The Nevada rancher who is in a dispute with the Bureau of Land Management, Cliven Bundy, is being portrayed by the mainstream media as a racist because of remarks he made to reporters. Apparently Bundy assumed that they would accurately report his words – further evidence of his naiveté and lack of familiarity with today’s America. Anyone who disputes leftist dogma must be ridiculed as a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, an all-around bigot, and a totally worthless person. Why wrack your brain for logical arguments when you can simply name-call?
Let us leave the actual dispute for another time. Let us note only that the feds, who are sworn to uphold the law, were reportedly collecting Bundy’s cattle to sell at auction, in order to recoup the money they claim he owes in grazing fees. But when their plan was blocked by crowds of resisters, the feds reacted by shooting about 40 of the cattle – clearly illegal. Steers are large and hardy animals, probably requiring multiple shots and dying slowly. Practicing cruelty to animals is a poor way to demonstrate adherence to the law.
But in any case, what did Bundy actually say? In the YouTube video, the Nevada rancher is already in mid-sentence:

… and so what I’ve testified to you — I was in the Watts riot, I seen the beginning fire and I seen that last fire. What I seen is civil disturbance. People are not happy, people are thinking they don’t have their freedoms, they didn’t have these things, and they didn’t have them.

We’ve progressed quite a bit from that day until now, and we sure don’t want to go back. We sure don’t want the colored people to go back to that point. We sure don’t want these Mexican people to go back to that point. And we can make a difference right now by taking care of some of these bureaucracies, and do it in a peaceful way. [Emphasis added.]

Let me tell, talk to you about the Mexicans, and these are just things I know about the negroes. I want to tell you one more thing I know about the negro. When I go, went, go to Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and I would see these little government houses, and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there’s always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch. They didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

And because they were basically on government subsidy — so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never, they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered are they were better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things? Or are they better off under government subsidy?

You know they didn’t get more freedom, they got less freedom — they got less family life, and their happiness — you could see it in their faces — they wasn’t happy sitting on that concrete sidewalk. Down there they was probably growing their turnips — so that’s all government, that’s not freedom.

Now, let me talk about the Spanish people. You know, I understand that they come over here against our Constitution and cross our borders. But they’re here and they’re people — and I’ve worked side by side a lot of them.

Don’t tell me they don’t work, and don’t tell me they don’t pay taxes. And don’t tell me they don’t have better family structures than most of us white people. When you see those Mexican families, they’re together, they picnic together, they’re spending their time together, and I’ll tell you in my way of thinking they’re awful nice people. And we need to have those people join us and be with us not, not come to our party. [Emphasis added.]

Whatever you think of the rancher and his dispute with the Bureau of Land Management, try to get past his bad grammar and his use of the obsolete words “Negro” and “colored.” Try to discern what he was trying to say. Try to discover whether there might be a grain of truth somewhere in that mess of poor English and jumbled thoughts.
And while you are considering this question, look at another quotation. This one is taken from a recorded phone message sent to the homes of all students in the Chicago public schools:

Currently there are 68,000 children in the Chicago Public Schools that are not enrolled in free or low-cost health insurance and SNAP, also known as food stamps. Your child may be one of them. To find out more about your eligibility call the Children and Family Benefits Unit at 773-553-KIDS. Or visit your child’s school and ask the clerk for a Children and Family Benefits Unit flier.

To the extent that this message is aimed at letting needy families know that help is available, we can all approve. But is this the only intent of the message? Or is it aimed at creating even more dependency on government? Is it intended to make minorities even more dependent on the Democratic Party for their daily sustenance, and therefore even more likely to vote Democratic? Is it aimed at keeping poor families together, or at making single motherhood more likely by making a husband less necessary? There are now 47 million Americans on food stamps. Should that be a source of pride or a source of shame for all of us?
Here is a thought experiment: Take Cliven Bundy, dressed in his dusty rancher’s clothes and smelling of horse sweat. Take him with his poor English and uneducated manner of speaking. Take him with his conservative ideas learned in a lifetime of work as a rancher. Take him with his hands calloused from physical work alongside other workers, mainly poor and often from minority groups.
Put Bundy next to Chicago mayor and former top Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel. Take Emanuel dressed in his stylish Armani suit and smelling of expensive after-shave. Take him with his erudite English learned at Sarah Lawrence College and Northwestern University. Take him with his “progressive” ideas learned at college and reinforced by a lifetime of work in government offices funded by taxpayers. Take him with his hands smooth from paperwork alongside others like himself, college educated, well-to-do, and unfamiliar with physical work, like his former boss President Obama.
Now tell me in all frankness:

● Which one better understands what it means to be poor? And which one merely talks a good game?

● Which one better comprehends what poor people and minorities really need to escape from poverty? And which one adheres rigidly to disproven leftist dogmas?

● Which one believes that minorities would benefit from the same things that benefitted him? And which one believes that minorities are different, and need to be given handouts and be governed by the “elite”?

● Which one wants poor people and minorities to escape from poverty and become self-sufficient citizens of a constitutional republic? And which one prefers that they remain infantilized, dependent on government, and be docile subjects of an all-powerful nanny state?

● Which one presides over a ranch where it is safe to be, a place where people own firearms and are trained in their use? And which one presides over a city with a startlingly high homicide rate, despite (because of?) draconian gun-control laws?

● Which one expresses himself terribly, but recognizes that living in government-subsidized housing, while receiving welfare payments and food stamps, is an insidious form of slavery, because the recipients do not yearn to be free of it. And which one also recognizes this, but uses it for political advantage?

● Which one talks gruffly but wants to empower others? And which one talks smoothly but wants to empower himself and fellow members of the “elite”?

● Which one uses racially insensitive words? And which one pursues racist policies?

Think about it.
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