A coalition created to counter the use of intimidation to protest public policy announced its formation Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The whole point is to raise public awareness of extreme militant groups that resort to intimidation and use of weaponry to interfere with normal government processes to address grievances, said Rose Chilcoat, associate director of Durango-based Great Old Broads for Wilderness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re acting like boys in a schoolyard, and they\u2019re getting away with it,\u201d Chilcoat said. \u201cYou can\u2019t take the law into your own hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coalition began to coalesce, Chilcoat said, before the most recent display of bravado by a militant group, the heavily armed Oath Keepers, who are keeping government officials and the public away from the Sugar Pine Mine near Grants Pass, Oregon. The owners of the gold mine are locked in a legal battle with the Bureau of Land Management over mining practices.<\/p>\n
What is now only a courtroom drama in Oregon follows by a scant year the withdrawal of BLM personnel in the face of armed protesters on Cliven Bundy\u2019s ranch in Nevada where federal officials had started to round up Bundy\u2019s livestock for nonpayment of grazing fees.<\/p>\n
A pattern could be developing from the in-your-face attitude of dissidents, Chilcoat said.<\/p>\n
Great Old Broads is no stranger to intimidation for championing protection of the environment. Signs referring to them that stated WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE greeted their support of prohibiting motorized traffic in culturally sensitive areas. Then in 2012, a chain across a road prevented their vehicles from leaving a camp on private property,<\/p>\n
Ladd Everett from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence said the events at Sugar Pine Mine scare him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lack of government response sends the message \u2018We can get away with it, so let\u2019s do it again,\u2019\u201d Everett said.<\/p>\n
Three principles govern the Ballots Not Bullets Coalition:<\/p>\n
The Second Amendment doesn\u2019t confer the right to shoot or kill federal officials solely because one concludes that the government is tyrannical.<\/p>\n
The Constitution addresses redress of grievances, eliminating the need for violence.<\/p>\n
Rule of law must be enforced in order to eliminate establishment of a precedent that threatens freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Coalition seeks to counter intimidation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[781,13,193,195,549],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-112300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-environmental-politics","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-land-use","tag-u-s-bureau-of-land-management","tag-united-states-forest-service"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112300"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=112300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}