So nothing about this? Feds engage in cattle rustling, assault, in Nevada

Is that a question or are you just flinging drool and barking like a startled St. Bernard?

Cut to the chase. If the basis of your argument is that the US government no longer represents legitimate sovereignty, then it doesn't matter what they do with any cattle, tortoises, ranchers, or land; any decision on their part to do or not to do anything is then illegitimate. It is illegtimate if they go after the rancher, and it is exactly as illegitimate if they leave him be, because it is not their decision to make either way. Your whole case study is then a distraction and a smoke screen, and that finally explains why you clearly don't have the least interest in any of the factual details of the case.

All of which boils down to John Castle claims the right to define property. Yeah, good luck with that. Maybe I'll do the same. That sandwich you were about to eat -- that's mine, hand it over.

It's as though he has no understanding at all of why governments exist in the first place.

And now you're beginning to grasp the idea of what's wrong with government.

Here's another way to understand it -- why is it wrong for the clergy to make private decisions about you or your property? They're just a bunch of greedy, power-hungry jackasses in funny hats.

Guess what the government is? Greedy, power-hungry jackasses. They've even got the funny hats, how about that? Just like the Church, they've got reams upon reams of scripture bound up in books that -- whoa, big surprise here! -- support their grasping and their thuggery. And, just as with the Church, the government depends on the faithful flock to defend it from heretics.

You were almost getting the point. But then:

Nope. In the event that an action is not validated merely by their desire to act -- and that's precisely the case -- then inaction actually is the right thing for them to do.

I understand perfectly why our government existed in the first place. I also understand -- and you apparently don't -- that the reason why this government existed in the first place is not the reason it still exists today. It has strayed so far from the purpose for which it was created that it bears only the most superficial similarity to the institution it was when it was established.

Basically, the purpose for which our government existed in the first place was to aid in combating a government very much like the one our government has become.

No, because the actual owners of the land have the right to decide what happens with that land. Otherwise, these people who happen to misidentify as government representatives would have as much right to drive cattle off the land as any other human beings have to drive cattle onto the land.

Nope. Everybody's land; not everybody's cows. Those agents have no right to molest them.

Yep, nailed it.

That's not even an attempt at refutation. Didja think you'd fool somebody with that?

What is there to refute? You've demonstrated no understanding of why we have governments. You continue to demonstrate no understanding. Your entire position, in fact, can only exist if you don't understand the purpose of government.

Why would that be true, in the absence of any authority that could decide it? Because you say so? You keep forgetting that sovereignty over North America does not automatically fall to John Castle if John Castle challenges the legitimacy of the US.

And claiming that there's nothing to refute doesn't take you off the hook. There is a position to be refuted; you simply can't do it and resort to dismissiveness instead. That won't work.

Cliven Bundy is the authority who decides it. He privately owns those cattle. Nobody privately owns that land; therefore, nobody owns that land.

Prove that he owns the cattle, and prove that this means I can't drive it away from land he doesn't own.

Yep, you don't understand the Berkeley/Johnson argument, nor the general principle. At all.

Well, he thinks he owns them. His family think he owns them. Several hundred very armed and very angry people who never even met him before gathered from all over the country to maintain that he owns them. If you're looking for a piece of paper that outvotes all of those people, you're doing some Biblical thinking on the order of a schizophrenic cult leader who was convinced that a piece of fiery shrubbery told him to go climb a mountain.

So, mob rule. As long as Castle approves of the constituents of the mob. Big surprise.

Then explain it in your own words, and describe the difference between your explanation of it and mine.

How about I save us both some time: You won't, because there is no difference between the explanation I gave of it, the explanation anyone else familiar with it would give, and the behavior I've pointed out here. So let me encapsulate this for us all:

"You don't understand it at all!"
"Explain it in your own words."
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because you're a meanie doody-head and I don't wanna!"

Two pages later:

"You don't understand it at all!"
"Explain it in your own words."
"I already did!"
"Where?"
"It's been explained to you twice!"
"Where?"
"I'm not doing your homework for you!"

Now we can cut right to the part where you change the subject. Aaaaaaaand go.

On the contrary. I'm saying that you've just done away with all pieces of paper; the only thing left to decide what happens with that cattle, that land, and indeed that rancher is might. Now, if pressed, my money would eventually be on the US military rather than a few hundred people with rifles and pitchforks, but I realize many people keep insisting that owning guns means you can press the reset button on the constitution. We're about to find out if that is true. If the US persists, and if you are right in declaring this rancher to be correct, then I guess the worth of the second amendment has been overstated.

For the moment, in fact, they have desisted, citing "safety concerns." I'm sure it's just coincidence that they only got concerned with safety once hundreds of angry and armed individuals showed up to oppose them. Sorta tells you whose safety they're concerned with, and whose they're not.

Since you've already given us a clear view of where that will leave me:

...and I've been there several times before with you, I won't for now -- but I'll make this promise: if any poster other than you sincerely wants me to, I will.

Clearly, hundreds of armed angry men have nothing to do with safety concerns. They're just there to show moral support.

"Ladies and Packard, this is your Captain speaking... if you'll look out of the right side of the plane, far off there you may be able to catch a glimpse of the point..."

That being that they didn't give a hot tin damn about anybody's safety so long as the only armed, angry men in the area were on their payroll.

Were they wrong? Was someone hurt?

Is that in any way relevant to their shift in priorities after the shift from the potential for a completely one-sided massacre to a more evenly matched conflict? Granted, had it come to shooting, the assembled civilians wouldn't have won -- but the Feds would have paid for that fight. That makes it pretty clear that they didn't care a damn for the safety of anyone but their own agents.

Your position is that making a claim of property by an individual is self-validating. You do not seem to realize that such a notion completely invalidates the concept of property unless there is some judicial apparatus. Such an apparatus is called government. You say that you understand original purpose of government, but your theory of property rights demonstrates that you do not. Therefore, despite your claim to the contrary, my statement holds, because you do in fact, not understand the purpose of government. you have demonstrated this repeatedly throughout this and many other threads.

Private contract, personal and mutual defense, and the free market form just such an apparatus.

Not all forms and conditions of government satisfy that function.

Our government, as it currently exists, does not match the phrase "original purpose of government."

And you're blindly conflating the original purpose of our government with its current behaviors. I can tolerate a government that works according to the original purpose ours was established for, but that is not what we have now, and haven't for quite some time.

I look at what we have now, this corrupt, greedy, sucking Leviathan, and say that it's a criminal enterprise. You say that I don't understand the original purpose of government, but the original purpose of government is entirely beside the point in these discussions.

None of this addresses what happens when I and my 200 well armed friends make a claim to your property. So, again, you demonstrate no understanding of why government exists.