The Bundy Paradigm: Will You Be a Rebel, Revolutionary or a Slave?

Those tempted to write off the standoff at the Bundy Ranch as little more than a show of force by militia-minded citizens would do well to reconsider their easy dismissal of this brewing rebellion.

This goes far beyond concerns about grazing rights or the tension between the state and the federal government.

Few conflicts are ever black and white, and the Bundy situation, with its abundance of gray areas, is no exception.

[sharequote align="center"]That is exactly what we are witnessing today: a war against the American citizenry.[/sharequote]

Yet the question is not whether Cliven Bundy and his supporters are domestic terrorists, as Harry Reid claims, or patriots, or something in between. Nor is it a question of whether the Nevada rancher is illegally grazing his cattle on federal land or whether that land should rightfully belong to the government. Nor is it even a question of who's winning the showdown--the government with its arsenal of SWAT teams, firepower and assault vehicles, or Bundy's militia supporters with their assortment of weapons--because if such altercations end in bloodshed, everyone loses.

What we're really faced with, and what we'll see more of before long, is a growing dissatisfaction with the government and its heavy-handed tactics by people who are tired of being used and abused and are ready to say "enough is enough."

A supporter of the Bundy family flies the American flag after the Bureau of Land Management agreed to release the Bundy's cattle near Bunkerville, Nev. April 12, 2014. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jason Bean)

As I show in my book "A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State," there's a subtext to this incident that must not be ignored, and it is simply this: America is a pressure cooker with no steam valve, and things are about to blow.

The government has been anticipating and preparing for such an uprising for years. For example, in 2008, a U.S. Army War College report warned that the military must be prepared for a "violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States," which could be provoked by "unforeseen economic collapse," "purposeful domestic resistance," "pervasive public health emergencies" or "loss of functioning political and legal order"--all related to dissent and protests over America's economic and political disarray.

One year later, in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama issued its infamous reports on Rightwing and Leftwing "Extremism." According to these reports, an extremist is defined as anyone who subscribes to a particular political viewpoint. Rightwing extremists, for example, are broadly defined in the report as individuals and groups "that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely."

Equally disconcerting, the reports use the words "terrorist" and "extremist" interchangeably. In other words, voicing what the government would consider to be extremist viewpoints is tantamount to being a terrorist. Under such a definition, I could very well be considered a terrorist. So too could John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., Roger Baldwin (founder of the ACLU), Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams--all of these men protested and passionately spoke out against government practices with which they disagreed and would be prime targets under this document.

U.S. Army Gen. Keith Alexander, Director National Security Agency (NSA), and head of the US Cyber Command walks to a closed door U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee meeting, June 13, 2013 in Washington, DC. The committee is hearing testimony from members of the intelligence community on the collection of personal data that helped the NSA thwart a number of terror plots from ever unfolding both domestically and abroad. Credit: Getty Images

All that we have been subjected to in recent years--living under the shadow of NSA spying; motorists strip searched and anally probed on the side of the road; innocent Americans spied upon while going about their daily business in schools and stores; homeowners having their doors kicked in by militarized SWAT teams serving routine warrants--illustrates how the government deals with people it views as potential "extremists": with heavy-handed tactics designed to intimidate the populace into submission and discourage anyone from stepping out of line or challenging the status quo.

When law enforcement officials--not just the police, but every agent of the government entrusted with enforcing laws, from the president on down--are allowed to discard the law when convenient, and the only ones having to obey the law are the citizenry and not the enforcers, then the law becomes only a tool to punish us, rather than binding and controlling the government, as it was intended.

This phenomenon is what philosopher Abraham Kaplan referred to as the law of the instrument, which essentially says that to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In the scenario that has been playing out in recent years, we the citizenry have become the nails to be hammered by the government's henchmen, a.k.a. its guns for hire, a.k.a. its standing army, a.k.a. the nation's law enforcement agencies.

Indeed, there can no longer be any doubt that militarized police officers, the end product of the government--federal, local and state--and law enforcement agencies having merged, have become a "standing" or permanent army, composed of full-time professional soldiers who do not disband. Yet these permanent armies are exactly what those who drafted the U.S. Constitution feared as tools used by despotic governments to wage war against its citizens.

Detective Sgt. Childers stands atop the massive MRAP armored vehicle recently acquired by the Livingston County Sheriff's Department for use by its tactical response team, July 16, 2013 in Howel, Mich. PhotovCredit: ALAN WARD/AP

That is exactly what we are witnessing today: a war against the American citizenry. Is it any wonder then that Americans are starting to resist?

To make matters worse, a recent scientific study by Princeton researchers confirms that the United States of America is not the democracy that is purports to be, but rather an oligarchy, in which "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy."

So if average Americans, having largely lost all of the conventional markers of influencing government, whether through elections, petition, or protest, have no way to impact their government, then where does that leave them?

To some, the choice is clear. As psychologist Erich Fromm recognized in his insightful book, "On Disobedience": "If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel (not a revolutionary). He acts out of anger, disappointment, resentment, yet not in the name of a conviction or a principle."

Unfortunately, the intrepid, revolutionary American spirit that stood up to the British, blazed paths to the western territories, and prevailed despite a civil war, multiple world wars, and various economic depressions has taken quite a beating in recent years. Nevertheless, the time is coming when each American will have to decide: will you be a slave, rebel or revolutionary?

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of "A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State." Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

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