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Earlier this week the federal government sat back and watched a video of Ammon Bundy and his armed insurgency using stolen federal equipment to tear down a stretch of fence on Bureau of Land Management land where the Malheur Wildlife Refuge is located. Like any fence, the section that the criminals tore down bordered another, private, property owned by a rancher that Ammon Bundy swore asked the insurgency to help him remove because he wanted his cattle to illegally graze on federal land. That was on Monday. However, on Wednesday the truth was revealed when the cattle rancher, Tim Puckett, told reporters that not only did he NOT want or ask Bundy to tear down the fence, he said “he is very upset” and repaired the fence.

Puckett went on to say that

“They’re not coming onto my place no more. If they do, I’m gonna have to do something about it. I don’t want them going across my ground. I work with the BLM. I have no problem with them. The fence has not nor will ever affect my cattle operation. I am a good steward of the land. In no way do I feel that I am entitled to the refuge for grazing.” Puckett is likely also aware that the BLM land has been a refuge for 100 years and is culturally significant to Native Americans, and that “keeping cattle from walking over burial sites is immensely important.”

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Now, many people wonder why Ammon Bundy, a Mormon businessman from Arizona is leading an armed insurgency in Oregon intent on seizing federal land for, as he admits, cattle and logging interests. As it turns out, besides doing the bidding of the Koch brothers like his Mormon brethren in Utah, or following in his Mormon daddy, Cliven’s footsteps, Ammon Bundy is following the path of Mormon founder Joseph Smith. A path that includes commanding an armed militia, attempting to confiscate land for Mormon’s new Zion according to revelations from god, and towards a serious charge of treason against the United States. None of this is new information or not well-documented in history books, and it is likely why the Bundy clan and Utah Mormons are following their cult’s creator’s path; likely including beseeching the Mormon god for direction and counsel like Joseph Smith was wont to do. They are certainly not supplicating any semblance of the Christian god because he commands his followers to obey the government authorities without question.

The path that Ammon, like his daddy Cliven, took to lead a militia against the federal government to seize federal land is a nearly exact replication of Joseph Smith’s; including praying for ‘celestial guidance.’ Of course, the conservative media is silent on the religious aspects of these acts of sedition in the name of the lord like they are about the Koch’s support in any action to seize federal land for logging, mining, and oil; likely cattle are very low on the Koch brothers’ priority list as they are Cliven Bundy.

Bundy the Mormon had no reservations telling a gathering in 2014 that god inspired him to disarm the federal government and start a civil war. He said,

“The Lord told me … if the local sheriff doesn’t take away the arms from federal agents, we the people will have to face these arms in a civil war. This is your chance to straighten this thing up.'” Bundy also claimed that because he summoned an armed militia and conservative media and Republicans supported their little ‘civil war,’ they were spiritually touched and would not have won without Mormon god on their side.

“If the standoff with the Bundys was wrong, would the Lord have been with us? Could those people that stood with me without fear and went through that spiritual experience have done that without the Lord being there? No, they couldn’t.”

Bundy is delusional to think for a minute that the federal government’s restraint, and not his Mormon god prevented bloodshed and those people and their spiritual experience know it is true. They also know the federal government has adopted a “hands off” approach to white domestic terrorism and sedition because it saves law enforcement and judicial power for unarmed people of color. If America was not inherently racist, Ammon Bundy would never have lived to repeat his father’s actions in another state.

Still, about a year-and-a-half after the Bundy ranch standoff, like his father and like Joseph Smith, Ammon Bundy claims it Mormon god’s counsel inspired him to leave Arizona, summon unemployed armed malcontents, and seize and occupy federal government land in Oregon.

In a 20-minute video, Ammon Bundy said it was his “Supreme Commander the Good Lord Almighty” who inspired his “righteous cause” to take over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. Bundy said,

“I got on my knees and asked the Lord, I said, Lord, if you want me to write something, please help me clear my mind, and show me what I should write. I began to understand what the Lord felt about Harney County, and about the country. I clearly understood that the Lord was not pleased about what was happening.”

According to Bundy, his Mormon god impressed on him that unless he acted against the government authorities immediately, there would be “tyranny for all Americans.”

“I did exactly what the Lord asked me to do. I did it the way he asked me, the best I could.” Bundy ends his appeal to strong arms “for the lord” with a faith-based clarion call for real religious Americans to “come to Harney County Oregon and participate in this wonderful thing that the Lord is about to accomplish.” See Romans 13:1-7 about exactly how wonderful “the lord” considers any kind of Christian’s accomplishment against the “governing authorities;” or an Oregon cattle rancher’s private property.

Invariably, there will be offense taken by some members of the LDS faith that anyone dare claim there is a connection between the Bundy seditions and the cult of Joseph Smith. Too bad. The historical literature is beyond refute and it is no more an indictment of the entire religion’s adherents than condemning the sheer hate of evangelical fanatics is an indictment of all Christians.

Ammon Bundy, like his father Cliven, is a Mormon. And like their prophet-god Mormon Joe Smith, they were sent a revelation from a “celestial” being to marshal an armed militia and take over federal land. It is also true that the Utah legislature and governor, predominately Mormons, did in fact actively pursue legislation their “lord” likely inspired to seize federal land to sell to the Koch brothers for mining, logging, and oil extraction.

None of this nonsense would continue if the federal government would take action against seditious Mormons like Missouri and Illinois did in the 1840s. Actions that held the bad religious actors to account for attempting to seize federal land because a charlatan said ‘the lord’ made him do it. The Bundy’s know it was not the lord speaking to them; it was the Kochs getting them to do their dirty work.

Photo: Democratic Underground