Cliven Bundy abuses his American citizenship to demand illegal free cattle grazing rights

Standing hypocritically in front of a high flying American flag while the incendiary Fox News network froths in anticipation of harmful violence, the rancher against the federal government is played out, again, like an orchestrated historical reinactment. Unfortunately, the only difference between this historic tension and a reenactment is that we don't yet know the outcome of this power struggle. Nevertheless, the fact is, rancher Cliven Bundy is breaking the law.

Rancher Bundy is a free loader, because his colleagues pay for the cattle grazing rights he protests against the federal government via the media.

Regardless of how sympathetic a figure Fox News is creating in Bundy's illegal resistance to a law everybody else adheres to, there's a lot the federal government can do, absent violence, to assure Bundy will eventually wind up in jail.  

In the event Bundy continues to uses the Fox News yellow journalism to misrepresent his unlawful behavior, the federal government, nevertheless, has the authority to hold the rancher's family and heirs accountable to abide by federal land use laws.  

Although I'm certainly not a lawyer, I suspect the Bundy family will be unable to sell any of their land while they owe the federal government over one million dollars in land use fees.

What irks me is how Bundy, or somebody who's staging the media events the rancher uses to create a brouhaha about how he's breaking the law, speaks like he's a misguided Moses, standing in front of a high flying American flag. In any other country on earth, Bundy would already be in prison. Bundy uses his American free speech rights to break the law, while he calls in Fox News to make his unlawful behavior look sympathetically legitimate. I don't know anything about land rights laws in the west, except that almost everybody abides by them. 

If Bundy believes these long standing land use laws are illegitimate, then he and his Fox News friends should be challenging them in the courts, including the US Supreme Court, rather than staging made for television stand off media events.  

Meanwhile, Bundy is delusional if he believes his defiance will win against the long view of the federal government. Bundy's land use will be seriously curtailed until he figures out a way to either pay his one million dollar back land use fees, or goes to federal prison for breaking the law or both.

Unfortunately, Bundy feels empowered by the yellow journalism of Fox News. This is exponentially tragic, because the ripple effect of the rancher's defiance will undoubtedly lead to spin off violence. In my opinion, anybody who wants to deliberately break the law should be punished. This includes Fox News, because, by fueling the rancher's delusional belief that he can defy the federal government in the media, they are contributing to whatever violence ensues in the future.

There's precedent for this premise. Oklahoma City bombing being the most heinous example. 

Fox News is enabling the rancher Bundy's delusions, as well as encouraging future violence resulting from the illegal power struggle over land use fees.    

Fox News and Cliven Bundy are using their free speech rights as Americans to challenge the federal government's authority.  

Of course, both Fox News and rancher Bundy have the right to challenge anybody, including the federal government. But, neither of them as the right to break the law or enable somebody to do so. Moreover, it's highly unlikely Bundy will be allowed to continue breaking the land use laws, regardless of how anxious Fox News becomes to support this illegal behavior.