There are two ways to look at the St. Luke’s vs Bundy case. Is Bundy being persecuted or prosecuted as there is a distinct difference between the two.
Persecution is the act or practice of persecuting; harassing or oppressive treatment; especially, the infliction of injury (as loss of property or civil rights, physical suffering, or death) as a punishment for adhering to some opinion or course of conduct, as a religious creed or a mode of worship, which cannot properly be regarded as criminal.
The prosecution is the side of a legal case that argues that a person who is accused of a crime is guilty.
As we understand it his whole problem started with St. Luke’s bringing in Child Protective Services when a doctor’s appointment by Diego Rodriguez’s daughter for her infant child was missed. We are not going to get into the he said she said of what was right or wrong with what St. Luke’s or CPS did or didn’t do. We are only interested in the fact that there was a peaceful protest at St. Luke’s hospital. St. Luke’s claims it should receive punitive damages, which a jury is permitted to award if it’s decided that outrageous conduct occurred with the intent to cause harm.
So let’s take a step back in time to May 11, 2022, and look at the beginning of this lawsuit. It was reported by the Idaho Press that “St. Luke’s Health System filed a lawsuit in state court Wednesday on several counts against gubernatorial candidate Ammon Bundy, Diego Rodriguez, and related entities like the People’s Rights Network.” “St. Luke’s requested a jury trial and monetary damages of at least $50,000.”
Ammon Bundy and Diego Rodriguez were unresponsive to the lawsuit and didn’t show up for this court appearance. In most cases, we believe that the judge would be right in giving St. Luke’s a default judgement of $50,000 as requested by the plaintiff and that would be the end of it. Well, it is a year later, and this non-profit medical facility is now claiming 7 plus million dollars in damages. St. Luke’s claims the protest affected their operations causing them great financial harm by not being able to function in a normal manner.
Here is a video with commentary by KTVB news on the protest but what we ask you to do is to look closely at the video and the protesters, so you have an opportunity to decide if this was or was not a peaceful protest.
In our opinion, this was a peaceful protest and any additional security at the hospital was unnecessary. St. Luke’s is claiming that this peaceful protest caused the hospital to shut down for several hours and direct patients to alternate facilities for security reasons at great cost to them.
One has to ask the question was Ammon Bundy within his rights to protest outside of the hospital as a freedom recognized by the First Amendment of our Constitution, which protects the freedom of speech, religion, and the press and also protects the right to peaceful protest and to petition the government. We contend that this is a very good reason for Ammon to ask for a change of venue to a federal court if he is going to receive a fair trial as it is our opinion that he would not get a fair trial in the Idaho Court system. The liberal media and his accusers have already painted a picture of Bundy as an anarchist when in fact the only thing he has ever been convicted of is trespassing.
In our opinion St. Luke’s assertions would be more difficult to prove in a federal court of law. If you look at the videos of this protest, you will find as we did no significant signs of violent or challenging activities or behavior that would cause the hospital to shut down. Unfortunately, in our opinion St. Luke’s needed to prove a point that no one should ever challenge them, so they raised the stakes and decided to sue Bundy and associates for 7+ million dollars and asked the judge to have him arrested. It is these actions in our opinion that this was no longer a prosecution and became persecution. The simple fact that St. Luke’s has gone beyond the pale by requesting Bundy’s arrest and has already spent an estimated quarter million plus on legal fees speaks volumes about this looking more like persecution.
We have clearly seen in the past two years that corporations have taken on a much more actively aggressive role in dealing with not just the public in general but also with their employees. Think back to the corporate mandates that employees take the mRNA experimental vaccine for covid with many disregarding the religious right to refuse. This was a total disregard for individual rights under our constitution. Even our president issued executive orders for our military and others dealing with federal government contracts to take this vaccine or be punished with dismissal from their jobs. Many were fired or resigned from their positions and had little recourse even in the courts. With this in mind, we seriously doubt if Bundy could get a fair trial in Idaho’s court system. His move to have this case heard in a federal court has merit under the first amendment and we hope he gets a change of venue.
In conclusion, in our opinion, the charges against Bundy and associates may have once been considered legitimate prosecution with a $50,000 judgement but in today’s world, too many who stand up for their rights are pummeled into submission by large corporate entities in conjunction with the liberal media. If we lose our right to protest, we might as well be living under a dictatorship, and this is where the rubber meets the road. It often takes people like Ammon Bundy to be the tip of the spear when it comes to justice and protecting our constitutional rights.
In today’s world, there are too few that are willing to sacrifice in order to confront the oppressors who would have us submit to them without question. It is our right to challenge the authorities that we have elected to govern us. It is no different with corporations when we don’t like what they are doing we need to boycott them till they acquiesce just like Budweiser did with the anti-transgender backlash which dropped their sales by 20%. If we are to have the country that was gifted to us by our forefathers through Blood, Sweat, and Tears, then we must stand up for our rights or fall as one nation under God. I think back through our history to the Boston Tea Party members who were protesting the tax on tea. These men were also marked as anarchists, but it is because of men like these that we have the right to protest and question our government officials when we believe they are wrong. We tip our hat to Mr. Bundy and associates who are not afraid to challenge the authorities through peaceful protest.
Always remember, “We Get the Government We Deserve”.
