3 percent of Idaho?
Members of a group from outside Oregon arrived on Friday at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to “secure a perimeter” around the compound and prevent “a Waco-style situation.”
The arrival of the “3% of Idaho” was the latest development in the situation outside Burns, where an armed occupation of the refuge by an Ammon Bundy-led militant group entered its seventh day.
“They just keep an eye on everything that is going on” to make sure “nothing stupid happens,” Bundy said Friday afternoon outside refuge headquarters.
The 3 percent of Idaho? Is that, like, the identifier of the Idaho Democratic Party?
Curtiss and Chris McIntire, another group spokesman, called the situation a “double-edged sword” – the perimeter is meant to protect the occupiers from an outside attack but also to protect the Harney County community from those who arrive in solidarity with Bundy’s cause but may be prone to violence, they said. The Idaho group is here to keep the situation “peaceful” and reassure the community that it isn’t in danger, they said.
But what of the name? Actually it segues to the, perhaps, elitist nature of right wing versus left-wing politics. When the “left” marched out in protest, they declared themselves the “99 percent”, or perhaps “with the 99 percent“. (The South Park spoof on the whole Occupy ends with
The protests eventually fall apart, as the 99% and 83% are replaced by various smaller percentages, according to a reporter, who then rushes away when he is informed that protestors are now “occupying” a Macaroni Grill.
which is kind of where we get to this weird “3 percent” thing).
So, here it’s the idea that, oh, something like only 3 percent of the people care about liberty, and are willing to take a stand for liberty, before it is too late.
Things get more complicated in that the “3 percent of Idaho” uses roman numerals in their logo, so it looks like they’re claiming to be the 111 percent of Idaho.