Cory Farley: It's Time to Speak to Bundy Plainly

All of us, at some point, must have mused, "If I were president, I'd (insert thing the president hasn't done, and about which we probably have incomplete understanding):"

• Crack down on polluters, holding a company's officers personally responsible for violations. If you took the eight-figure salary, you can do the two-decade prison term.
• Reorganize the banking system primarily to serve consumers, boosting the economy while allowing a reasonable profit to financial institutions (who decides what's reasonable? I do — I'm the president).
• Resurrect Zero Population Growth, institute an education campaign aimed at helping people understand what's involved in being a parent, and make birth control readily available, either cheap or free. This will anger the professionally outraged, but I'm all right with that. It will scare economists, who say we must grow or die. As Edward Abbey pointed out 45 years ago, "the philosophy of the cancer cell."

That's on the first day. On the second day, I'd call Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, he of the recent confrontation with the Bureau of Land Management, and speak to him plainly.

"Mr. Bundy, this is the president. I'm having delivered to you today a list of the laws you have violated and what the courts have ordered you to do. You have 10 days to comply. If you don't, the National Guard will be knocking on your door." On Day 11, the black helicopters will descend.

Too harsh? Let's turn this around:

Remember the Occupy movement, the group that protested social and economic inequality by moving into public spaces? It seems to have run out of steam, at least temporarily. Since we're imagining being president, though, let's imagine Occupy is thriving. Imagine that it occupies, in support of its beliefs, a public space, say Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Imagine that the government, the police, tell Occupy to go home.

Now, imagine that instead of straggling away, Occupy settles in. It digs defensive positions, making a little fortress. It arms itself. It issues a call for like-minded people around the country to come, with guns, and abet it in its plan to continue breaking the law — to resist, with deadly force, the efforts of government to restore order. Imagine hundreds of them do show up, armed and bragging of their willingness to gun down the cops if they deem it necessary.

Now, what would the responsible citizen's reaction be? Would he or she support them damn hippies, sleeping in the bushes and peeing on the lawn, or the police, who are trying to return the park to its rightful owners, the taxpayers?

Personally, I'm with the hippies, though not to the point that I'll get tear-gassed. But where would you be? Where should we be?

Here's the deal: If Bundy is a hero and a patriot for standing up for his beliefs, then so are the Occupiers, for standing up for theirs. Justice will not be done until they are recognized and celebrated for their actions, or until Cliven Bundy's deadbeat ass is perp-walked out of Bunkerville and into court.

Originally Posted By Reno Gazette Journal