Alright, not a smart move on the feds to be so violent with toting their guns around during the confrontation. Since you're someone who is apparently there, all i care about is this: is Cliven's cattle off the god damn public lands? I, as a USA citizen have right to those BLM lands. I can walk on them and enjoy them, but if I use them for grazing I pay taxes which are given both to the state the taxes come from and then to environmental mitigation. As a wildlife biologist, recreation activist, law-abiding rancher's grandson, and a man with a bear tag this season in Montana, I can understand this, 'I want to protect my ability to have guns' mindset. The issue, what cause this matter, however, is that Cliven needs to pay taxes, settle down, and understand that BLM lands belong to everyone and not just him. I'd rather have had the feds bust in, explain the law, and arrest Cliven Bundy right up for having avoided paying those taxes and by doing so, has essentially damaged federal and public land. This man is a criminal being protected by people that want to use him for an agenda that is not linked to the core issue: respecting not this overarching term of 'feds' but respecting natural resource law and policy, respecting other American's rights to the land, and respecting the responsibilities we have to federal land use so, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt: "I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."
If Cliven were to pay his fees, stop grazing illegally, and sit back, i'd be fine with the man. Till then, he's on my s**t list. Not to mention this is just another example of how multiple agendas grasp onto an event to try and make it their own. I'm sure you got a lot of Sagebrush Rebellion members with you down there.