It’s hard out there for a man’s man.

The kind of guy who willing to strap on the shooting irons, leave the wife and little ones behind and go out and administer some old fashioned western justice just like John Wayne would have done. Steely-eyed men who use assault rifles for rabbit hunting and wear kevlar vests in case the bunnies shoot back. Men who see evil in the world – at least since there has been a black guy in the White House – that must be put down before there can be peace in the valley. These grim-faced men just need a cause – or in this case: a cause célèbre, – to get them to saddle up the mini-van, kiss the wife goodbye at the break of dawn and ride off into destiny, not knowing if they will ever come back – but if they did, remember to pick up milk and dryer sheets at the store.

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For a brief moment in time these itchy-fingered gun nuts, anti-government ‘patriots’, conspiracy lunatics, anger management counseling drop-outs, T-shot junkies, weekend warriors and guys who were just trying to get out of mowing the lawn, had a man they would follow into hell if need be, in the person of Cliven Bundy: a pigheaded deadbeat welfare rancher in the Nevada desert.

Bundy’s story is as old as the west: scuffling, barely-getting-by cattle rancher’s livelihood threatened by big property owner who is trying to squeeze him off of the ole homestead that has been in his family for generations.

Except, in this case, it’s more: cattle rancher illegally grazing his cattle on land that is not his for over twenty years, refuses to pay for it, keeps going to court and losing, threatens anyone who goes near his welfare cows, uses the word ‘sovereign’ like it is magic, and vows to go to Alamo/Ruby Ridge/Waco/Masada on anyone’s asses who argues with him.

But there are cowboy hats, so it’s pretty much the same.

This story caught the eye of the normally law and order media types across the country who saw Bundy’s lawlessness and threat of a full fledged range war between jack-booted BLM men and simple salt-of-the-earth townsfolk as ratings gold. Ham-headed Sean Hannity, who recently decried the twerking crime wave gripping America’s youth, jumped in with both Gucci loafers, saying Bundy was only trying to keep the price of beef down for America’s poor, while excitedly playing up the possibility of some rootin’ tootin’ gun shootin.’

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Bunker bound radio crazy Alex Jones had a seventy-two hour boner over the story, urging his followers to head on down to Bundy’s ranch and stop the Illuminati Bilberberg Chemtrail UN Agenda 21 cattle wrangling, or die trying. Alex his own bad self couldn’t make it because he was washing his hair/cleaning out his closets/waiting for the cable guy.

And with Cliven Bundy owing in excess of a million dollars, child-support deadbeat father former congressman Joe Walsh dispatched himself to the Nevada desert, to lend his expertise in getting out of paying court-ordered fines, penalties and overdue payments. Also, to strike a heroic pose:

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Unfortunately for these guys the Cow Apocalypse Shoot-em Up never came, as the feds decided shooting a bunch of dumb animals (the militia guys, not the cows) would be counterproductive, and now all the militia guys are going home secure in the knowledge that they ‘won’ and they stood up to ‘the man’ and, “Woman! Bring me a beer and a sandwich, I have returned.”

And there will be peace in the valley … until she reminds him that he forgot the dryer sheets.

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It’s hard out there for a man’s man.

[Headline credit to Steve Zorowitz]

[Cow by Robert J. Beyers II on Shutterstock]