Op-Ed: I Stand Behind Ammon Bundy Because He Supports My Excessively-Narrow Interpretation of the American Dream

Keith Nantz, noble Oregon cattle rancher, sends his thoughts and prayers to Ammon Bundy and his militia as he rests after a day of hard work – work that you probably couldn’t ever understand or respect (Keith Nantz)

By KEITH NANTZ    Jan. 15, 2016

I’m an Oregon rancher.

Ever since I was a little boy, I dreamed of roaming the wide-open countryside of the 1800’s Wild West, driving cattle across the plains with my cowhands, sleeping out under the stars while a baleful Ennio Morricone refrain drifts along on the breeze.

Like most children, I grew up into adulthood but unlike most children, I did not mature emotionally and supplant my fantasy with more adult prospects.  Instead, I busted my ass for eight long years as a firefighter until I could afford to abandon a stable and steady income that assisted the public in favor of riding around on a horse like a badass cowboy.

My friends and family warned me that since 82% of the United States’ beef production is monopolized by only a handful of mega-corporations, I was essentially setting myself up for a lifetime of serfdom in an industry that didn’t want or need me.  But I was determined.  So, utterly of my own volition, I became a cattle rancher, which is – need I remind you – a badass and totally iconic American livelihood, so I’m worthy of nothing but your respect for choosing this life for myself.  My struggles are your struggles, because we ranchers are owed infinite respect for putting meat in the supermarkets that you may or may not eat.

I’ve heard it all before.  You might say, “But Keith, cattle farming has, generation after generation, created an escalating climate of environmental destruction, contributed to the poisoning of groundwater throughout much of the American Midwest and produced more greenhouse gasses in the entire United States than any other source.”  To this I must say:  Which one of us is a rancher, friend?  Which one of us willingly abandoned his career in order to embrace a profession that is unsustainable and damaging to the environment but that is totally extra-John-Wayne-badass?  Are you a rancher, friend?  Do you get to ride this horse and wear this cool hat?  No?  Well, I think we both know which of us is the real red-blooded American here and which one isn’t, don’t we?

Ammon Bundy has taken a strong stand.  By bravely storming the federal stronghold that is the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon, Bundy has shown that he won’t allow big-government environmental policies to interfere in the lives of people who share this very specific livelihood.  But he goes further than that, which I can respect; he not only wants to protect my interests in allowing me and those like me to graze on public land with impunity, he wants mining and logging operations to have the same free reign.  Why, the very land that the Malheur Refuge protects was land that was turned into a literal dustbowl after only four generations of grazing, logging and other forms of good old American industry.  Now that it is on the road to recovery, it’s high-time we pushed it straight to the brink of unsustainability again, only with bigger herds and more aggressive mining and fracking techniques.

Let me ask you this:  Is the idyllic fantasy of a hard-working, outdoorsy white man in a Stetson hat, relaxing with his cattle astride his majestic brown mustang, against the dwindling orange and red backdrop of a Western sunset not worth irreparable harm to our ecosystem?

It’s been my dream since I was a little boy to be an awesome cowboy and I won’t let Obama or the federal government or you tell me that I can’t live out this totally-voluntary fantasy life of mine just because cattle herds are poisoning water supplies with E-coli.

Who’s to tell me what the American Dream really is, anyway?  Is it the dream of growing up in a world where you can safely drink the water and the land isn’t rendered barren by herds of thousands of grazing cattle?  I think not!  Is it the collective effort to lift up the underclass, to apply ourselves to bettering the least of us, even if the least of us stubbornly decide to be so lazy and un-American that they don’t all strive to be cattle ranchers themselves?  No, I say!  Is the American Dream me getting to do whatever I want because I romanticize it and then expect everyone else to fall in line with whatever it is I want to do?

Now, I’m no genius – I’m just a  humble cattle rancher – but one of those dreams involves me getting to wear a cowboy hat and ride a horse, so I think we all know what the right answer is.

You don’t know how hard this life is… this life that I voluntarily signed up for.  And therefore I deserve your admiration and awe and your tax dollars in the form of federal financial assistance so I can graze my cattle on public land.

The bottom line is that the federal government and Barack Hussein Obama are making it harder and harder for ranchers like me to increase the number of cattle in this country to an ecologically-unviable level, passing arbitrary regulations steeped in red tape meant to protect ecosystems, endangered species, the health of the citizenry and our nation’s public lands from the ravages of an unfettered ranching industry.  Even if empirical data proves beyond a doubt that grazing herds of cattle introduce E-coli and salmonella into farmlands and water supplies,  what’s a human life compared to the thought of me driving my herd across the plains, dust rising in our wake as I chew on a long stalk of grass, the sun beating down on my rugged face?

Wouldn’t you rather die of salmonella with that image in your mind instead of having to live in a world where I wasn’t able to do that?  Do you think for an instant that you could bear that guilt?

The efforts of the federal government to curb the destruction of our natural resources and to stem the tide of the eradication of endangered species – to say nothing of the poisoning of water systems by cattle that cause outbreaks of deadly salmonella – is highly threatening to my chosen way of of life that was utterly voluntary and ignorantly short-sighted on my part.  It’s a way of life for which I should accept no burdens or challenges or the grim specters of modern reality, like escalating pollution, increased cancer rates as a result of the consumption of red meat, or just the general poisoning of crops as well as population centers.

And that’s why I stand with Ammon Bundy:  because I’m a rancher and he’s a rancher.  Or at least I think he’s a rancher.  He wears a cool hat like a rancher would, so I’ll just assume that it’s the case.

The bottom line is this:  Would you rather live in a country where we could reign-in our greenhouse emissions and health epidemics by limiting the growth of the ranching industry, or would you rather enjoy hamburgers while I get to ride around on a horse and be a cowboy?

The answer is obvious.

Texas Open-Carry Enthusiast Excited to Show Everyone His Penis

Harlan Dixon, 37, prematurely ejaculates his 9mm penis directly into his own thigh (Harlan Dixon)

By DOUGLAS HELLER    Jan. 7, 2016

ROCKPORT, TX – With the state of Texas recently passing a new round of open-carry laws, excited local residents are ecstatic about the opportunity to go out and about with their fully-loaded penises on display for the entire community to see.

“Can you just imagine,” said Harlan Dixon, gleefully.  “I’m just out, walking around and some bank robbers try to kidnap the sheriff’s daughter and I’m like ‘bang-bang!’  And I shoot the bad guys and save the day!  And then the sheriff’s daughter and I make out afterwards and even go all the way!”

Harlan Dixon is one of thousands of Texans celebrating the state’s new open-carry laws, allowing gun owners to walk the streets with loaded surrogate penises flagrantly exposed.  Few were as excited about the chance to show the entire world his new rock-hard penis as Mr. Dixon, who spoke to reporters today regarding the new laws.

“Look, I’m just a simple man,” said Dixon, “A simple man who is terrified of the real world and who needs to hide himself in a fantasy land of wild west American exceptionalism.  For too long I’ve had to face a world full of complexities, people with different nuanced viewpoints, groups and situations that don’t fit neatly into a child’s fairy tale of good versus evil, a fairy tale where I’m always cartoonishly-good and the others – whoever they may be – are always cartoonishly-evil.  Until now, I’ve had to retreat to the comfort of my home or go to the shooting range to pretend that I’m the hero of my own personal action movie but now I’m free to go out into the world with an artifact of my delusion, making it all the more real and making me all the more assured in my naive and simplistic view of reality.  Emboldened, I can finally impose my petulance upon the real world, whether anyone likes it or not.”

Dixon went on to proudly display the 9mm-chambered security blanket strapped to his belt, beaming.  “Now I can walk around and put the thought in people’s minds, ‘Is that guy a school shooter?  Is he a domestic terrorist?  I’m so scared of him!  He looks so self-assured and powerful with that loaded pistol holstered jauntily on his manly hip!’  And if someone dares to stop me or approach me or even if they look like they might be in fear of their lives because a stranger with a loaded weapon is strolling around grinning like the cat who ate the canary, I’ll just whip out my open-carry card and say, ‘Sorry, boy, but this is America and in America, I have rights.'”

While Dixon is understandably excited about the opportunity to walk around with his fully-loaded Sig Sauer 226 penis for all to see, unabashedly exercising his right to primarily put strangers at extreme unease to satisfy his own fragile sense of self-worth and power, he is also prepared to take his fight for his 2nd Amendment rights much further.

“There are some local businesses that have expressed concern at allowing people to open-carry in their establishments.  Well, I’ll tell you what:  we didn’t let that fly in 2014 and we won’t let it fly, now.”

Referring to an incident where gun owners showed up to a Target store with fully-loaded semi-automatic rifles because Target chose not to allow weapons on its property, Dixon continued,  “Some people think that the right for a private citizen or a private business to say who can or who can’t be in their store or on their property with a loaded weapon supersedes my need to constantly advertise my internalized impotence by having a loaded weapon on me at all times.  Well, those people are about to get a serious wake up call, because if you think you can keep the 2nd Amendment and my cowardly fixation on weapons that really serve no practical day-to-day purpose – except to shoot other people – at bay, then you’ve got another think coming!”

Visibly worked-up and trembling, Dixon stroked the cold steel teddy bear holstered on his hip until he calmed down before continuing, “Anyway, as I was saying, my freedom to now walk around the state of Texas, advertising my contempt for the safety of the general population as well as my insular fear of the real world, is what our ancestors fought and died for, and it’s a right that never hurt anyone… as far as my fertile imagination tells me.”

At press time, Dixon had accidentally shot himself in the thigh with his deadly surrogate penis.

Bundy Children Refuse to Quit Playing in Their Fort and Just Come in Out of the Cold

Nevada child Ammon Bundy (left) and friends pitched simply precious homemade signs outside of their clubhouse warning against “Tyranical (sic) Goverment (sic)” (AP)

By MIRANDA SAUNDERS    Jan. 5, 2016

BURNS, OR – Having taken refuge in an empty building in the empty snowbound woods 30 miles from nearby Burns, Oregon, the children of Cliven and Carol Bundy – along with a handful of their friends – simply refuse to stop pretending to be cowboys and just come in from the cold.

On January 4, 2016, Ammon and Ryan Bundy – two of Cliven and Carol Bundy’s 14 children – got together with a group of friends and pretended to “take over” the unoccupied Mahlheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Adorably deploying grammatically-incorrect signs reading, “BLM Another Intrusive Tyranical (sic) Goverment (sic) Entity Doing What They Do Best ABUSING POWER & Oppressing the Backbone of America” and “Tyr • an • ny is cruel, unreasonable, arbitrary use of Power or Control,” the Bundy children and friends stubbornly refused to leave their makeshift fort until the federal government had met their “demands.”

Speaking to the press in Nevada, Carol Bundy said that, “Oh, you know what children are like.  They see their parents doing something and they just have to imitate it.”  Chuckling to herself, Bundy continued, “They saw how their father got away with owing the federal government $1 million dollars by creating a Waco-like scenario where he and his friends threatened to murder federal agents, and now they and their friends think they’re all cowboys.  Just too cute!”

Mrs. Bundy referred to the 2014 standoff that occurred at the Bundy ranch in Nevada, where federal agents attempted to collect the $1 million in unpaid fees that Cliven Bundy had amassed over 20 years of illegal cattle grazing on government land.  In a series of escalating legal violations for which Bundy and his friends have suffered zero repercussions, an armed militia threatened to kill the federal agents for doing their legal duty – some prepared to fire upon the agents with military-grade sniper rifles, they later bragged – and planned to use women and children as human shields should the federal agents return fire.  The assembled ad-hoc militia proceeded to then set up illegal roadblocks and checkpoints to further threaten and intimidate locals and motorists.  Finally, they all got bored and hungry and the entire militia dispersed.

Local and federal law enforcement were relieved that the conflict had ended peacefully and were further relieved that all criminal actors involved were either wealthy, white, or wealthy and white, meaning that the authorities wouldn’t have to bother with arrests or warrants, which can be a lot of paperwork when you get right down to it.

When reached for comment, Ammon Bundy, speaking from his awesome fort in the woods, attempted to clarify his somewhat unspecific demands, “Mainly we want the government to stop holding on to federal lands.  I mean, the Bureau of Land Management charges ranchers $20 a month per cow to graze on federal land.  Imagine if all that land was private!  Then rich people like my dad could buy it and charge people $200 per cow!  Think of it!”

Bundy then peered out the window and pretended to fire his rifle at imaginary federal agents, “Ka-blow!  Ka-blow!  Got him!”

Bundy, who seems to have no concept of the kind of permanent damage that unfettered grazing, mining or logging would have on an ecosystem – rendering large swaths of land useless in just a generation or so – went on to say that, “Same goes here in Oregon: logging companies and mining companies should be able to mine and log as much as they want, no matter what!  It’s America!”  Bundy continued, “Do you guys got any fruit roll-ups?  Ryan forgot to bring the snacks.”

Carol Bundy, who was warming up several mugs of hot chocolate in anticipation of her returning children, told the press “Really, all my sweet little boys want to do is fight for the American dream, just like their father.  Some might say that the American dream includes preserving our natural resources and delicate wildlife for generations to come, so that all Americans can benefit from and enjoy the beauty of our nation.  But what the American dream really stands for is giving my family whatever they want, whenever they want it, whether that be 20 some-odd years of not paying to use federal lands that everyone else has to pay to use or the freedom to directly threaten the lives of federal agents with utter impunity and no fear of consequence.  Now that’s the kind of American dream everyone can get behind, whether they’re myself or my rich husband or our 14 children or if they’re some of those negroes living in the ghetto who were better off under slavery.”

Continuing to echo – almost verbatim – public statements previously made by her husband, Cliven Bundy, Mrs. Bundy added, “And let’s be honest:  Martin Luther King, Jr. sure did a terrible job if blacks these days can’t handle being called ‘slaves’ or ‘negroes’.”

No reporters had any questions for Mrs. Bundy.

At press time, the Bundy children and their adorable friends had hung a “No girls alloud (sic)” sign on the front door of their clubhouse.

Asshole Enjoys Walking Around Neighborhood with Assault Rifle

Daniel Kovacevic, 25 (left) shows solidarity with another unidentified asshole over a white person’s freedom to carry an assault rifle in the state of Ohio without fear of being shot on-sight by the police (Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal)

 

By QASEEM KASSEM    January 3, 2016

AKRON, OH – In a state most-recently enshrined as the state where 12 year-old African-American boy, Tamir Rice was gunned down by police officers for having a toy gun in his waistband, local Akron asshole Daniel Kovacevic, 25, is a white man who enjoys spending his time walking around neighborhoods with an assault rifle.

First drawing the attention of locals on Dec. 4th of last year, the asshole was stopped by local barber Deone Slater who – unsure of whether the gun-toting asshole’s intentions were threatening to the lives of the community – confronted him on the sidewalk, refusing to let him pass. When the asshole called the police, the police responded immediately and rushed to the asshole’s aid.  Akron Police Officer, Liuetenant Rick Edwards said that the department had already received eight calls warning about a white asshole with an assault rifle in the neighborhood but took no action because, “We’re in a pickle, stuck in the middle,” according to Edwards. “We can’t violate his rights.”

In a state where John Crawford III – an African-American man – was killed by police in a Wal-Mart for holding a BB gun, where Tenisha Anderson – an African-American woman – was killed in police custody and where Tamir Rice – an African-American boy – was shot to death in a park by the police, in a country where there have been over 100 shootings on school and college campuses since 2010, it would make sense that Slater – an African-American man – would be made uneasy by the double-edged sword of seeing a man with an assault rifle near the close-by University of Akron while being made a likely target of the police for carrying a gun, himself.

Slater brought up the issue of the police in Ohio killing black men – and boys – on-sight who may or may not be armed, but took no action when a white man walked around with an assault rifle near a college campus despite several calls to the authorities.  Kovacevic, the asshole, said that there was no issue with race and police response in this country.  Like most assholes, when confronted with the uncomfortable reality of disproportionate police response across racial lines in the United States, Kovacevic claimed that he sees past race and – therefore – it isn’t actually a factor.

Kovacevic, who somehow becomes more of an asshole with each passing moment, said that he needs to carry weapons to protect himself and that everyone should do so, ignoring the fact that African-Americans in his state would very likely be shot for exercising the exact same right as he.  “I believe things would be better if everyone had guns,” said Kovacevic.  He claimed that his armed appearance deters people from interfering with him – except for Slater – who interfered with him precisely because of his armed appearance.

When reached for comment on Kovacevic’s assertion that criminals are most certainly scared-off by an armed citizenry, William Coleman III of Gresham, Oregon – who was practicing his right to open-carry when a criminal stole his own gun from him on Oct. 7th of last year – said, “Wow. That Kovacevic guy sounds like a total asshole.”

As of press time, Kovacevic is still an asshole.