Liberty Roundtable Interview With Shawna Cox

Liberty Roundtable Interview With Shawna Cox

“Although Shawnna and Mack have different viewpoints, we clearly agree that the Bundy’s and their supporters should be treated with dignity and respect and certainly should not be in Prison!
We look forward to working together to make a valiant stand in defense of  our sacred rights of Due Process and speedy trials. In unity we recognize There Is No Liberty With Innocents in Prison!
Please support our efforts at http://www.TheFreedomCoalition.com”
~ Sam Bushman, Liberty Roundtable, to Redoubt News

by Loren Edward Pearce

On June 1, 2017, Sam Bushman, of Liberty Roundtable podcast show, invited Shawna Cox to give her side of the story to what she observed in watching 6 videos of the circumstances surrounding the shirt incident with Ammon and Ryan Bundy, eventually leading to both of them being condemned to a 3 foot by 3 foot shower stall and then culminating in being placed back into “the hole” or solitary confinement.

Listen to The Interview Here: Liberty Roundtable

I reported on Bushman’s earlier interview with Richard Mack and objected to how they made assumptions, comparisons and conclusions about Ammon Bundy’s behavior and integrity. With the Shawna Cox interview, I am pleased to report that Bushman was very fair with her, giving her all the time she needed to report things as she recalled and interpreted them.

SMELLS LIKE A SETUP

In Bushman’s interview with Cox, she noted at the 14:50 mark that there was a follow up, post incident interview with the security guard who had seized the shirt who claimed that Ryan had brushed his arm while trying to get the shirt back but that it was no big deal, he was not going to press charges. Cox said it was clear from the video that Ryan never had physical contact with the guard. He attempted to get the shirt, but it was out of reach and no contact was made. Cox said that the video shows the guard calmly walking away and throwing the shirt into a hamper and Ryan and Ammon returning to their bunks. It appeared that the incident was over and done with.

Some time goes by and the video shows 5 guards reappearing at the door of the pod. The first video ends and is replaced by a hand held video. What happens next has already been reported but what I would like to emphasize is that:

1. The first video confirms that neither Ryan nor Ammon ever had physical contact with the guard and,
2. That the guard himself acknowledged that it was not a big deal and was not thinking of pressing charges.

However, there appears to be an element of discrimination against Ammon for doing something that was commonly done for months. Why the sudden crackdown? Why was something that was a common practice, the hanging of shirts, now escalated to something requiring 13 hours (originally planned for 72 hours) of torture in a 3 foot by 3 foot shower stall? Did prison staff decide to teach Ammon and Ryan a lesson? Were they looking for a way to marginalize and weaken them by putting them back into solitary, thereby making their defense in trial that much more difficult?

THE QUARTER INCH SYNDROME

After spending 41 days in solitary, Ammon had been released to the general population and was resting on his bed minding his own business. Following the example of many other prisoners, he had placed a shirt to block the bright light so he could get some sleep in the night only to be rudely awakened by a guard objecting to his shirt. That incident quickly escalated to something that could have ultimately taken his life, had they completed the planned 72 hours of confinement in the 3 foot by 3 foot space.

This kind of rapid escalation from an insignificant, trivial matter to one that involves life or death is what I call the “quarter inch syndrome” in honor of Randy Weaver from Ruby Ridge . As some may recall, Randy Weaver sold a shotgun with a shortened barrel, quarter inch under legal requirements, to an undercover federal agent. The quarter inch eventually led to his remote property being overrun by 500 federal agents and related staff, ending in the deaths of his son, his wife and some federal agents.

Likewise, the hanging of a shirt from a bed to block light, rapidly escalated into the use of extreme, overwhelming, “shock and awe” type of force by government staff and resulted in extreme suffering to Ammon and to Ryan, and could have resulted in death had there not been intervention from the many calls to the prison and to the US Marshals service.

Something as trivial as a parking ticket, can result in death or lifetime disability, because something escalates to the misuse of government lethal force.

The “quarter inch syndrome” applies to what happened to the Hammonds who used a common practice of back burns that accidentally burned a little over an acre of government land, a tiny fraction of the 700 million acres the feds own, and escalated into a life threatening 5 year sentence for 73 year old Dwight Hammond.

The “quarter inch syndrome” applies to Joe Robertson and his fire ready stock ponds on his private property, it applies to Jerry DeLemus who came to Bunkerville the day after the protest under the overpass, where the government seized his desire to help his neighbor and avoid bloodshed and escalated it to one where he now must spend 87 months in prison.

The “quarter inch syndrome” applies to a truck full of people, including Shawna Cox, headed to John Day, armed with books and projectors to educate the people, and escalated to the death of a man, LaVoy Finicum, who had never had a speeding ticket in his life and in the cover up of the actions of special hostage FBI agents.

The “quarter inch syndrome” is at the root of what is wrong with big, centralized government. George Washington reportedly said, “Government is not reason nor is it eloquence, it is force.”

THE BULLY CREED

It has been said that the Golden Rule is, “he who has the gold makes the rules”. Likewise, the Golden Rule for the bully is, “he who is physically stronger, makes the rules” or even more simply put, “might makes right”.

Under this way of thinking, government, who has the bigger muscles, the bigger weapons and the most gold (resources), makes the rules and how they are applied. The government contract staff at the Nevada Southern Detention Center, suddenly decided that hanging shirts from beds were not permissible, and any resistance is met with superior force and disproportionate punishment that does not fit the crime.

The essence of the “quarter inch syndrome” is that the trivial or insignificant action is met with disproportionate force and punishment.

WHY DO BULLIES BULLY?

Whether the school bully, an abusive spouse or a government employee, the need to bully, to assert authority and to always win the argument, is motivated by many things:

1. Ego, the obsessive need to be right.
2. Insecurities. “I use government authority to get what I can’t have in my personal life”
3. Blind loyalty to a team or organization. “My country and my government is always right, and I occupy the moral high ground because it is sponsored by government”.
4. Training and brainwashing. “I learned to tackle hard in high school football and to put down resistance during military service. I apply that training in my correctional officer job.”
5. Money. “I have to pay my mortgage. I go along with other bullies because they are the bosses, and I can’t afford to lose my job.”
6. Psychopathic pleasure in having control and being able to dish out suffering to others without any consequences.
7. Skeletons in my closet. “I am leveraged by other bullies who will punish me with my own past indiscretions or mistakes if I don’t do what they say.”

STRAINING AT A GNAT AND SWALLOWING A CAMEL

One of the most disturbing human traits is what Jesus referred to as,

Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel! Matthew 23:24

The guards looked for ways to find a gnat by something so inconsequential as a shirt on a bed, but swallowed a camel by:

1. Lying to Ammon and Ryan about simply wanting to talk to him in the hall.
2. Ignoring the past pattern and practice of hanging shirts from beds and zeroing in on Ammon
3. Throwing Ammon into a 3 foot by 3 foot shower stall for an intended 72 hours.
4. Using brute force to strip him naked in front of other female guards.
5. Throwing him back into solitary.

AND THE BIGGEST CAMEL OF ALL, ACTUALLY A GODZILLA, AMMON (AND OTHER DEFENDANTS) HAS NEVER BEEN FOUND GUILTY BY A JURY, IN FACT, HE HAS BEEN ACQUITTED BY A JURY AND SHOULD NOT BE IN PRISON TO START WITH!

Judge Gloria Navarro, strains at a gnat, trying to find evidence of dangerousness and flight risk in people famous for their Christ like charity while swallowing the camel in denying a 500 year old right to bail, that pretrial detainees are subject to all the horrors of prison as punished convicts and that the right to a speedy trial no longer exists.