I have been discussing this situation elsewhere already and have taken a perverse interest in following the (non-television) news accounts.

I well understand that rural areas of the Great Basin are having economic difficulties. God knows it is a harsh place to scrape out a living and always has been. But they seem not to realize the degree to which their way of life is also heavily subsidized by federal policies and programs, and that their local economies are FAR more prosperous and stable today than they were before the New Deal and these subsidies were instituted. They seem to take the benefits for granted, as their due, rather than as direct subsidies granted them by the entire country, because we think rural poverty is bad for the nation as a whole.

Moreover, these particular "militia" men who are holding the Malheur Refuge hostage in order to publicize their views, seem to hold ideas on the Constitution and history that, as soon as they are compared to the facts of history and matters of public record, their version of the world is shown to be a strange romantic fantasy with little grounds in reality. This would be fairly harmless, if they weren't heavily armed and ready to defend their fantasyland beliefs with real bloodshed.

I hope this can be resolved soon and without shots fired in anger, but their current intransigence in the face of reasonable requests by the local population for them to leave doesn't bode well. At the very least, they need to be arrested for their obvious misdemeanors, convicted and spend some time under probationary supervision.