(CNN) -- A 20-year dispute between a Nevada rancher and federal rangers over illegal cattle grazing erupted into an Old West-style showdown on the open range this week, even prompting self-proclaimed members of militia groups from across the country to join the rancher in fighting what they say is U.S. "tyranny."
What began as a legal fight between longtime rancher Cliven Bundy and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has escalated as Bundy kept his cattle on the federal land, and the government has responded by beginning roundups of the livestock.
A confrontation teetered on violence Wednesday when Bundy family members and dozens of supporters angrily confronted a group of rangers holding Tasers and barking dogs on leashes near Bunkerville, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
Federal officials say a police dog was kicked and officers were assaulted.
Bundy family members say they were thrown to the ground or jolted with a Taser.
In the end, the rangers got into their white SUVs and drove away, a YouTube video of the incident showed.
"Get out of our state!" the cheering protesters yelled at the rangers as they departed in several vehicles. "BLM go away! BLM go away!" they added, referring to the Bureau of Land Management.
The entire incident is now under investigation, Amy Lueders, the bureau's director in Nevada, said Thursday.
To some, the 67-year-old Bundy is a hero who hails from a long family of ranchers stretching back to the Wild West.
To environmentalists and the feds, however, he's an outlaw of sorts who owes U.S. taxpayers more than $1 million in unpaid grazing fees.
The U.S. government is rounding up Bundy's cattle that it says have been grazing illegally on public lands in Clark County for more than 20 years, according to the land-management bureau and the National Park Service.
Between Saturday and Wednesday, contracted wranglers impounded a total of 352 cattle, federal officials said. Bundy says he owns 500 of the more than 900 cattle that federal officials are planning to confiscate for illegal grazing, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Bundy told the newspaper that each head of his livestock is worth about $1,000.
Since the roundups began, protesters have been confined to two areas to publicly declare their grievances, but the peaceful protests in recent days "have crossed into illegal activity, including blocking vehicles associated with the (roundup), impeding cattle movement, and making direct and overt threats to government employees," the two federal agencies said in a statement.
On Wednesday, a bureau truck driven by a civilian employee assisting in the roundup "was struck by a protester on an ATV and the truck's exit from the area was blocked by a group of individuals who gathered around the vehicle," the agencies' statement said.
In the scuffle with protesters, a police dog was kicked, and officers protecting the civilian driver were threatened and assaulted, the two agencies' statement said. "After multiple requests and ample verbal warnings, law enforcement officers deployed Tasers on a protestor," the statement said.
The profanity-laced tussle was captured on a video posted on YouTube. A group that said it posted the video didn't respond to requests for comment.
In the video, protesters demanded to know why a backhoe and a dump truck were being used in the roundup -- and whether any livestock were killed. On Thursday, Lueders said the heavy equipment was used for field restoration.
"No BLM! No BLM!" the protesters chanted to rangers in the middle of a two-lane rural highway.
What sounds likes zapping Tasers can be heard in the video.
In the wake of the publicized protests, members of various militia groups have been traveling from Virginia, Texas, Montana, Idaho and Wisconsin and arriving at the protest site and Bundy's ranch to support the family, said Stephen L. Dean, 45, of Utah, a member of one such group called the Peoples United Mobile Armed Services.
"It's tyranny in government," Dean said when asked what brought him to Nevada.
And, he added, "stealing people's cattle."
One banner at the protest side stated: "Has the West been won? Or has the fight just begun!"
In removing Bundy's livestock from public lands, the park service and land bureau are carrying out two U.S. District Court orders from two different judges.
"Cattle have been grazing in trespass on public lands in Southern Nevada for more than two decades," the National Park Service said. "The BLM and NPS have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially. Impoundment of cattle illegally grazing on public lands is an option of last resort."
Added the BLM: "Mr. Bundy has also failed to comply with multiple court orders to remove his cattle from the federal lands and to end the illegal trespass."
The bureau does allow grazing on federal lands -- it administers 18,000 grazing permits and leases on 157 million acres across the country, the agency said.
Bundy's dispute with the government began about 1993 when the bureau changed grazing rules for the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area to protect an endangered desert tortoise, KLAS reported.
Bundy refused to abide by the changes and stopped paying his grazing fees to the federal bureau, which he contends is infringing on state rights. His family has been ranching since the 1800s, before the U.S. Department of Interior was created and endangered species became a federal issue, he said in an interview with KLAS.
"My forefathers have been up and down the Virgin Valley ever since 1877. All these rights I claim have been created through pre-emptive rights and beneficial use of the forage and the water. I have been here longer. My rights are before the BLM even existed," Bundy told the station.
"With all these rangers and all this force that is out here, they are only after one man right now. They are after Cliven Bundy. Whether they want to incarcerate me or whether they want to shoot me in the back, they are after me. But that is not all that is at stake here. Your liberty and freedom is at stake," he continued.
And Bundy sees it as a state issue.
"The federal government has seized Nevada's sovereignty ... they have seized Nevada's laws and our public land. We have no access to our public land and that is only a little bit of it," he said.
This week, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval told the bureau of residents' criticism of the roundup.
What Sandoval said he found "most disturbing" was the BLM's use of a "First Amendment area" that confined protesters to a designated area.
Such an area "tramples upon Nevadans' fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution," Sandoval said. "No cow justifies the atmosphere of intimidation which currently exists nor the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to all Nevadans."
In response, federal officials are allowing the protesters to gather on public lands as long as they don't impede the roundup, said Lueders, the BLM's director in Nevada.
Bundy is digging in for a long fight.
"I've been fighting this for a number of years. It's not about my cows, I'll tell you that much," he said at a town meeting on Wednesday night. "It's about freedom and liberty and our Constitution ... and above all it's about our policing power. Who has policing power today?"
With the growing controversy, it was uncertain Thursday how long the cattle roundup will now last. At Wednesday night's meeting, residents gave Bundy a standing ovation when he publicly spoke.
"I love you people. And I love this land, and I love freedom and liberty," Bundy told the crowd. "I know without doubt that our Constitution didn't provide for anything like the federal government owning this land, and so when I pay my grazing fees -- if I owe any grazing fees -- I will sure pay it to the right landlord, and that will be to Clark County, Nevada."

A few weeks ago, with no notice, the U.S. government intercepted Mary Grice’s tax refunds from both the IRS and the state of Maryland. Grice had no idea that Uncle Sam had seized her money until some days later, when she got a letter saying that her refund had gone to satisfy an old debt to the government — a very old debt.

When Grice was 4, back in 1960, her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them.

Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family — it’s not sure who — in 1977. After 37 years of silence, four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. Why the feds chose to take Mary’s money, rather than her surviving siblings’, is a mystery.

Across the nation, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers who are expecting refunds this month are instead getting letters like the one Grice got, informing them that because of a debt they never knew about — often a debt incurred by their parents — the government has confiscated their check.

The Treasury Department has intercepted $1.9 billion in tax refunds already this year — $75 million of that on debts delinquent for more than 10 years, said Jeffrey Schramek, assistant commissioner of the department’s debt management service. The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam.

“It was a shock,” said Grice, 58. “What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can’t prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus.”

Grice filed suit against the Social Security Administration in federal court in Greenbelt this week, alleging that the government violated her right to due process by holding her responsible for a $2,996 debt supposedly incurred under her father’s Social Security number.

Social Security officials told Grice that six people — Grice, her four siblings and her father’s first wife, whom she never knew — had received benefits under her father’s account. The government doesn’t look into exactly who got the overpayment; the policy is to seek compensation from the oldest sibling and work down through the family until the debt is paid.

....

The Federal Trade Commission, on its Web site, advises Americans that “family members typically are not obligated to pay the debts of a deceased relative from their own assets.” But Social Security officials say that if children indirectly received assistance from public dollars paid to a parent, the children’s money can be taken, no matter how long ago any overpayment occurred.

“While we are responsible for collecting delinquent debts owed to taxpayers, we understand the importance of ensuring that debtors are treated fairly,” Treasury’s Schramek said in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. He said Treasury requires that debtors be given due process.

Social Security officials told her they had sent their notice to her post office box in Roxboro, N.C. Grice rented that box from 1977 to 1979 and never since. And Social Security has Grice’s current address: Every year, it sends her a statement about her benefits.

“Their record-keeping seems to be very spotty,” she said.

Treasury officials say that before they will take someone’s refund, the agency owed the money must certify the debt, meaning there must be evidence of the overpayment. But Social Security officials told Grice they had no records explaining the debt.

“The craziest part of this whole thing is the way the government seizes a child’s money to satisfy a debt that child never even knew about,” says Robert Vogel, Grice’s attorney. “They’ll say that somebody got paid for that child’s benefit, but the child had no control over the money and there’s no way to know if the parent ever used the money for the benefit of that kid.”

Grice, the middle of five children, said neither of her surviving siblings — one older, one younger — has had any money taken by the government. When Grice asked why she had been selected to pay the debt, she was told it was because she had an income and her address popped up — the correct one this time.

.....

Socialism at its Best – How to Destroy the Wealth of a Nation

This in no longer about “social justice” – it is about “tax-farming” as the Romans called it. This is all about lining the pockets of those in government so they need not reform. This is merely Adam Smith;s Invisible Hand. It is the government’s self-interest to exploit everything they can from the people and it matters not what country we are talking about these days nor the political system. This is why Communism collapsed and it is why the West will collapse. There is simply no viable alternative to the outcome we face. You cannot say hey – look at this. They will not listen. You are asking for them to reform and they will NEVER act other than their own self-interest as long as they can get away with it. This is why Jefferson said revolution was part of the cycle and necessary. Homeland Security did not buy tanks to protect the people from terrorists, they needed 2700 tanks for street use to protect government from the people.

...

The ONLY political system that has any possible hope of surviving greater extended periods of time is one where ALL agencies are privatized and that the bureaucratic portion of government be ONLY career. The elected body must be with a term limit of one year and NEVER again. This is the only way to ensure that government does not engulf and dominate society for if the head of state revolves annually, they will NEVER pass a law they KNOW will apply to them the following year.

We need to eliminate the MOST DESTRUCTIVE force within society and that is its direct taxing power. Money is the total productivity of a nation – not its natural resources nor its gold reserves. Japan rose to the second largest economy with gold or natural resources and PROVED that Adam Smith was correct as was Ayn Rand – it is the TOTAL productivity of the people that is the Wealth of a Nation. Nurture that – and you will save the future from repeating the destruction of the past.

I had seen that a few days ago, not sure where I saw the link in the first place though. The whole video is basically showing just how far the entire basis of the movement has slipped. Just seeing that video makes me think of all the backs that have been broken to get this where it is today.

Sad indeed to see such a revolutionary concept being tied to a tree and embarrassingly beaten until it bleeds so freely.

What was once thought of as the vessel to carry us into a new world has become nothing but a real world joke.

It's very apparent, right now, that this is failing miserably. It's a toy with no more appeal to it than a common fad like a child's toy (note the adorable colors of the atm itself).

This movement needs a new face, or someone needs to start standing their ground. Of course, how could you stand without the correct tools on which to base the movement?

Afterthought:
Given this video as an example, I'd love to see different ways of getting this currency traded for a dollar. Easy ways that don't require your ID's, hand print, and eye scan, DNA, first born, a notable percentage of your wealth in the will . . etc. Sadly, representing oneself as a currency trader/exchanger comes with inevitable regulations that can (and are currently) easily be adapted to ruin the sale due to preexisting regulations we've placed on ourselves. Focusing on how easily it can be done .. it would seem some form of representation would be required in order to prevent this from happening.

Of course, the requirement for representation would only serve to centralize the idea of a decentralized currency. I think this is where many people are losing the concept. The basis of decentralization can only serve to clash with the world in which this was brought into. Naturally, the only outcome to this I see is to centralize the coin or decentralize the world. Right now the world is much bigger than the coin, so as a result videos like this will only continue to pop up. I guess I can understand, given that everyone's only trying to fit this into a world that makes sense to them. This is telling me that the concepts and fundamentals are being lost amongst the noise.

Fact: iron was a precious metal

Fact: commodities are on a 2000 year decline in price

Read the thread for the facts.

Knowledge is growing in relative value. Facts don't lie.

A grain of sand isn't worthless, but for all practical purposes it is. Meaning tangible things can become relatively devalued to the point where they are essentially worthless. Through enhanced knowledge tangible things can become nearly limitless (i.e. robots build robots who build tangible things), while knowledge is not fungible. Not every person has every great insight.

They maintain their monopolies only because individuals can't take action.

contrarily, in a world where information dissemination is easier and cheaper than ever before, but a small few control the spigot, propaganda is that much more powerful.

proprietized media like TV is an excellent example of this. a cabal of wealthy movie producers, news channel operators, and advertising giants control the majority of the content that is gluttonously spewed into the the minds of millions daily, reinforcing ideological precedents that perpetuate class, race, gender, and other inequalities, and marginalizing radical ideologies by controlling the ratios of exposure, and by negative framing.

the internet may be a step in the right direction, but until it fully supplants TV as the king of media dissemination, and unless the tactics used by interested parties like JTRIG and the NSA that are destructive to open discourse are successfully combated, the information age will be synonymous with the age of propaganda.

--arepo

I had been pointing out this problem over the past weeks and months (remember upthread I pointed out that automating this computation was not realistic):

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-bitcoin-can-no-longer-work-as-a-virtual-currency-in-1-paragraph/359648/


But that article points out another problem with the fact that Bitcoin is not untaxable as legal tender:


The reason this destroys fungibility is that people will need to think about tax timing and implications when spending money, i.e. they have to bind their money to their total tax planning.

Armstrong wrote that China should bottom in 2020. And Japan will bottom in 2016 (will have its final implosion climax after 26 years of slow motion collapse).

I originally had a difficult time understanding why. Then I realized the reason is because the developing countries including China have a very low government share of GDP, because they don't have elaborate social welfare systems. See my comments on mpettis.com earlier in 2013, where I quoted the Heritage foundation ranking of countries by "Government Share of GDP".

Thus agreed developing world won't go into Mad Max, but they will have a hard down phase 2016 to 2020. We just have to hope that phase doesn't incite war. If we do go into widespread war 2018 or 2019ish, then at the end Asia will come out stronger similar to the USA after WW2.

That would require a level of naivety that I haven't possessed since I was a teenager.

Not much 'good' will come from Bitcoin.

Just another heavily cornered financial asset masquerading as some kind of digital currency of liberty.

Personally I'd prefer no leadership att all. The more decenentalized the better imo. Of course we need people that are active in the community and speak in favor of bitcoin but I don't think we need anymore organizations that speak the word of bitcoin. Let the market do it's job. When it comes to MtGox the market is doing just this with the increasing spread between Gox and other exchanges. Think it's working perfectly in that aspect. If MtGox problems increase the market will keep "judging" it in the way it requires.