{"id":200384,"date":"2021-04-26T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T23:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/04\/26\/tenacious-unicorn-alpacas-antifa-geodesic-domes-and-guns-whats-not-to-love\/"},"modified":"2021-04-26T18:34:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T23:34:00","slug":"tenacious-unicorn-alpacas-antifa-geodesic-domes-and-guns-whats-not-to-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/04\/26\/tenacious-unicorn-alpacas-antifa-geodesic-domes-and-guns-whats-not-to-love\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Tenacious Unicorn,&#8221; Alpacas, Antifa, Geodesic Domes, and Guns. What&#8217;s Not to Love?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 330px;\">  <iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"180\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b2E4ssjesMc\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"320\"><\/iframe><br \/><i>Why Progressives Should Carry Guns<sup>*<\/sup><\/i><\/div>\n<p>Near Pueblo, Colorado there is an LGBTQ owned and operated ranch named, &#8220;Tenacious Unicorn,&#8221; and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hcn.org\/issues\/53.2\/south-communities-meet-the-gun-toting-tenacious-unicorns-in-rural-colorado\">they have guns<\/a>.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>  I generally support restrictive laws on firearms, but I understand that the   political battle over gun control is lost, or at least that it is lost until   people who are members of oppressed minorities start packing heat, as shown by   the   <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mulford_Act\">highly restrictive gun control law signed into law by Ronald Reagan<\/a> when black people started packing heat. <\/p>\n<p>  Also, if the right wing realizes they the people who they try to bully might   be armed, maybe they will think twice before attempting to intimidate progressives. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the Feel Good Story of the Day: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>  <span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">A year ago, transgender rancher Penny Logue found the dome. Fed up with a     hostile landlord in the city and fearful for their safety amid     <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrc.org\/resources\/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020\">record-high<\/a>    deaths in the transgender community nationwide, Logue and her business     partner, Bonnie Nelson, sought refuge in the rural, open rangelands.     <\/p>\n<p>The geodesic dome perched on sprawling acreage in the remote Wet     Mountain Valley on the eastern flank of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range,     near the rural ranching hamlet of Westcliffe, Colorado. They were intrigued.     \u201cDomes are funky and cool and a bit against the status quo \u2014 and they help     the planet,\u201d Logue told me. So they bought it. <\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>They bought the dome, and by March, with the pandemic     raging and a divisive presidential election roiling, relocated to the valley     and created the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, a community of gun-loving,     transgender, anti-fascist alpaca ranchers. While they already knew the     financial, physical, and emotional challenges of operating a successful     ranch, they had no idea that the Wet Mountain Valley had become a cauldron     of right-wing conservatism \u2014 home to militias, vigilantes, Three Percenters     \u2014 anathema to the ranch\u2019s gender-inclusive, anti-racist, ecological     politics. <\/p>\n<p>  But rather than retreat, the unique LGBTQ+ community, around a dozen strong,   asserted its right to exist. They armed up and began speaking out, quickly   developing a local reputation that galvanized other local rural progressives.   In the process, they\u2019ve showed how queer communities can flourish. \u201cWe belong   here,\u201d Logue told me this past November. \u201cQueers are reclaiming country   spaces.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  Custer County, Colorado,<span><span>&nbsp;<\/span>where the newly formed Tenacious Unicorn Ranch is     located, is named after George Armstrong Custer. It was founded in March     1877 \u2014 nine months after Custer\u2019s defeat at The Battle of Little Bighorn \u2014     and its overwhelmingly white, rural and conservative population hovers at     around 5,000. While Colorado as a whole has shifted left in recent years,     Custer County has tacked right: In every presidential election since 2008,     when John McCain carried the county by 63%, the percentage of Republican     votes has steadily increased; Trump won with nearly     <a data-linktype=\"external\" data-val=\"https:\/\/dailyyonder.com\/for-most-americans-the-local-presidential-vote-was-a-landslide\/2020\/12\/17\/\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyyonder.com\/for-most-americans-the-local-presidential-vote-was-a-landslide\/2020\/12\/17\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">70%<\/a>    in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>  <span>The ranch exists at a philosophical intersection that is immediately     evident inside the dome, where a wall displays prized firearms \u2014 Bonnie\u2019s     sniper, a Springfield AR-15, two 12-gauge shotguns and a 22-rifle \u2014 and     flags for The Iron Front, the anti-Nazi symbol used by 1930s paramilitary     groups, which now symbolizes anti-fascism and intersectional Pride. Pride     flags with colorful stripes \u2014 pink, rose, yellow, green, pewter, black,     white \u2014 bedeck the wall, celebrating asexuality, agender identity,     lesbianism and nonbinary gender identities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>  Since Logue founded the ranch in 2018, its frontier libertarian ethos has   attracted social justice activists and gun-rights advocates, all seeking   sanctuary. \u201cWe\u2019re a haven. We offer work, we offer shelter, we offer peace,\u201d   says Logue, gesturing toward the expansive open space surrounding us. \u201cThere   are a lot of people who visit for upwards of a week and just enjoy their time   away from society,\u201d Nelson added. <\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>  Logue and her cohort seek to challenge the patriotic myths \u2014 about Manifest   Destiny, liberty and freedom \u2014 that their Wet Mountain Valley neighbors   double-down on in <i>The Sentinel<\/i>. \u201cThe American frontier or \u2018the   American West\u2019 wasn\u2019t conquered with rugged individualism,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was   conquered by communities sticking together. \u2026 Nobody did that by themselves.\u201d   Their social mission \u2014 akin to that of mutual-aid networks and similar to   anti-fascist groups like   <a data-linktype=\"external\" data-val=\"https:\/\/www.redneckrevolt.org\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.redneckrevolt.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Redneck Revolt<\/a>  as well as   <a data-linktype=\"external\" data-val=\"https:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2020\/04\/good-guys-with-guns-socialist-gun-club\/\" href=\"https:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2020\/04\/good-guys-with-guns-socialist-gun-club\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">leftist pro-gun groups<\/a>  like the   <a data-linktype=\"external\" data-val=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/154110\/antifa-arming-trump-crackdown\" href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/154110\/antifa-arming-trump-crackdown\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Brown Gun Club<\/a>  or the   <a data-linktype=\"external\" data-val=\"https:\/\/socialistra.org\/about\/\" href=\"https:\/\/socialistra.org\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Socialist Rifle Association<\/a>  \u2014 stems from their political commitments. \u201cIt isn\u2019t through harsh words and   violence that you defeat fascism,\u201d Logue told me. \u201cIt\u2019s through building   community, but only if you can stay alive long enough to do it. That means you   have to be armed \u2014 because fascists are armed, always.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>  <span>This is something they\u2019ve learned firsthand. \u201cThere are militias in the Wet     Mountain Valley,\u201d Logue said. \u201cThey\u2019ve showed up armed and threatening.\u201d     That spurred the ranchers to arm up. \u201cMoving here demanded gun ownership,\u201d     she continued. The ranchers watched from their front porch with a     high-powered scope and sniper rifle \u2014 the Springfield AR-15 on the living     room wall \u2014 staking out visitors loitering at the end of their driveway. The     visits ceased. It\u2019s rumored locally that militias unofficially \u201cpatrol\u201d     their surroundings to establish dominance. \u201cIn order to be treated as a     human, you have to show you can defend yourself more than they can hurt     you,\u201d Logue said. \u201cThen you can reach equality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I love this story so much. <\/p>\n<p>  <sup>*<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">The song of the Battle of Maxton Field is about     <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Battle_of_Hayes_Pond\">Lumbee Indians confronting the Klan near Maxton North Carolina<\/a>. The Indians kicked some serious ass that day and the Grand Dragon ended     up in jail as a result.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Progressives Should Carry Guns* Near Pueblo, Colorado there is an LGBTQ owned and operated ranch named, &#8220;Tenacious Unicorn,&#8221; and they have guns.&nbsp; I generally support restrictive laws on firearms, but I understand that the political battle over gun control is lost, or at least that it is lost until people who are members of &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,1029,1055,1030,1126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-agriculture","category-gun-laws","category-lgbtq","category-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}