Grifters Gonna Grift

Matt Taibbi, on “The Dumb and the Restless”:

…The Bundy militiamen are like a Black September version of an Iron John forest retreat: a bunch of weepy middle-aged guys who dressed up in crisply pressed outdoorswear and took over a bird sanctuary so they could play outlaw for a few days while they “worked on themselves.”.

They gathered around a bonfire (there really was a bonfire) and presumably engaged in Robert Bly-style mythopoetic healing, getting back to their manly roots by stroking their rifles, wearing camo undies, and complaining about all the wrongs done to them by women/the federal government/wild birds/whoever…

There’s no doubt that these people are dangerous, but their ridiculousness is a huge part of who they are. Incidentally, this is true of groups like the actual al-Qaeda, too, led as they are by men in beards and Rick-Perry-style “smart glasses” who play at being religious scholars and intellectuals when in fact they are the kind of people who are afraid of cartoons and lie awake at night wondering if it’s permissible to play chess with a menstruating woman. Just because a person is dangerous does not mean he’s not also absurd.

The Bundy militiamen are an extreme example of a type that’s become common in America. Like the Tea Partiers, they seem to not only believe that they’re the only people in history who’ve ever paid taxes, but that they’re the only people who were ever sad about it. What they call tyranny on the part of the federal government just means putting up with the same irritating bills and regulations and other crap that we all put up with, only the rest of us don’t whine about it in the front seats of our cars while posing in front of tripods.

Again, these people may be dangerous, but their boundless self-pity, their outrageous sense of entitlement and their slapstick incompetence as rebels and terrorists are absolutely ridiculous. Sure, it may not help, but how can we not laugh?

Turns out a dozen pocket constitution wavers in a bird sanctuary are NOT endlessly fascinating.

— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) January 7, 2016

But there are casualties, of a sort. According to the Oregonian, yesterday:

BURNS — Violence broke out at the Bundy compound Wednesday night between its militant occupants and members of an outside group whose leader says he wants to get women and children out of the compound.

Lewis Arthur, who leads a group called Veterans on Patrol and calls himself an anti-violence patriot, arrived Wednesday afternoon with a small crew.

By Wednesday night, one of Arthur’s three-person crew was in the hospital, his eye blackened from a punch to the face…

Arthur and his group erected a military-style camo tent across the street from the compound, symbolizing sympathy with the militants’ complaints against the federal government and dissent to the group’s standoff.

Payne made it clear he had no plans to leave. At that point, Arthur said, his goal became removing women and children from the compound. It’s not clear who is actually staying in the occupied refuge headquarters — media estimates put the number at about 20 protesters, but all who have appeared publicly have been adults.

Arther and his group entered the compound Wednesday night, hoping to convince a female acquaintance to abandon the standoff.

That’s when the trouble started…

By Thursday morning, the counter-protesters were back at their post across the street. Animosity from last night’s fight remained intense. Conservative radio host Pete Santilli, arguing the outside group “escalated” things, traded harsh words with Arthur…

Whoa, their very own shock jock “embed”, come all the way from Cincinnati! As the old proverb goes: Manure draws flies.

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