In Bundy Ranch's War Against the U.S. Government

After raving interminably in the vein of "we are now fully at a time when no government official is given legitimacy by any citizen. The 'law' is not respected by the average American" etc., Warner Todd Huston finally got to the blood-of-tyrants bit: "Who can't imagine that it will soon be open season on anyone who works in government? If they have no regard for us, our property, even our very lives, why should we have regard for them?"

Very clever! We missed the part, though, where MLK pointed a weapon at the cops. (Via.)

This is not to speak of the Twitter patriots who backslapped each other with messages like "what you are witnessing is the 1st salvo of THE REVOLUTION!" "They came for our guns in 1775. They're coming for our cattle in 2014." "You limp-wristed, commie transgenders better quit biting the hands that feed your fetus murdering extra chromosome 21 butts," etc.

What did the more sober-sided, high-end rightbloggers do in this instance? Some of them just ducked and covered -- at this writing neither the National Review nor Instapundit, for example, has offered much of anything substantial on the subject. ("The feds were violent, but they didn't win," said Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds; "Nevada Ranch Standoff Escalates, Questions about Reid Arise" wrote NR's Andrew Johnson on Friday.) Those big-timers who did wade in tried to clean up the confederate sentiments with some mush-mouthery for export purposes.

Claiming "before I had quite figured out what to make of the Bundy Ranch standoff, it appears to have been resolved," Power Line's John Hinderaker nonetheless reveled in the insurrection ("20 Cowboys Break Fed Blockade in Nevada, Retrieve Cattle. Sure, it's Infowars, but it's still a great headline"), then reiterated "it still isn't clear what the crisis was all about," then got to his lawyerly version of a money shot: "the root of the problem is the fact that the federal government owns most of the Western states... I don't understand why there isn't a stronger movement to turn most of that land over to local management." Don't you boys do nothin' illegal now!

Brian Doherty at libertarian redoubt Reason wrote, "Bundy has the kind of attitude toward the federal government--he thinks it doesn't have legitimate authority over him even where state or local government might--that resonates with those who still hold fealty to the old 'militia movement,' so rumors fly of allegedly hundreds of citizen 'militiamen' coming to his aid." Haha, hyper-reactive big gummint -- it wasn't hundreds of militiamen, just... oops. (Though some folks were reporting it in the thousands.) Anyway, the real crime was "Nevada County Commissioner Implies a Death Threat Against Out-of-Staters Who Might Come to Support Cattle Rancher in His Fight with the Feds." Apparently this fascist threatened criminals with armed force, like Hitler did.

"The feds have stolen 352 head of cattle... recompense must be made," claimed Kevin McCullough at TownHall. "And to be candid, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see if a few ambitious law firms don't try to convince the Bundy family of the validity of litigation." Wait, since when are patriots still accepting the authority of so-called "courts of law"?

"This is actually a complicated situation, as much as Bundy is clearly the sympathetic favorite here," said Jazz Shaw of Hot Air. While admitting that the government "has more than a feeble leg to stand on in terms of unpaid grazing fees," and that this "could have been handled better on Bundy's end," Shaw still gave his readers the happy ending: "But this rancher is once again raising awareness of vital questions of federal vs state vs private property rights," Shaw said, and also that thanks to the militiamen and other nuts who'd backed Bundy up, "he and his family may actually get a fair hearing and a chance to keep what they have worked so long and so hard for," i.e. the right to choose which laws he'll obey.

Now some patriots are calling out the militia to pursue ancient grudges in other territories ("Tommy Henderson lost a lawsuit thirty years ago and with it 140 acres of his ranchland... the BLM is back for more"; "BLM trying to steal again in TX too! Get your guns!"). Among rightbloggers, the belief that the U.S. Government is too big to serve its citizens is rapidly metastasizing into the belief that the U.S. Government should be resisted with weapons. Time will tell how popular this notion is with their fellow Americans -- assuming, perhaps unfairly, that they still consider themselves part of this country.