Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues The Legal Forum Let's check in on the cattle abusers, deadbeat grazers, wildlife squatter Bundys

Wow! That was a long answer. Mine tend to be also, even when I try to cut them short.
You give a fair description of how pirates, sovereigns and governments have viewed, established and defended their position on property rights.
I belong to another view of the ethics of government and property. Let's begin with property or let's even go back as far as before humans! All sorts of animals establishes territory fot themselves. They have done so for probably millions of years. It is a mechanism for securing food and shelter for themselves and the next generation.
Skirmishes along the borders are frequent and serve to uphold mutual respect for boundaries. Attacks on the heartland of a territory is literally a life or death situation.
When humans set themselves apart from apes we still kept territories where we gathered, and hunted for food. Even nomadic or seasonal movers kept territories. Yet there were no governments in sight.
When farming began, it is reasonable to assume that we established boundaries and guarded territory. At first without any governments. But with settled people came a new predator, the pirate (or what ever name you prefer to call those thieves or raiders).
When they were successful over time they established themselves as rulers. From this time on we may say there have been "governments" of various sorts.
Here is an excerpt of how J.S. Mill introduces legitimacy of governments and the liberties of the ruled.

THE subject of this Essay is ... Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognized as the vital question of the future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages, but in the stage of progress into which the more civilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment.

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived ... as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest; who, at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by innumerable vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying upon the flock than any of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and which, if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks; by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power. ...

A time, however, came in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees, this new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much importance had been attached to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) was a resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its own will. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power, concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. ...
Those who admit any limit to what a government may do, except in the case of such governments as they think ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions among the political thinkers of the Continent.

Mill and I, it would seem, subscribe to the idea that the power (the right) of government is only a temporary loan from the ruled. Thus the government is not the source of property rights. The government is merely the clerk, keeping records on our behalf on who owns what.
You, by the description you gave, seem to submit to the government that it is the original and supreme power.
On this we obviously disagree.

On the Hammond issue. Don't you think it the least strange that the original judge in the case, when sentencing, clearly stated the law mandates a minimum of two years in prison (I believe it was), but that he could not let his conscience make such a harsh sentence. That must make him the person to prosecute for letting the Ammonds off to leniently. And in my opinon it still makes the Ammonds victims of double jeopardy, since they accepted the first sentence and served it. After that it must be to late for the state, federal or otherwise, to come back and demand a second or prolonged time in prison for the same crime.
It's not worthy of a state of justice.
That they opted to take the punishment again does not alter the falsehood of the whole thing. But admittedly, it pulled the rug from under the cowboy boots of the Malheur occupants.
Something is surely rotten in the United States!