More thoughts on the Oregon stand-off

I have ambivalent feelings about the Oregon stand-off.

I think, for example, that there are reasonable grounds for believing that federal officials have behaved far too heavy-handedly in the matter of the Hammond family and, more generally, toward the ranchers in the area.

And I’m not unhappy that this issue is being raised on a national level.

I think, though, that the brandishing of weapons in this protest has muddied the waters.

However, I can well understand the frustration of many citizens in dealing with overweening federal bureaucrats and impersonal government agencies.  And I can understand why rural Americans and Westerners, in particular, might feel that they’re essentially being governed by intrusive and arrogant “foreigners.”  (Consider, for example, the 2012 county-by-county presidential election map immediately below, in which blue represents Obama majorities and red represents Romney majorities, and compare it with the federal lands map above.)

And I worry lest Americans become too supine, too submissive to a government that is now far more expensive and far more invasive than that of King George III.

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison on 30 January 1787, “and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. . . .  An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much.  It is a medecine necessary for the sound health of government.”

Finally, how do I feel about the Church being dragged into this matter and into the news stories about it?  Well, I’m not particularly pleased.  But I don’t know that I’m altogether upset, either.  We Mormons have the reputation of being a boring and conformist group, “white bread,” uninteresting.  But Mormonism is both theologically and socially radical, and I don’t mind the occasional reminder of that fact — for outsiders and for ourselves.  We’re not just another denomination, with an extra book.

Would I have joined in this action?  No.  Probably not.  And certainly not with weapons.  Am I completely without sympathy for it?  No, I’m not.

Here are some articles, in addition to those that I’ve already cited, that I’ve found helpful on this episode:

“Oregon Standoff Reveals There Is No Adult Supervision of Federal Agencies in the West”

On the federal prosecutor behind the Hammond case that’s behind the Bundy stand-off

“The Bundys’ Occupation of an Oregon Wildlife Refuge is Distasteful”

“The Oregon Occupation is Not Terrorism”