While describing the Bundy Ranch standoff between armed anti-government activists and federal authorities, Richard Mack — the right-wing former sheriff who helped organize the militia — managed to squeeze in references to both Rosa Parks and the Nazis.
Mack, who said that the protesters had considered using women as human shields and warned that the feds are still planning to raid the Bundy family, made the comments in a Monday interview with conservative radio host Steve Deace.
First, he equated Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the protesters with Rosa Parks, “peasants” who had stood against tyranny that has festered for decades.
“This particular peasant said, ‘No, I’m sorry, I’m not rolling over for this one. You guys are out of line, you don’t own the land, you don’t own our ranch, you don’t own us, and we will stand firm in the principles of freedom that we were blessed with as Americans,'” Mack said, in recordings clipped by Right Wing Watch. “And that’s exactly what this was. This was Rosa Parks refusing to get to the back of the bus.”
Then he and Deace blasted the federal authorities for “just following orders” in their round-up of Bundy’s cattle — which is the same excuse, Mack noted, that Nazi soldiers had used at the Nuremberg trials to defend their actions during the Holocaust.
“It’s a quote from the Nuremberg trials regarding the Holocaust,” he said. “And the soldiers that were put on trial at Nuremberg used that as a defense, and it was disallowed. They said anybody should know you don’t get to just kill people and then claim that you were just following orders.”
“And same thing with all of this,” he continued. “We’re supposed to be the ones in this world that are above such. This is the United States of America, where the rights of the individual are protected by the rest of us in government. And now we have the actual government officials doing just the opposite and almost bragging about it.”
Mack’s comments fall in line with the National Review Online correspondent who compared Bundy to Mahatma Gandhi.
Why do brain damaged rightwing loonies talk about Rosa Parks all the time? Is it possible they’re trying to communicate with us?
“No, I’m sorry, I’m not rolling over for this one. You guys are out of line, you don’t own the land,”
When you boil away the hyperbole and comically flawed historical comparisons you’re left with the nut of his argument, a big fat lie. Until '93 Bundy was faithfully making his payments to the BLM and fulfilling the terms of his contract. It wasn’t too long ago conservatives were arguing that contracts were sacrosanct.
It’s impossible to debate these people because they wrap their lies in a Gish Gallop of distortions and emotions in a frantic attempt to avoid discussing the law.
Co-opting and misapplying liberal icons such as JFK, Rosa Parks, Jesus, Ghandi, etc. are favorite tactics of self-identified ‘victims.’
What struck me most about this was this quote:
where Mr. Mack almost simultaneously identifies with, and disassociates himself from, ‘the government.’
Glad to hear Richard Mack is a former sheriff; sorry to hear he was ever a sheriff at all.