Ammon Bundy Is Good Now

Okay, he said some not-crazy things about immigration. Doesn't make him not crazy.

Ammon Bundy, the leader of the High Plains Grifters (not to mention Y'All Qaeda) and a favorite of various "patriot" and anti-government groups, has decided to sever his ties to the militia movement after many of his former supporters condemned him and his family for criticizing Donald Trump's demonization of immigrants.

Bundy took to Facebook last week to try to correct -- from a Biblical perspective, as filtered through his Mormon fundamentalism -- the wrongthink of Trump and Trumpism when it comes to hating immigrants, especially Central Americans seeking asylum. Don't go looking for the Facebook post, though; as part of his uncoupling from the militia crowd, Bundy has deleted his account (it's summed up well here, though). Happily, some rightwing loon who thinks Bundy lost his damn mind copied the whole thing to YouTube, for the purpose of posting a long tedious OMG-How-Could-You-Betray-Us? 

Bundy pointed out that conditions in Central America really are awful, what with rampant crime and governments unable/unwilling to do anything about it, and insisting that no, people fleeing from gangs tend not to be gangsters. He said families deserve to have their claims for asylum heard, and said the USA can certainly deny entry to any crimers among the asylum-seekers, so it's really unfair to assume all immigrants are criminals:

To group them all up like, frankly, our president has done — you know, trying to speak respectfully — but he has basically called them all criminals and said they're not coming in here," Bundy said in the video. "What about individuals, those who have come for reasons of need for their families, you know, the fathers and mothers and children that come here and were willing to go through the process to apply for asylum so they can come into this country and benefit from not having to be oppressed continually?"

Bundy followed that up with a tweetstorm that we've screencapped here, since he's announced his entire Twitter feed will soon go down the memory hole:

That was enough, of course, for a lot of his former friends to proclaim him a Soros-funded sellout, Deep State operative, and traitor who no longer deserves the support of decent American patriots who are looking for a good chance to dress up in camo and shoot some jackbooted federal thugs. Oh, look, screenshots , since that's all that's left:

Bundy told Buzzfeed reporter Salvador Hernandez he wasn't quite ready for the reaction from his fellow reactionaries, possibly because up until now, the Internet Flying Monkey Brigade had always been on his side:

"I expected to get a decent amount of pushback, but I also believed that I could explain to them why I'd taken those positions and why," he told BuzzFeed News. "But you know, I've always had these kinds of thoughts that people were not really listening to the principles of things, that they had aligned with me for some other reasons, and that some of those [reasons] are good and some of those might not be, but this last video kind of confirmed that."

And Bundy's completely right about the fact that his family's little rebellion against the federal government attracted a lot of hangers-on who didn't "get" their crazy beliefs in a very special copy of the US Constitution that only the Bundy family understands. There was enough overlap between the general anti-government beliefs of the "patriots" and the 3 Percenters and Oath Keepers and Constitutional Sheriffs and other assorted sovereign citizen nutjobs that they could all get along just fine, but the Bundys were on a mission from God, and as rightwing Mormons, they're a bit more attuned to the plight of refugees from a scary overbearing government, even if it isn't the US government.

That was clearly part of what bugged "Allahpundit" at the rightwing "Hot Air" blog:  

Doesn't the Bible instruct Christians to be Good Samaritans? Yes, says Bundy. More than that, though:

"You need to read and understand the scriptures. Migration to the Unites States is a huge part of the actions of the last days. We are to teach them the gospel as they come, love and welcome them."

Not even Bundy's practical argument -- we should be nice to refugees since, when the corrupt US government collapses, we patriots may all end up being refugees ourselves -- was convincing to "Allahpundit," who vowed to drink a little extra at the very stupid idea that Americans should "Admit Hondurans and Guatemalans en masse today and hopefully Honduras and Guatemala will admit Americans en masse tomorrow."

Now, before you start praising Ammon Bundy for finally seeing the error of his ways, don't be fooled: He hasn't changed at all. The guy is still very much an anti-government radical who thinks it's perfectly fine to defend your fake claims to federal land by training guns on BLM agents, and that no laws but God's are really legitimate. He's not quite an open-borders advocate, but his thinking on immigration is very much informed by both his Mormonism (let 'em in and Gospel 'em up before the End Times) and by his rejection of all government, which means the federal government shouldn't mess with the individual liberty of Messicans, either -- plus, they're a good source of cheap labor, and generally more religious than corrupted secular Americans. As he told Hernandez,

"I believe President Trump, the best way I could explain it is that he's a nationalist, and a nationalist in my view makes the decision that best benefits the nation, not the individual," Bundy said. "That is not freedom, and that is not what America was built upon."

When it comes to his core beliefs, Bundy remains bugfuck nutso about his theocratic version of extreme libertarianism and the primacy of the Second Amendment in making all people free. He just thinks Trump followers have joined the wrong cult:  

"I think they have their leader," he said. "I think, you know, President Trump is clearly their leader, and I think wherever he tells them to go, they'll go."

Heck, Bundy even worries that Trump followers could be a bit like the people who followed Hitler in the 1930s, which sounds awfully enlightened of him until you remember he also thinks federal ownership of land and taxation are also exactly like Nazi Germany.

And while Bundy's leaving social media, Hernandez advises us Bundy is considering writing a book about this whole affair, which might certainly make for some interesting Wonkette posts. We aren't about to wish Ammon Bundy farewell, anyway, because Crom knows he'll be back and seizing federal wildlife refuges again if Kamala Harris becomes president.

[Buzzfeed / Hot Air / St George News ]

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