It turns out that the Nevada anti-government extremist lauded recently by Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, as a “brave patriot” has some pretty offensive things to say about African Americans.
Earlier this month hundreds of armed, anti-government “militia” activists converged on Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada. They did so to support Bundy, who has been illegally grazing his cattle on federal land for more than 20 years. Bundy has refused to pay any fees or obey court orders to stop grazing his cattle on the land. In fact, he claims Nevada is sovereign and has said “I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing.”
Bundy’s militia supporters bullied federal agents into halting an effort to round up Bundy’s illegally grazing cattle. Like moths drawn to a flame, right-wing activists and politicians like Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, a tea party hero, rushed to express their support for Bundy. Texas state Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington, tweeted his own criticism of the federal Bureau of Land Management (but not the armed extremists) in the case:
The Bureau of Land Management needs to be defunded. Prime case of bureaucrats abusing power .
But Riddle’s comments about Bundy and the federal government were among the most outrageous. On her Facebook page she called Bundy a “brave patriot” and denounced federal agents enforcing the law as “jack booted thugs.”
Now, however, it looks like Bundy’s racial views are as repugnant as his anti-government extremism. From a story in today’s New York Times (emphasis added):
[Bundy] said he would continue holding a daily news conference; on Saturday, it drew one reporter and one photographer, so Mr. Bundy used the time to officiate at what was in effect a town meeting with supporters, discussing, in a long, loping discourse, the prevalence of abortion, the abuses of welfare and his views on race.
“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is 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?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
Jaw-dropping, yes?
Still think Bundy is a “great patriot,” Rep. Riddle?
Riddle is a right-winger’s right-winger. As you might recall, she once attacked public education as an idea “from Moscow” and “straight out of the pit of hell.” Despite hating government so much, however, she keeps running for re-election. She just won her Republican Primary for a seventh term in the Texas House of Representatives. She qualifies for a legislative pension at the end of her time in office.
9 Comments
Unlike one’s sexuality, racism IS a lifestyle choice. One is not born racist, one is raised racist, trained to be a racist and steeped in racism and racial bigotry - like me!
Yes, just like me.
But, when I was 15-16 I started seeing the world a different way and by the time I was in college I realized how crazy my family was, and actively rejected those poisonous principles.
For the Bundy’s of the world, I don’t pity them, I mock them for their weakness, their laziness and their inbred stupidity. And I guess I’ll be fighting that breed forever!
The true racists will tell you that of course racism is not a choice but ‘the voice of the blood’ and it would be unnatural to suppress it.
It’s of course BS apart from a likely built-in reflex of ‘what looks different from me should be seen with initial suspicion’.
More questions than answers: who were these armed terrorists who showed up on such short notice? Who called them? Isn’t pointing a (supposedly) loaded weapon at a person-especially a Federal Officer-a felony? Why did they get to walk away? Why is it that all the Right-Wing media loved Bundy to death when he was standing up to “gummint” but couldn’t get away quick enough when his remarks about African-Americans got aired? It’s the same Bundy, people. Can somebody smarter than I am explain any of this?
I’m liberal and all that, but for the sake of argument, I’d like to continue to approach the Bundy situation focusing purely on his illegal grazing. His racism is horrifying, but I think it should be separated from his failure to pay grazing fees. Once that is all settled, then nail him for his racism. They are two separate issues, coming out of the same idiot.
This is what I have been saying about this older generation that is about to pass away to the cemetery. They contain the last real vestiges of the racism that was rampant in the 1950s and 1960s. They were teens and early 20s then and had still been influenced by their even more racist parents. The young people that came after them—not nearly so much. I read Bundy’s remarks today, and they contain what you might call a certain “pseudo-innocent naivete” about race issues, which is common in this generation. I see it in members of my own family.
I thought Jon Stewart did it best when he played a clip of Bundy stating how he didn’t recognize the existence of the federal government, then rode his horse waving a large, American flag.
Stewart said, “Hey, Bundy, get your own flag!”
That’s the thing about these undereducated, over-opinionated nitwits, they don’t understand what is coming out of their own mouths!
Well now, Rep Riddle, I think you should do the only decent thing, when it comes time, and refuse that “gub-mint” pension. Y’all don’t want to be accused of biting the hand that feeds ya.
Such a peach-not. But no surprise, really. These tools are all like that. The shocker would be if he weren’t.