Well, I do not claim to know all the details of exactly how we got to this point. But as I understand it, the first phase in enforcing the gov'ts legal issues was to stop the unpaid grazing, hence the rounding up of the cattle.
I do not know if a lien is a practical solution because I do not know anything about the economics. Further, seeing as a big part of the problem is a small group of people who will not conform to the law, I doubt a lien will result in payment later either; the same group will probably resist that too on some non- applicable foundation such as 'all I have is 'greenbacks' and that is not real money'. And if they are willing to force an armed clash with a legal entity over cattle, I cannot imagine the forced selling of any of their property could possibly go well. Honestly, this has been going on long enough that it is not unreasonable to move to a forced conclusion although it should still be attempted as gently as possible.
The likelihood of armed confrontation was not high until there were a lot of people gathered in one place, clearly armed, making threats about what they were going to do TO the gov't.
Just to be fair here, I believe both the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents were handled badly and, again in my opinion, excessively and criminally by the government. I believe the single best thing that has happened during the current incident (lasting something like 20 years now) has been the decision of the gov't to back off to avoid a confrontation. They may be in the right, and they can certainly win but the better thing is to settle this without loss of life if at all possible. I believe this reaction is a direct result of those other incidents I mentioned and how badly they went regarding bloodshed, loss of life and an overall public relations disaster.
Brian
I don't disagree, and I guess I should have said so first. For whatever reason, be it turtles or the phase of the moon, the gov't owns the grazing rights, and Bundy should pay, as the courts have determined. I think a tax lien and selling, rather than killing the seized cattle is preferrable to an armed confrontation.Still, I find tortoises interesting.
