A standoff continues in Oregon where protesters have seized control of a federal building in protest of two Oregon ranchers being sent to prison.  If the goal of the protesters is to draw attention to the story, then perhaps their method has worked.

I am not necessarily endorsing the methods of the protesters, especially as it could lead to violence.  Of course, the violence would really be coming from the federal government agents, but taking control of a federal building is definitely asking for trouble.

But let’s just discuss the actual case at hand here, and let’s ignore whether or not the protesters are correct in their strategy for now.

If you want to read a decent account of the story from a somewhat libertarian perspective, you can check out this lengthy article.

There are many legal issues that are a major problem here.  There are issues of double jeopardy, minimum sentencing laws, federal ownership of land, terrorism laws, and federalism in general.

There is no question that this is a problem of the federal government.  The federal government “owns” vast amounts of land, particularly in the west.  So many of the problems in our society exist on so-called public lands and public property.  It is not that disputes can’t happen with privately owned property, but it is less frequent and the resolutions tend to be more peaceful and just.

From a constitutional standpoint, the federal government obviously does far more than is authorized.  Most crime should be handled by the state and local levels.  The only three crimes mentioned in the U.S. Constitution are piracy, counterfeiting, and treason.  Of course, it is the politicians and central bankers who specialize in these crimes now.

The two ranchers are going back to jail after already having served time.  After getting out of jail, they were essentially re-sentenced to prison due to mandatory sentencing of 5 years for their “crime”.  To me, this amounts to double jeopardy.  There wasn’t another trial, but there was another sentencing, which was likely done for purely political reasons.

They had been convicted for arson and they were convicted under an anti-terrorism law.  These two ranchers are not arsonists because they did not start the fires with any intention of harming anyone or anyone’s property.  Perhaps they damaged a small amount of federal property (although they likely actually saved it), but either way, there was no intent to do harm.

As for this terrorism statute, it just shows what a joke the whole idea of terrorism has become in our country.  You can pretty much label anyone a terrorist now for any little reason.  And this case also points to what a joke minimum sentencing laws are.  The original judge really shouldn’t have given them any prison time, but at least realized the ridiculousness of locking them up for 5 years.

This case also illustrates the absurdness of our so-called justice system.  Even if the ranchers had damaged property belonging to others, whether the federal government or privately-owned property, the answer here is restitution.  Since there was no intent to do harm, it is far more productive for everyone involved if they just pay for the damages instead of costing taxpayers more money as they sit in prison.

The last important point here is that we will continue to have significant problems in our society until a greater percentage of the populace is educated on liberty.  I’m sorry I have to say this, but these jurors were a bunch of fools that convicted them.  It never should have been up to a judge to sentence these ranchers.

Maybe it was an unfair trial.  Maybe there was bias against the defense in not being able to present certain evidence.  But if I were sitting on a jury and heard the charge of terrorism, it would have been an automatic “not guilty” because there was no intent to harm anyone.

It doesn’t matter if you think they are little bit guilty of something else.  For that charge, there should have been no conviction.  I have no idea what was going through the jurors’ heads.  I have no idea if any of them regret finding them guilty.  But let’s face; they were completely ignorant.  And that means there are tens of millions or hundreds of millions of Americans just like them.

This is where education comes in.  Let’s hope that is the goal of the protesters now, although I am not so sure.  These ranchers would never have gone to jail if the jury had done the right thing and found them not guilty.

So we can blame the federal government all we want (and we should), but this ultimately lies at the feet of the American people and the jury that convicted, which is probably symbolic of what most Americans would have done.

The ranchers should be freed for the sake of justice.  More importantly, more Americans need to step out of their zone of ignorance in these matters and stop assuming that what prosecutors and federal bureaucrats are telling them is true.