keystone183 Wrote:You won't find a bigger advocate of private property rights than me. Or any individual rights for that matter. Which is why this is an interesting issue. To me it boils down to this. The land is not his. I haven't heard any of the possible owners of this land, besides the feds, take a stand on this. Maybe i have missed them. Seems the BLM has claimed jurisdiction for a long, long time. Have there been no court battles by the town or state in regards to this? I know the feds own most everything west of Texas. Whether they should or shouldn't is a separate issue. But seems like the horse is out of the barn. It should be a simple matter to determine who OWNS the land. I can't imagine this hasn't been done.
Actually, the land IS his, as no one else has a greater claim or need for the land. All land held in trust by the Federal Government is owned by the people of the United States, and is to be used by the Federal Government to benefit the greatest number of people. Since it seems no one but the Bundy's want to utilize this land, (It takes something like 100 acres to support 1 cow/calf, so its not exactly prime land!) and the desert tortoise isn't exactly a high land use animal, even the excuse of protecting the land for them is nothing but a smokescreen. Its fascinating that you can relocate desert tortoises, apparently. Plenty of desert in Nevada to move them to! However, no one has actually proven that grazing cattle seems to be an issue with the tortoises. If his family has been grazing cattle there for 100 years and there are still tortoises, doesn't that say something about the fact that grazing and tortoises are NOT mutually exclusive?
The second issue is why the States keep allowing the federal government to take over land and allow the BLM and forest service to manage it. The States rightfully own that land, they need to grow some cojones and tell the Feds to go home! Google a map of the Federally managed land in the US. A HUGE percentage of it is west of the Mississippi, and most of that is Rocky Mountain states and west. Wonder why that is? Maybe because those States are vast and much of the land was unfarmable?
1.1% of land in Ohio and 1.6% of land in Oklahoma is Federally managed, but 81.1% of Nevada, 53% of Oregon, 66% of Utah, 48% of Wyoming, 42% of Arizona and 49% of California.
Not a single state east of Colorado has more than the 13.5% of New Hampshire, but look at the western states!
You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live. - John Galt