Cliven Bundy has thusfar been a source of considerable amusement for those of us who are rational and justifiably so. It's always fun laughing at a clown. "Clown" is the most charitable way to characterize Bundy and the rustics and freak show escapees that have clustered around him in the Nevada desert. His instantaneously vast following on the Right interwebs has vanished almost as instantaneously since he let slip that his own views about race are those of the late Sen. Bilbo (I sometimes think that the real advance we have made with respect to racism in the past half-century is to teach the racists in our society that they should shut up about it). Those whose boots are on the ground, however, continue to provide fodder for all of MSNBC and the rest of us. Generally speaking, there hasn't been anything quite like Bundy & Co. since "The Beverly Hillbillies" went off the air. Unfortunately, unlike the Hillbillies, Bundy & Co. are armed and dangerous.
The Constitution (Art. III, Sec. 3) provides:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
Although Bundy & Co. haven't fired the first shot, it may be only a matter of time. Risible as they may seem to the rest of us, to their own, twisted minds, they are heroes, the lineal descendants of the Minutemen. And they do not seem capable of grasping the fact that, unlike those Minutemen, they are not fighting a tyrannical King and his government in which they were denied the right to participate. Oh, no, they're fighting the Federal government, enshrined in the Constitution and embodied by the flag to which they all, presumably, eagerly pledge allegiance at the drop of an excuse (at least that's they impression they convey by flying it from every available pole and pick-up truck antenna). Moreover, they have every right to participate in their government - locally, at the state level, and nationally. They are not up in arms (literally!) because they are excluded. They are up in arms because they participated, but lost. Happens to the best of us at one time or another. None of us is entitled to haul out a firearm and blast away at the winners when that happens, though. Had that been the case, the slaughter following the 2000 Presidential election could have been genuinely appalling.
Self-satisfying as it might be to continue making fun of a bunch of ignorant yahoos (there probably isn't a complete set of teeth in the lot), we need to start taking them and what they're doing very, very seriously. They're coming perilously close to gaining credence for their loony fantasies; their total incomprehension of the Constitution and the history of this country. When the day comes when people can challenge with impunity a legal action of the Federal government or question the legality of the action by threatening to fire on Federal officials, this country is in very serious trouble.
The law needs to be enforced. If Mr. Bundy and his followers don't believe that, then they deserve the treatment our country metes out to all who flaunt its laws. Arrest this man; seize his assets; freeze his bank accounts. And if his followers respond with arms fire, well, they tried that in 1861 and didn't that work out well for them?