A few decades ago in the early 1970s Native American activists, among them Russell Means, "took over" the site of the Wounded Knee massacre. You may recall the federal government massacred people there in 1890.
Should the Federal Government have killed the activists in the 1970s ? Were they criminals?
That's just disingenuous - you know there was more to AIM and Wounded Knee. Moreover it was on tribal not Federal land so your argument doesn't really fly here now does it.
If the "occupiers" are white supremacists I don't support that, but how does any of that change the fact that the Hammonds are being punished for harming nobody?
If the term "terrorist" can be applied to the occupiers in Oregon now, would it be fair to apply it to the armed Indians that occupied Wounded Knee in the 1970s and the armed black students (including future Atty. General Eric Holder) that occupied "government property" in the 1970s as well?
See here's the stupid thing with your first statement. They committed arson. They were charged of committing arson
by a jury of their peers. On top of that, they were charged with committing arson and destroying Federal property. Was no one harmed? You're correct, no one was. Could they have harmed someone? Yes, they very well could have. They could have actually killed fire fighters n the area, or other people in the area (according to testimony one of their friends almost died because of a fire they started in 2001). Especially when they started fires during a burn ban when there were already forest fires going on. Please explain to me how this is responsible and harmless; you also show a complete lack of understanding on just how bad forest fires can get and what sort of destructon they cause. It's painfully obvious that this is so, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting there going, "It isn't such a big deal that they started a forest fire during a burn ban! No one was hurt, so what's the big deal?"
You really, really, really need to learn
why Teddy Roosevelt set aside all this land as natural reserves. On top of that the Hammonds and Bundys are pretty much the biggest welfare queens out there. The BLM already subsidizes their cattle grazing permits by 93%, that 93% coming from tax payer money. What they want is either the Fed to just straight up give them the land, or subsidize them at 100%.
What armed students taking over government property in the 1970s? I know a few of the people that took over buildings and they weren't armed (family friends). Edited to add: Not saying that there probably wasn't, I'm just curious as to where the armed takeovers happened.