highway means he can sue the driver of the car that hit the cows he can’t be bothered to keep out of the road. In short, no matter how much of a clueless tool I behave like, the resultant harm is someone else’s fault and shame on the government I don’t recognize as legitimate when they ask me to pay my share in taxes for not preventing it.
THIS is the guy the entire “party of personal responsibility” wanker brigade chose to hoist on their shoulders? I can’t even.
The Dangerman
@glocksman:
Are they White, belong to the NRA, and have a major media network supporting their cause?
Speaking of FOX, I see they are all in on the guys behind the book 13 Hours. Is there any reason to give a shit what these
mercenariescontractors say or is it Swiftboating level bullshit?Violet
@glocksman:
Because he’s white, male, stood up to the government and got other white guys to join him. Duh.
JGabriel
Ah, yes. Republicans: The Party of Responsibility.
c u n d gulag
There’s unmitigated gall.
And then, THERE’S UNMITIGATED GALL!!!
Josie
@cmorenc: I agree. It’s past time that he should be arrested, along with any who draw guns on government workers. Treating them so carefully just empowers them and others like them. I hope something is done very soon.
glocksman
@Violet:
Well, Nevada is out west and I wondered if an old state law dating from the days when ranchers were politically powerful had any releases from liability for such things .
Violet
@Josie: Am I mis-remembering or are you the one who was working on a move to another state to be closer to your kids? If so, I hope it’s going well.
boatboy_srq
Small-gubmint (or no-gubmint) libertarianism, as I have said repeatedly, is a lovely political philosophy – for a preindustrial economy. Y’see, if Beck hadn’t been in one of those newfangled horseless carriages going faster than any mounted human was ever supposed to travel, then she wouldn’t have hit that cow, now would she? and if Big Gubmint hadn’t spent all those billions building paved roads for horseless carriages to travel at unthinkable velocities, then the car wouldn’t have been there to hit the cow in the first place. Problem solved. It always amazes me that Randbots are so enamored of technology, when their entire philosophy is so obviously hindered by it.
Another Holocene Human
He doesn’t care if he loses in court because so far the court hasn’t imposed any sanctions that he’s felt obliged to respect.
Dunno why he hasn’t just been fucking arrested yet, that’s what happens when us peasants violate court orders.
Oh, and btw, Don Lemon? WTF! You need therapy.
bemused
Bundy takes the phrase “too big for his britches” to a ridiculous level.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@JGabriel:
Someone else’s responsibility, you mean.
srv
Sully is besides himself:
catclub
@glocksman: yep. Free-range laws. If you hit the cow, you are liable. No idea if they are still in force.
Mr. Longform
Cliven Bundy, ur-wingnut exemplar par excellence: I didn’t ask to have a road built next to the lands which are not mine which I use for free and which I will protect with guns whose usage is guaranteed to me by the founding document of the entity which I do not acknowledge has any authority over my actions and whose courts I will use to sue you for killing my cow which I am not responsible for keeping track of because no one asked you to use the road I did not authorize to be anywhere near my land which isn’t mine. In other words, I get whatever I want, and you pay me for it.
Violet
@Another Holocene Human: What did Don Lemon do?
@glocksman: There could be an old state law. Who knows. Doubt the law is written in such a way that the driver is at fault when they’re on a public road and someone’s cow wanders off private property and onto the public road. That would be completely unsupportable in modern life, not to mention its use as precedent for dogs leaving someone’s property, hurting someone else (biting maybe) and the injured party being liable.
Trollhattan
@glocksman: I guess we’d need to know what’s in a standard federal grazing contract (yeah, the contract he refuses to pay the buck-and-a-half per head per month on) and see who’s responsible for fencing and the like.
IIRC federal timber sales are sweet deals for the loggers because the gummint builds the logging roads, one reason most federal timber sales are a net loss to we taxpayers.
Winter in the high desert is damn cold and I expect the gummint to act on Bundy then, after the gun-fondlers have got the shivers and gone home. They’d bloody well better.
Howard Beale IV
Everyone should know what Cliven Bundy looks like-so in the event he should ever keel over in front of you having a heart attack you are under no obligation to render any kind of aid to him.
Self-sufficiency, y’know.
Josie
@Violet: You have a very good memory. I am getting ready to move to another city in Texas. Things are moving along very well. You and several others gave good advice that was very helpful. I have about three more weeks to go before the move and have packed about half of my house, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. My brother, bless him, has offered to fly down and help me with the move, so I am looking forward to that. Thanks for asking.
Eric U.
it’s quite possible that this crook is right in this case, particularly if there are livestock warning signs on this section of highway. OTOH, they should let him file his suit and arrest him when it goes to trial.
catclub
@JGabriel: Usually they put it as The Party of personal responsibility.
In contrast to communal responsibility – which means government actually working. They hold up their crosses and garlic when you say that. (Or shield themselves from the light, depending.)
Roger Moore
@glocksman:
If you read the article, he’s claiming it’s the state’s responsibility to maintain the fences that keep animals off the interstate. It obviously doesn’t matter to him- or at least he disputes the central point- that he didn’t have the right to graze his cattle there in the first place.
Violet
@srv:
Andrew Sullivan must forget how completely insane for war he was after the 9/11 attacks. And this is just precious:
Imagine the luxury of being able to do that.
And this is unbelievable:
Andrew Sullivan really doesn’t understand the first thing about human nature. As per usual, it’s all about him.
catclub
@Violet:
time for one of us to look up the laws, rather than just expound from our ignorance. I will note that Cattle are usually worth a lot more than dogs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_range
boatboy_srq
@srv:
If you look back at US history, the fear of being clobbered (without a pretext that’s readily understood by plantation owners) has driven a lot of US foreign policy. Pearl Harbor, the Lusitania, the Maine, Little Big Horn, Barbary pirate attacks on US shipping, impressment of US sailors by the British, taxation (without representation, which conditional requirement Teadists today conveniently forget) have all driven the US to (over)react.
Violet
@Josie: Glad it’s going well. Are you getting the flooding rains today where you are?
Betty Cracker
@Eric U.: How could he be if his cattle are grazing there illegally? Also, are there stretches of interstate highway where motorists are expected to watch for livestock? I’ve driven cross country more than once and have never seen such a thing. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist; it just seems odd on an interstate highway.
Violet
@catclub: I’m surprised no one has used it as precedent for their dogs.
MattF
It does look like Bundy is oozing back into the news. It’s time for some enterprising journalist to start asking him some embarrassing questions, just for fun.
Josie
@catclub: I don’t know about other states, but in Texas there is some rural land that is labeled free range. We found this out when some goats we owned broke out of their fence and stripped someone’s citrus trees. The county sheriff said we were not liable since that section of land was free range and the owners of the trees had no recourse. According to the law they would have had the responsibility to fence their trees. Weird, huh?
Violet
@catclub: And I’m certainly happy to admit my ignorance. Here’s an interesting article on Open Range Laws. http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2013/09/13/open-range-laws-legal-and-illegal-abuse-by-livestock-interests/. It does sound like it’s far more dangerous for motorists in those areas than I’d known. In fact, most drivers from out of the area probably have no idea–like tourists driving through grazing land while on a National Park tour or something.
Edit: From the above article, just for Betty Cracker:
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: Two words: bench. warrant.
IANAL but come on!!
Josie
@Violet: It’s not raining today, but last week the heavens opened up and dumped rains on us for several days and nights. My two outside cats never want to come in, but for those few days, they lived in the garage and fussed at me for not turning off the water. We had not gotten rain all summer, but that sort of made up for it.
Roger Moore
@Turgidson:
That’s not how it works out there. There isn’t enough vegetation to raise cattle in a dense herd, so they turn them loose in a very large area where the cattle are free to wander around. They round the cattle up occasionally to move them to another area to avoid overgrazing- though it sounds as if Bundy was overgrazing anyway- but other than that keep fairly loose track of them. Most of their time and effort is spent maintaining their fences, hauling out water, etc. rather than closely looking after the cattle.
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: Don Lemon slapped a cohost on camera to prove that hitting isn’t violent. Take it away, Wonkette:
http://wonkette.com/560689/cnns-don-lemon-we-should-beat-our-kids-because-it-worked-for-slave-masters
Dog On Porch
Hunter Thompson knew he was going to die one night on a Nevada Highway when he came blasting around a curve at 90 mph and saw the road full of boulders. Luckily for him the boulders turned out to be a flock of squishy sheep.
Punchy
He’s completely FOS, right? He cant possibly have legal standing if his cattle are off his property, or what technically is now the fed’s property, right?
Tenar Darell
@Violet: The man was in the desert Burning Men with Grover. And P-Town. Which was nice, because he had subs who were mostly less hyperbolic than him. (Andrew has long been very British in his America love by taking month long holidays).
‘Course he semi-acknowledges he may be bending over backwards now because of how wrong he was before, then says something else…. I read him to raise my blood pressure and get my conservative snippets without having to follow them.
Eric U.
@Betty Cracker: that’s an interesting point, but I think the laws that make it ok to corral your cattle on the freeway don’t really care if they are mooching or not. But as noted up-thread, the laws have been changing regarding highways.
OTOH, I have to say that there is a responsibility to drive in such a way that you don’t hit things that aren’t moving. Crazy, I know.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: I doubt that Nevada has a New York style liable-even-if-not-negligent statute. Hard to see how he can blame the state for his own illegal actions. They’ve been ruled illegal in court (repeatedly). Judges are touchy about shit like that.
What if East Coast crooks started surrounding themselves with cop-killing sovereign citizen nutjobs with high caliber semi-autos instead of going down quietly and spending what’s left of their ill-gotten gains on lawyers–?? It boggles the mind that the McDonnells and Dinesh D’Souza are looking at hard time in the slammer and Bundy is still out there defying the court and law enforcement. Seriously?
Violet
@Another Holocene Human: Wow. No words. Just…wow. I wonder if that woman he hit on air has a case for a lawsuit. Seems there should be some protection from being hit in the workplace.
Trollhattan
@Dog On Porch: Have had to come to a halt on Highway 395 (eastern CA, western NV) while a sheep herd crossed–doggies, shepherds, the whole shebang. Luckily it was on a long, straight section and they were pretty quick about it–hundreds of the buggers.
Back there in August I did spot some Bundy supporter signage, complete with snake flags and the usual paraphernalia. Yay them.
Another Holocene Human
@Josie: Those citrus trees were out there, naked, displaying all their goods–asking for it.
Josie
@Another Holocene Human: I lol’ed. Really.
jl
@Another Holocene Human: Jeez. You serious? I guess you are, you gave a link to a news organization more reliable than most corporate media. Will check link after work after I can prepare myself for such shameful idiocy
After forced exposed to mass quantities of CNN a few months ago, I figure their anchors are both hacks and fools who do whatever their (hack and fool) producers tell them to do.
Patrick
@Josie:
Not only is it just infuriating that he hasn’t been arrested months ago. It also speaks volumes how our governments, whether it is state or federal, treats old white folks different than young African-Americans.
In Ferguson there was a fricking curfew in place. And for Bundy, there was no curfew and pretty much an apology. Yes, I realize one was a state government and one was the federal government. But it is still happening in the same country.
And then they go on FoxNews and whine about how they are persecuted by the government, which is then repeated by the MSM. Please excuse me while I go and throw up…
kc
@cmorenc:
I don’t think it’s gonna happen. If I were to bet, my money would be on the government doing nothing and these angry white guys continuing to flout the law.
Be happy to be proven wrong.
Betty Cracker
@Eric U.: True enough, you’re supposed to drive in such a way as to be able to not hit objects / creatures in the roadway, and interstate highways often have wildlife crossing signs. I’ve just never seen a livestock warning sign on an interstate highway. Maybe it’s different in the desert, which I’ve driven through a time or two.
Patrick
@kc:
Well, you are absolutely right so far. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Frankensteinbeck
@catclub:
Just examine ‘Party of personal responsibility’ through the Racism Lens. ‘Blacks are lazy, therefor they deserve any bad thing that happens to them and should not be helped.’ I put to you that this is completely consistent with actual Republican actions and political positions. In general I’m finding that once you find the dog whistle Republican behavior becomes consistent.
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: Yeah, in my workplace we call that assault.
Chalk up one more on the ledger of “spanking destroys a child’s development of boundaries”.
I’m just going to put it out right here that despite the very bad education I received at home, I was lucky enough to be allowed to go to public school for 13 years (this was before the home schooling movement took off … I could have been dead if that shit was legal/acceptable then) and at public high school they spent some time telling us that hitting was never acceptable in intimate relationships. I had spent most of my formative years beating and being beaten by my siblings (guess who taught us that? encouraged it?) and the first time I got angry at an intimate partner it’s like this lightbulb went off: NO. And realizing if that had been my sister, a beatdown would have commenced. And then I thought–it wasn’t okay when we were attacking each other either.
School taught me that. NOT my parents.
This is why I don’t get the people concern trolling about boo hoo hoo Adrian Peterson didn’t know better. Peterson is still surrounded by people telling him he did nothing wrong. Until he gets the message from everyone and not just “tripping” mothers of his children, that beating children is wrong he will not check his behavior. The fear of social disapprobation does inhibit anti-social behavior. Fact.
boatboy_srq
@Punchy: But the cattle are his property; hence anywhere the cattle are grazing, running or just standing in traffic is his property as well.
/snark
CONGRATULATIONS!
Good rundown here on Open Range laws by The Wildlife News.
In short, if Nevada’s laws are like Idaho’s, Shitbrains Bundy is absolutely right.
I am really starting to hate this country. What kind of fucked up legislative body could have thought for one second that granting a license for other people to use your private property, and putting the burden on you to fence it off it you don’t like it, could be OK?
ETA: oh yeah, and if you hit one of these precious cows after it has wondered onto the highway, it’s all your fault AND you’re on the hook for one cow to the rancher. Even if the rancher has been totally negligent.
FUCK THAT
Even Texas is saner about this. How sad.
jl
A little bit on Nevada open range lows from a trucking blog. The search ‘Nevada open range laws’ gets quite a few hits, but this one was short, seemed like would be accurate due to it being for truckers who have to understand hazards and liability, and easy to understand, being written for IANAL types like me.
I wonder if Bundy’s long term blatant and knowing violation of his contracts makes any difference. The cows are not supposed to be there would make a difference? Were they grazing on the land where he has been stiffing the government, or in violation of court orders? Seems like that should make a difference. Maybe in that case the driver could sue him.
I don’t see how the government has any liability or responsibility by simply putting a public road through public land. They have the right, and I don’t see why they have any duty to eliminate all, or even go to a lot of trouble to minimize risks to cattle grazing on public land. But, IANAL.
NEVADA IS AN OPEN RANGE STATE
http://nevadatruckinglaw.com/neavda-is-an-open-range-state
Another Holocene Human
Btw, I did have a beef with my sister–she tried to suffocate me when we were children. You know what they say: some day we’ll look back on this and titter awkwardly.
Another Holocene Human
@Patrick: Let’s not forget America’s indigenous peoples. Some Native American sisters (I think) tried the Bundy stunt some years back and from what I recall the authorities more or less called in the SWAT on them. So why does Bundy get the kid gloves for the same damn thing? I thought federal was supposed to come in and lay the smack down when corrupt/enmeshed local authorities fail.
jl
California has open range counties. But not whole state. But I know from the CA drivers manual, that livestock on roadway has right of way and drivers have duty to exercise caution no matter what county. IIRC, IF the livestock movement or being there is part of normal business operation.
But Bundy’s scam is not a normal, or evern legal, business operation, is it? Seems like that should make a difference, Waiting for BJ legal team to show up and heckle us for being stupids and dumbheads who display infelicitous reasonings (or maybe help out?).
California Open Range Law
By Kim Dieter, eHow Contributor
http://www.ehow.com/facts_7276629_california-open-range-law.html
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Idaho is a hotbed of white supremacist groups. White nationalism–white moocherism.
Wonder how those ATV bandits would feel if somebody ran a backhoe through their family grave plot?
JR in WV
Back when I was enrolled and working hard at Marshall U in the early 1980s, I was driving home one late one fall evening in the rain. I was driving a VW Rabbit diesel, which did not accelerate much, so I took curves as fast as I could. It was damp from rain earlier.
Lots of black Angus cattle raised around here. They had gotten out of their fence, no open range laws in West Virginia, so not my problem, except that they were invisible in the late night darkness. Fortunately, one of the steers raised up his hear to look at me, and I saw his eyes glow or flash, and jammed on the brakes. By the time I was among the cattle, I was going slowly enough to drive around them.
They were really big, probably between 1500 and 2000 pounds. If I had hit one, it would have been real bad for me in my little VW. Just a white-tailed deer at 180 pounds can be fatal, these Angus steers would have crushed me and my little car.
But I made it home OK, although a little more tense than usual. A glass of brown helped settle my jangled nerves.
Out west there are many places where cattle roam open range, and you are responsible for not hitting them, even if they are standing in the middle of the road.
Mike J
@jl: I’d think about going after the feds (who also happen to have deep pockets). 1) The cattle were not supposed to be there. 2) The government knew the cattle were there illegally and did nothing about it.
Another Holocene Human
The linked article states that there IS no responsibility to fence highway that is posted open range. Cliven Bundy is a liar, and this woman suing no doubt has a Nevada lawyer who was willing to take the case so it’s definitely going to come down to a bunch of details and state law.
Schlemazel
@glocksman:
Depends, how many armed white men can your boxer bring to the stand off?
Roger Moore
@jl:
It probably would. They quote one section of the law that defines open range as being an area where animals are “by custom, license, lease or permit ” allowed to roam freely. Since the government has specifically prohibited him from grazing his cattle there, that seems like it would counter his claims that the land is open range. They also say that in open range there are no fences next to the highways. If since even Bundy admits that there were fences next to the highway where this happened- he’s blaming the government for not maintaining them- it must not be open range there.
cckids
@glocksman:
Here in NV, on lots of the 2-lane highways, there are “Open Range” signs posted, meaning, that yes, there may be cows & you should watch out. Not the case on the freaking Interstate. Bundy is apparently claiming that there was some sort of break in the fence; totes not his problem, and therefore the feds/state are to blame.
Because, as Betty says, FREEDUM.
elmo
@Eric U.:
My experience in that part of Nevada is that there are livestock signs and cattle grates (intended to keep cows from using the highway as, well, a highway) EVERYWHERE.
Another Holocene Human
@Mike J: It is not true that the gov’t did nothing about it. They pursued the matter and attempted to enforce it. Bundy was in open defiance of a court order so that circles back to the Moocher King, doesn’t it?
Trollhattan
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Zounds, them there ranchers really run the joint.
cckids
@Eric U.:
There are not. It is a very, very busy stretch of interstate. Lots of semis. Not open range area.
Violet
@Another Holocene Human: In some ways I feel sympathy for Adrian Peterson. If being hit as a child for discipline is what he learned at home, his community did the same thing and his peers were also being hit by their parents, then how was he supposed to learn that it was wrong? Maybe his school didn’t teach him like yours did. Was he just supposed to pick it up by osmosis? Most parents use what they learned from their parents when raising their own kids. They’ll even ask their parents for advice. Peterson’s mother has gone on record saying this is how she disciplined him and it’s just fine. Where was he going to learn different?
Sure, it’s easy to say he should have read a book or got advice elsewhere or whatever. But if you don’t begin to think you’re doing something wrong, why would you go look for information on doing it differently? I think he didn’t know. And yes, even with the welts and broken skin and terrified kid. He thought that was normal.
I hope whatever punishment he gets includes some substantial parenting classes. The only way for the cycle of violence to be broken is for people to learn. He can be punished but it won’t change unless he learns.
elmo
@Trollhattan:
Just north of Bridgeport, between Bridgeport and Devil’s Gate Summit?
The Bobs
Long time Nevada resident here. Nevada has lots of open range roads, but they are all signed as such. If you see that open range sign at night, you had better be very careful. It’s your fault if you hit a cow.
That said, I-15 is definitely not open range. Bundy may well be right there it is the highway department’s responsibility to maintain the fences. Not sure who is liable in this case.
If you’re driving a semi at night on an open range road and you see a cow in the road, it is physically impossible to stop in time. It’s still the fault of the driver.
cckids
Betty @ top:
>
Put out the call, we’ll show up, you’ll have your own Juicer posse. We may be armed with Nerf guns, fencing sabers & baseball bats, but we’ll defend the freedom of your chickens.
Trollhattan
@elmo: A’yep, that’d be the place. I’m sure they’re nice.
srv
@Another Holocene Human: That guy has a big future for himself in Republican Politics.
elmo
@Trollhattan: Know the area very, very well. Those are all Basque sheepherders in that area, and believe it or not, there is a thriving Basque cultural scene, including some yummy family-style restaurants, in the Carson Valley, Minden-Gardnerville area.
Patrick
@Another Holocene Human:
I’m just shaking my head at the whole thing. If Bundy can get away with his illegal activities, then what’s to stop other groups from adopting his tactics?
And hell, why should the other ranchers in NV pay their grazing fees when they have allowed Bundy to not pay his fees for over a decade now???
rikyrah
Post Politics ✔ @postpolitics
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Shakezula
It has been too many years since law school, but I have a nagging feeling that Bundy is full of shit, especially in regards to the potential liability of the people who were injured.
But hey, maybe he can get his fanbois to form an honor guard for his steers.
RSR
Interstate Cow Crash is my next band name.
cckids
@Violet:
I have less sympathy, because I was spanked (not whipped) regularly as a child & I remember clearly how angry it made me & that it just didn’t teach me anything. I guess it depends on being able to call up your own emotions as a child & think about what is working & not working.
Though the kid/kids don’t seem to live with him, so that may figure into it as well.
I made a comment here last week about the best parenting advice I ever got was to learn the difference between discipline and punishment; that to discipline someone is to show/teach them to act better, to punish someone is to make them suffer. You have to know what result you want; do you want to get the child to change their behavior, or do you want to make them pay?
Schlemazel
@elmo:
There was a movie, probably late ’60’s about a bunch of immigrant (I think Basque) sheepherders who fight off a band of . . . some baddies I forget who . . . in the mountains. Because of their experience they handled the larger baddies because they could hop around the rugged terrain and whistle/yodle/call to each other. Made the larger force believe they were surrounded & outnumbered.
ANyone remember that movie?
Iowa Old Lady
OT, but have we heard from the Kansas Supreme Court yet re whether the Democrat has to stay on the ballot? I thought they had to start printing ballots today.
Trollhattan
@elmo: When I’m next up there I’ll check for one–really loved the Basque food when I lived in the Stockton-Modesto area.
Betty Cracker
@Violet: I can understand people believing that “spanking” is okay, even though I don’t think it is (and managed to figure that out all by myself despite the fact that my father believed spanking was a necessary part of parenting). But beating a kid bloody? Nope.
AP knew raising bloody welts on the kid was wrong; he even said “I felt bad” in his texts to the kid’s mother and warned that she was going to be angry with him when she saw the damage done to the kid. He should be in fucking jail.
It's Not The Fall, It's The Landing
Though I’d be perfectly fine with seeing Bundy and all of his supporters dealt with by any means necessary, I sort-of get why the Feds haven’t raided his ranch. Potential wingnut bitching about another Ruby Ridge isn’t really a good excuse, as they will cry bloody murder no matter what the government does, but it is an excuse of a sort.
But what I _don’t_ get is, why haven’t they just frozen or seized his bank accounts? Combine that with a physical blockade of the ranch – no people or supplies allowed in, everyone coming out gets arrested and goes directly to jail – and it seems like this could be resolved without the need to kill ’em all (as much fun as that would be to watch).
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: I think Pearl harbor was a legitimate reason to go to war. Not to detain our citizens of Japanese ancestry, but certainly enough to go to war over.
jl
@The Bobs: Thanks for info. Maybe will come down to complicated legal mumbo jumbo and case law about government responsibility for maintaining fences in non range land area, and whether some con man scofflaw has right to be compensated for damages to his illegal and regulatory law non-compliant operation.
glocksman
@cckids:
Fixed
Violet
@cckids: Yeah, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Peterson–it’s his kids who have my real sympathy. But I do have some. It sounds like it’s how he was raised and like I said, his mother has come out saying he did nothing wrong and that’s just what she did to him.
You responded to being hit and spanked by being angry and thinking about it. Other kids might just think their anger was wrong and that’s just how it’s supposed to be. I can easily see how the cycle perpetuates itself.
An interesting discussion is happening around the beating and hitting of children for punishment in black culture and its ties to slavery. This editorial by Michael Eric Dyson today is one example. Excerpt:
jl
This thread should cause BC some concern about her chickens. She get out there and check on them varmints yet?
cckids
@glocksman: Well, I am equipped with both, so ready either way.
glocksman
@The Bobs:
We don’t have an open range law in Indiana, but we do have plenty of highways with deer crossing signs, and believe me, you’d better watch out in those areas at night.
I’ve hit a deer twice with no real damage to the car and the deer ran off.
I’ve also been hit by a deer (ran right into the side of the car) on a road that wasn’t posted and it did $3500 in damage to the car.
evodevo
I don’t know about Nevada (those western free range states are a mystery to me), but here in Ky if your livestock stray out onto the road, YOU are liable for vehicle damage, etc. if someone runs into one. Been there, done that with my horses.
cckids
@Violet: I read that, it is interesting. I’m flummoxed by the amount of support AP has gotten, from all kinds. I understand the spanking mentality, even if I don’t agree with it on any level – from the emotional to the practical (it is like torture, just doesn’t work, ethics aside).
But, as you say, the switch, the cuts, the blood – seriously, so many people defending this? WTF.
And the other football player saying he uses spanking on his 1-year old? Yikes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Turgidson:
Parasite filth naturally tend to defend other parasite filth.
Patrick
@It’s Not The Fall, It’s The Landing:
Great question.
And where’s the useless media on this? If there were African-Americans pulling this crap, the media and FoxNews would be all over the Feds.
Villago Delenda Est
@glocksman: My replica lightsabers (one an Anakin Skywalker model, blue blade, the other a Mace Windu model, violet blade) are at Betty’s command. If she cares to fly me across the continent, of course.
elmo
@Violet:
These stories make me think of one particular incident from my own childhood. My Mom and I used to have these long drawn-out conversations about history, nerd that I was, and sometimes our discussion would hinge on a knowable historical fact. We had a whole set of encyclopedias that we used to settle such discussions.
So one day we were in the middle of one of these, and a friend of mine called. I answered, and told my friend that my Mom and I were “having an argument, and she just went to go get the encyclopedia.”
My friend was horrified. “My mom just uses a wooden spoon!”
Schlemazel
@Violet:
There are a couple of decent documentaries on blues musicians I have watched (sorry I don’t recall the ames at the moment). Each of them had bit with the performers telling tales of beatings they received from dear old dad. At first it is horrific but after the first few it started to seem to me that they were simply trying to outdo each other. A couple of the stories were ridiculous and it sort of broke the horror so that even if some of them had been true it was just bragging.
Violet
@cckids: I’m not familiar with the “other football player” who spanked his 1-year-old. Sheesh.
The discussion among African-Americans I’ve seen on TV, Twitter, blogs, etc. about corporal punishment, using a switch, “whoopings”, etc. has been really interesting. Plenty of defense of those kinds of things. And then others saying it’s wrong. Arguments happening on the TV set, etc. It’s a very live topic at the moment.
I hadn’t really thought about it one way or the other–hitting a child is abuse to me–but the relationship to and long lineage going back to beatings by slave owners and the concept that it’s better for parents to beat their kids to protect them than to have them get killed–initially by slave owners and more recently by white cops–is grimly fascinating.
Our horrible history of racism has so many painful and dangerous facets and even today young kids are still literally bearing the scars.
scav
@Violet: His mother can attest to that being the way he was brought up, there is no way she is the final arbitrator as to whether it is or was wrong or correct parenting. Moreover, from what I’ve heard from my mother, part and parcel of that general style was a default parental backup of what the on-spot authority had to say on the exact matter at hand. “Teacher punished you how? We’ll then, what did you do wrong?” (Grandma had a strong family against all comers stand, but it took a bit to get it started in these circs, whereas clumsy and thoughtless wedding invites? Decades. strife.) Granted, there’s solid reason for this particular rule to be less instilled in Southern / AA culture than suburban Chicago culture.
Paul in KY
@Violet: I think you can spank a small child without leaving cuts/marks like Mr. Peterson evidently did. He has to understand he’s hitting a small child & pull his strike force a whole hella lot (if he’s going to spank, and I think he should never spank anyone ever again).
Violet
@Schlemazel: Sounds like the Four Yorkshiremen.
Roger Moore
@glocksman:
Sure, but there are two important points:
1) Deer don’t have owners you can sue to cover your medical costs, while cattle do
2) Monetary damages can only make you financially whole, not physically whole, so avoiding an accident is preferable no matter what.
Violet
@scav: Agree his mother isn’t the arbiter of whether it’s right or wrong. I just think if everyone around you is doing and saying it’s right, including people you trust and people seen as authority figures, like your own parents and grandparents, it’s harder to see that it’s wrong.
Like I said, the discussion around it has been interesting to watch. I’m firmly on the no-hitting side, but there are plenty who are on the other side.
Schlemazel
@Violet:
It was Reggie Bush, he said he “harshly punished” his 1 year old. I refuse to know more about that in any way shape or form. Of course I tried very hard to avoid the details on th Peterson and Rice deals and that turned out to be impossible.
What the F could a 1 year old ever do to deserve punishment? Goddammit! I want a law requiring licenses before dumb fuckers can have children. Everyone line up – take parenting training, pass a written and a practical test, undergo a psychological examination and IF you get cleared than you get a permit for exactly 1/2 a kid. You have to have a partner with a 1/2 chit; then and only then would you be allowed to have one child. If you wanted a second you would have to undergo the process again. I have no idea if I would have passed but I would have given it up to keep some of the morons I see populating the world from ever reproducing.
Scamp Dog
@glocksman: Hey, I’m absolutely bringing a fencing sabre! And an epee and a couple of foils, just in case.
Another Holocene Human
@cckids: And if you’re one of those asshats defending “parents” why is it that Adrien Peterson admits and knows full well that the mothers of these children do not want them bruised, cut, and beaten, but that little fact doesn’t matter?!
I think it’s wrong anyway, but taste the male supremacy/patriarchy/headship/bullshit.
Trollhattan
@Schlemazel: Am now convinced we’re going to see a flood of these stories roll out–these aren’t isolated incidents.
As clearly as I can state it, parents have an obligation to not repeat the mistakes of their own parents. “That’s how I was raised” is no excuse, it is precisely the opposite. “Yeah, those beatings made me a better kid, better adult.” Right.
Hitting a child, especially hitting your own child, is barbaric and not to be done..
scav
@Violet: There’s certainly an overall discussion to be had, and there will likely still be different styles afterwards. In this exact instance, however, I think AP knew he crossed some line both times, or does one normally whip out one’s cell phone and text the other parent about how much it hurt you to impose a little totally run-of-the-mill, totally unproblematic traditional parenting moves? That line about going to time out and saving the whooping for important messages is also a bit of a give-away. So much for the psychologist inspired sudden revelations of alternative techniques.
Violet
@scav: Adrian Peterson might think he was “right” in hitting his child so hard and at the same time worry that the child’s mother would think it was wrong. So the “I felt bad” was perhaps pre-emptive to stop her from yelling at him or calling in CPS or whatever. It doesn’t convince me that he knew it was wrong. I can’t pretend to really know what he was thinking. Perhaps he knew he was wrong all along and revels in abusing his kids. I hope not, but that could also be true.
To be clear I think he was wrong. I’m in the no-hitting camp. I think it’s awful and hope it sparks a national discussion about parenting and hitting children and that more parents realize it’s wrong and harmful.
scav
@Scamp Dog: Yes, but who’s in charge of the snacks, we’re going to need snacks and kibble, the mixtape will likely take care of itself and by now you’ll have remembered the real gaping hole. For the other, I’ve got a sonic and a lot of marbles. No caltrops, just marbles and a few legos. Cast Iron Frying Pan?
Mike in NC
@The Dangerman:
Spotted that book today in a big stack at Costco. Not doubt Lindsey Graham got an autographed copy. Has anybody taken a count of the number of books written to date on BENGHAZI!? I might go to Amazon and search on it just for laughs.
scav
@Violet: Even in your charitable explanation, his pretense of not knowing at the time there were alternatives, let alone alternatives preferred by the other parents involved is blown into the air. (he’s worried she’d call up CPS for something he is 100% is right and uncontroversial?) His post-event non-apology, justification, announcement of revelation of alternative techniques is just so much vaporings and boilerplate cobbled together. I suspect him mostly of being a lazy parent, if probably generally well-meaning, but I don’t quite see him making the effort to establishing a consistent, coherent parenting style with the kids mothers (which is needed) but going for, well, whatever he felt like at the moment (see again problem of consistency). He may not have known how out of step he was with the cultures now up in arms but then hey! I wasn’t quite aware of the sheer decibel level the mo wimminz- and chillinz-whuppin’ cultures could gin up (knew of their existence of course).
bruceJ
@glocksman: Welcome to the ‘Open Range’, where the Freedom Ranchers can let their Freedom Cows wander wherever the hell they want, and Us Moochers have to pay for it.
Seriously. This is what the Lincoln County wars were about…sheep herders were putting up fences and the cattlemen were cutting them because Freedumb and the glorious Libertee Freedumb Philosophy: “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, too!”.
There isn’t a bigger bunch a welfare moochers on the gorram planet than frikkin cattle ranchers in the West. They were always like this.
Suffern ACE
@Another Holocene Human: women are assumed to be weak when it comes to discipline. That’s why it is necessary for men to do it. Also when women do it, boys turn out gay. I seem to remember attending a church seminar on just that point.
Violet
@scav: No argument from me that he’s not really a good parent, even if we set aside the whooping part. He’s apparently got two kids with different women, so he’s got his hands full in establishing consistent parenting styles because he’s got to do it at a distance and with at least two women.
In my initial comment I said I hope that whatever his punishment for this incident that he’s required to take substantial parenting classes. He needs to change his behavior and learning how to do that is paramount. Maybe he could figure it out on his own but being taught how to be a good parent could help.
scav
@Violet: Oh, we’re certainly not arguing, just bouncing the general conversation along. I’ve just had a front row semi-participant seat at an on-going (years) battleground of parenting styles (more than two participants, generations and actually countries involved) so it interests me. Luckily, as crazy cousin on constant call for emergency child-care, I only had to generally replicate the style — really tricky bit was determining what the on-the-ground style was. But I wasn’t intermittent enough to ignore the maelstrom.
Schlemazel
@Trollhattan:
I do understand that there appears to be an epidemic of feral children these days. I was in the local grocery a few weeks back & two children were scooping stuff out of the bulk bins & jamming it into their mouths. I told them to knock it off & ended up in a confrontation with mom who felt I had to right to demand her children keep their hands out of the bins or to steal food from the store. That sort of thing makes me want to beat people with a switch!
But the correct response is not agree beatings are OK.
Schlemazel
I was reading a book on the daily life of slave owners a few years back. It was both fascinating and sickening. There was an extended argument between owners as to the proper way to punish slaves. Some felt you had to whip them because these poor dumb animals couldn’t understand anything less. Others were strongly in favor of paddles or rods to the buttocks as it left the property in condition to get back to the fields. The banality of evil was a phrase that repeated in my head over & over as I read the debate. I see a lot of that in the AP debate also.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemazel:
It’s weird how many people seem to think they have to choose between hitting their kids and no discipline at all. Really, people, there are more than two ways, I promise.
cckids
@scav:
I can do cookies & brownies. Also have 4 sizes of cast iron skillets, from 5-14 inches, so we can be armed/fed, depending on your arm strength.
Trollhattan
@Schlemazel:
As nutty as it sounds, Spiro Agnew (among others) blamed the Vietnam anti-war movement on the “permissiveness” of the “Spock generation.” Benjamin Spock that is, whose book was first published in 1946. So Republicans have been on the wring side of this shit for at least half a century, and now they have to decide whether to openly defend sportsball stars who might lack whiteness for beating on their kids. It must be quite a dilemma.
Bobby Thomson
I’m guessing the day after the election Bundy gets a perp walk. If not, people need to start writing Holder, Obama, and their Senators and Reps every damn day until he does. This shit breeds disrespect for the law.
cckids
@Mnemosyne:
True. They also don’t think it through – if you’re using a switch when the kid is 4, what will you use when he is 10? A bullwhip? When he’s 15? A 2×4? How much do you escalate this?
And, again, smacking/hitting/switching a child is NOT discipline. Its punishment. The only way it will change behavior is to make the kid afraid of the parent & determined not to get caught again. They will not learn a better way to act.
Trollhattan
@cckids:
Not to mention, what if the kid isn’t patient enough to wait until he’s taller than Dear Old Dad and instead gets the combo to the gun safe? “Gotcher ‘switch’ right here, dad.”
Another Holocene Human
@bruceJ: and their precious alfalfa for their precious steerzes exacerbated the horrific drought in Cali. #winning
cattle are all well and good in their appropriate landscape
Another Holocene Human
@Trollhattan: Wow, Dr Spock, now that is a blast from the past. A well-worn copy of his book on childhood ailments held pride of place on the kitchen shelf when I was a child.
TBF (ETA: not really), Dr Spock was an anti-war protestor. Leonard Nimoy recounts that he met him in the 70s and the good doctor’s greeting to him was “Been arrested yet?”
Another Holocene Human
@Trollhattan: But that’s the magic of younger children, they’re programmed to love parents because they could die without parents providing stuff like food and shelter, so you can be a sadistic asshole and these little dependents will still try to find a way to love and trust you. It’s the teenager years when things get dangerous.
I keep flashing back to Mein Kampf. No–really. Adolf Hitler, one of history’s most famous sociopathic killers, the architect of a massive genocide, writes that the formative experience of his life was deciding when he was about 12 or 13 that he wasn’t going to give his father the satisfaction of crying during on of his nightly beatings. Pretty sure that is where the title “my struggle” comes from. This is his struggle and his victory. He breaks his father by taking the worst beating of his life without shedding a tear.
Coincidence? The prisons overflowing with the anti-social products of abusive parents say otherwise.
Donny Rollins (sp?) was relentlessly verbally abused by his mother growing up. He stalked and murdered several girls before he was caught, but I believe he killed his mother first?
There’s a pattern here, is what I’m saying.
Matt
@cmorenc:
Better strategy: send in the Marshals with plenty of goddamn tanks. Make it crystal clear to the teahadis that they can either put down their weapons and peaceably disperse while Cliven goes to jail, or they can all fucking die right now. It’s not like the lunatic right could actually hate federal law enforcement *more* than they currently do…
We live in a country where a police officer can claim he was “defending himself” after shooting an unarmed black teenager in the back. I see no reason that the heavily-armed Moron Militia pointing military-grade weapons at federal employees (and threatening them on the roads, etc) justifies the use of deadly force any less.
Jebediah, RBG
@Matt:
Agree completely.
Arclite
Why is this fucking guy not in jail again?