I'm curious how this constitutes a "land grab" when the Federal government already owned this land?
At the risk of sounding extremist, I pay federal taxes and am proud to be a citizen of the United States.
This Bundy thug has grazed illegally on BLM (United States) land for decades and has refused to pay his minimal grazing fees, owing a million dollars or more. He has also made racist remarks about our President. Bundy's minions blocked traffic on an Interstate Highway. In addition, Bundy and his gang members have threatened Federal officers with firearms and have seiged Federal facilities with automatic weapons. His cases have been tried in courts of law and he has lost. Let's call a spade a spade, Bundy is a tax evading, freeloading, domestic terrorist with seemingly no respect for the laws of our great nation. He and his terrorist organization give a bad name to over 10,000 ranchers who legally and respectfully graze on public property, lands which belong to all Americans,
I'm happy that our elected President sought to further preserve and protect these special places for present and future generations of all Americans and people of the world.
I find it highly amusing, hilarious even, that you use a phrase that is often considered racist (call a spade a spade) to wrongly accuse another of being a racist!!! So funny!
In all seriousness, and with no disrespect, it is people like yourself who have all these opinions that are not based on fact who are the problem.
The history of our so-called 'public lands' is intriguing, if a movie were to be made of it I'm sure you and everyone else would see very clearly who the 'good guy' is. You would obviously be shocked, even. Alas, most people aren't interested in how the simple rule of law was made complex by devious characters through the years.
Our Constitution (the Supreme Law of the Land...as far as I know) is explicit in what the federal government can and cannot do. The States created the fed, not the other way around...that must first be understood. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17...(the Enclave Clause), the Property Clause (Article 4, section 3, clause 2) in no way contradicts it.
I wrote this a few months ago....easier to paste it!
In order for us to fully understand what is at stake we need to go back in time…say, to Ireland! The coal mines…those poor families that some here may even be able to claim as ancestors. They were nothing more than slaves, even in their Homeland, covered in soot their entire lives…living in soot filled shacks, never able to get the black coal out from under their fingernails or out of their clothes…and eventually their lungs.
The worst part is that they had no choice. Think hard about that.
They lived in a time of Kings. Of Overlords.
The brave ones who came to the Americas knew nothing of where they were going…only that they must leave, that there must be something better. At great risk they came…usually as indentured servants. Just a nice way to say ‘slave’, however, it wasn’t any different than what they were fleeing.
I’ve often asked different people (including my children when I home schooled) if they would go if another planet was discovered that could sustain life. Imagine a New Frontier such as the Americas! Would you go?
Usually, people immediately think “yes!” and with the technology we have today we don’t think about what it must have been like for our ancestors…so, consider that you would lose all contact with your beginnings. To never see your parents, grandparents, cousins, friends…to never get a letter or hear their voice again…to forever wonder what became of them. To never see your home again.
Would you go?
Life in the New Country wasn’t easy, but, there was hope! Opportunity! Even riches!
We declared independence from our former oppressors, not so we could create yet another country just like it! Oh no! We wanted to create a country where everyone was free and at liberty to pursue their own happiness! Utopia? We can do this!
First order of business was to create ‘states’…hence the Articles of Incorporation & the original 13 States. Later, it was decided that these states needed a central government, like an ‘umbrella’ that would protect the borders of all, so a Union was created and called the United States of America and a Constitution, a ‘contract’, was written and signed by the States with the agreement that a Bill of Rights would follow…something that would ‘cement’ the Rights of the People so they would never come under a Kings rule again. Well, that is, IF the people had the guts to keep it.
In 1803 an amazing thing happened, Napoleon Bonaparte offered to sell the Louisiana territory to the United States!
“President Jefferson, however, was in a quandary. He had always advocated strict adherence to the letter of the Constitution, yet there was no provision empowering him to purchase territory. Given the public support for the purchase and the obvious value of Louisiana to the future growth of the United States, however, Jefferson decided to ignore the legalistic interpretation of the Constitution and forgo the passage of a Constitutional amendment to validate the purchase. This decision contributed to the principle of implied powers of the federal government.” https: //history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/louisiana-purchase
As we know a few other ‘purchases’ were made over the years and the same ‘equal footing’ was to be applied when Territories gained Statehood.
Nearly 100 years went by before the northern states (the original colonies) decided that the southern states needed to pay a national tax due to the products they exported, you see, the northern states didn’t have the agricultural opportunities that the south did…it was only right that they paid their ‘fair share’. Civil war is an ugly, terrible thing. Mostly it was written that it was over slavery, however, most of us know it was always money.
The northern states have long claimed the riches of our continent and later it became the national government, or perhaps it’s the same thing? When gold was discovered in the California’s the mountaintops in the west were retracted from claiming. The waterways were originally claimed as ‘navigable’ and belonging to the United States only if they were navigable ‘from and to’ the sea, then if they crossed state lines…then if a canoe could navigate them…now all the water belongs to the United States through the Clean Water Act.
In 1929 it was determined by Congress that the western states of Utah, Wyoming and Nevada would receive their public lands when they were populated enough to have a valid voice in Congress. Another little ‘tid bit’, the northern states had factories …if land became available in the west they might lose their workers! Can’t have that!
Do I sound like a ‘southern sympathizer’? Lol…I never thought I was until I studied history & realized that the wars have always been about land and who controls it. From the beginning of mankind, from Africa to Egypt to Japan, Russia, the middle east to here…all of it. The land. The resources. Power.
In our little corner of the world we can hardly see how we’d fit into this big picture. Yes…it’s 1.9 million acres, but, still…nothing much there! No ‘resources’, no water…artifacts, yes, but, really? What kind of ‘power play’ could that be? How could we possibly hold any kind of ‘key’ to the future?
We need to think differently. We need to see the connections we have with all the other states with ‘public lands’. Anarchy is alive and well…in Washington DC and it’s creeping westward, quickly.
Anarchy: a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.
They tell us that WE are lacking the ‘recognition of authority’ when the truth is, we ARE the authority! WE are not recognized as such by the federal government that the States created! We, the people, are the law, we ‘hire’ men and women to represent us in Congress and on our streets, in our communities. As long as we the people exist and have that ‘spark of Patriotism’ in our hearts, anarchy is not possible.
What do we do? How do we protect our livelihoods? We’re outnumbered, out spent…outmaneuvered.
I will say this, I support Cliven Bundy and family all the way! No, I didn’t think what they did was going to ‘work’ in the manner I wish it had (people would have backed them up, the government would have realized how wrong they were, lands would have been transferred to the states…Utopia!). I highly doubt they thought it would work that way, either…lol.
What do you do when you see it all so clearly and others seem so blind? You educate!
What do you do when you look into the eyes of your grandbabies and know what is at stake?
You educate. Still knowing that all are not great students.
What do WE do to protect our corner?
We put our support behind these brave men and their families…because when THEY win? We win. Our troubles will go away. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with their tactics…but, we back the rightness of their intent.
have been complaining of the glare from those fields since their inception.