Well, it is winter and seasonal affective disorder has hit a bunch of our right wing whack jobs pretty badly.  They are, however, fighting off those winter blues with a veritable flurry of activity.  They have occupied empty government buildings in the middle of nowhere to protest the fact that the government, how dare it, is treating them like every other citizen and expecting them to (horror and outrage) not burn public lands or to pay for leases to use government lands.

There may, in fact, be some serious issues underlying this ongoing conflict, but these clowns aren’t doing anything to clarify those issues or presenting solutions to them. They just want “the land returned to the people.”  In fact, “the people” already own that land, and as a part of the people I want these “Ya’ll Qaeda Pseudo-Patriots” to go jerk off someplace on private property, not my land and your land.

How badly do I want this?  Well, not badly enough to have the Feds attack them. We don’t need another set of “martyrs,” especially ones only able to empty a boot if there are instructions on the heel. Trespassing is not worth a blood bath–the same way an arrest for selling loose cigarettes isn’t worth official violence that takes a man’s life.

My best advice is to cut off their electric power and their water.  Document who is there and what laws they are violating. Let them get bored, start squabbling amongst themselves (this is really common amongst these heroes of private enterprise on the prairie) and go home.

But, what happens after these self-righteous humps who get back home or to the few who might stay. It is a tougher issue than it seems.  Simple answer is that they all get arrested when they go back home or their number at the site has shrunk to only the hardcore few.

This makes some sense in that NO ONE faced charges after the Bundy ranch fiasco.  One has to think that lack of action encouraged the current farce.   Doing nothing now, one could reasonably believe, will just encourage more of these distressing episodes of pseudo-patriotism and machoesque bravado.

So, what to do? If we commit to arresting them all separately after the fact at least one will try to play out some Rambo-style fantasy.  That means possible blood and fatalities. Not good. Trespassing should not be a death penalty offense for flaming dumb asses or law enforcement.

As an object lesson, we could just arrest a few in circumstances where it is clearly safe and let it go at that.  But, then a few others are likely to bunker-up and hope their dreams of being a bad-ass revolutionary come true.  Even one of them on the web calling for help can start another gathering of some number of these cartridge-brain whackos.

So, we need to calculate what we think reining in these humps is really worth. I don’t think it is worth a drop of anyone’s blood. I think a viable alternative is to just make fun of them and tag them as the puffed up poseurs they are.  Derision is sometimes a much better weapon than a 12 gauge.

Maybe the Feds could use the music attack they have used elsewhere but only this time use music from cartoons.  Or play cartoon sound tracks at high volume 24/7.  

Maybe include some old Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and Three Stooges audio in the mix.

I think Michael Moore could do it. Michael, where are you when we need you? Pull up next to those dudes ina couple of big-assed sound trucks an let ‘er rip.  Looney Tunes 24/7 seems perfectly reasonable As I said, these guys don’t deserve a drop of spilled blood. They deserve derision and hoots of laughter at their silly-assed behavior. Michael, oh, Michael where art thou?