Farmer, radio host, blogger, and patriot, Trent Loos reflects on his experiences at “The Meeting that Never Happened,” in John Day, Harney County, Oregon.
Two days following the 1-year anniversary of the killing of rancher, LaVoy Finicum on a lonely highway in Harney County, Oregon, his wife and torch-carrier, Jeanette, held a public meeting at the very hall where LaVoy and his associates were scheduled to meet on January 26, 2016. Neither LaVoy nor his passengers made it to the town hall gathering in John Day, where they were going to meet with locals and talk about why ranchers from across the West had gathered at the Malheur Refuge to protest what they believed was the unjust imprisonment of father and son ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond.
Instead of a public meeting, there was a roadblock, instead of boot steps into a public gathering place, gunshots rang through the trees, instead of a pledge to the Flag, a man’s blood stained the snowy drifts off of U.S. Highway 395, instead of the voices of citizens discussing the rights to life, liberty and property, there were screams from inside LaVoy’s truck.
One year later, Jeanette, her children, and the friends that LaVoy left behind when he was killed in am ambush by FBI and Oregon State Patrol officers, held that meeting where, at last, folks from all over the country gathered freely, those boot steps could be heard, that pledge to the flag of the United States could be made, and the voices of citizens discussing the rights to life, liberty and property could be ring through the meeting hall at John Day, Oregon, and beyond.
Here, Trent Loos, who helped host The Meeting that Never Happened, reflects on the life and work of LaVoy Finicum, sharing LaVoy’s own words about ranching, resources, prosperity and freedom.
Trent thanks Jeanette Finicum and all those who took part in The Meeting that Never Happened, in order to bring national attention to the issues that inspired LaVoy Finicum and his friends to protest acts of the federal government one year ago. This is One Cowboy’s Stand for Freedom.
Podcasts produced by Trent Loos of Loos Tales
Attendees park outside John Day community center.
Trent Loos speaks to the gathering crowd
Folks, many who traveled far distances, fill the hall for The Meeting that Never Happened
“Life Is a Gift from God.
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production–in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”