Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy’s armed stand against federal officials this weekend is reminiscent of Mahatma Gandhi, the civil rights hero who championed civil disobedience through nonviolent means, according to one National Review correspondent.
Arguing on behalf of “a little sedition,” Kevin D. Williamson wrote Tuesday that Bundy was simply following the likes of Gandhi, America’s Founding Fathers, fugitive slaves, and even protesters who threw up barricades during the federal government shutdown last year.
Of course the law is against Cliven Bundy. How could it be otherwise? The law was against Mohandas Gandhi, too, when he was tried for sedition; Mr. Gandhi himself habitually was among the first to acknowledge that fact, refusing to offer a defense in his sedition case and arguing that the judge had no choice but to resign, in protest of the perfectly legal injustice unfolding in his courtroom, or to sentence him to the harshest sentence possible, there being no extenuating circumstances for Mr. Gandhi’s intentional violation of the law.
Williamson added that while “Bundy’s stand should not be construed as a general template for civic action, it is nonetheless the case that, in measured doses, a little sedition is an excellent thing.”