"Spewing foolishness" = 1st Amendment right normally.
1st amendment rights apply to the citizens, not the government. And if I've not entirely missed the context, it is the federal government that rightwinglibertarian has painted as spewing foolishness that they have no proper constitutional power to spew.
As responsible adults, we must understand Assault and Battery is not the answer. That is when you become part of the problem and in violation of
Forum Rules.
It is important that we abide forum rules, especially regarding not advocating for any violation of the law. The reasons are obvious and shouldn't need to be reiterated.
I've made clear on a number of occasions that I do not support the illegal conduct of the Bundy's and their fellows in Oregon.
That said, those who wish to have an accurate understanding of the situation, need to understand the environment. There isn't a State east of Colorado that could function for more than one fiscal cycle if they suddenly lost 60%+ of their land area from both the tax rolls and all opportunity for economic development. The Western Great Basin is arid. You can't support yourself, much less raise a cash crop of much of anything on the proverbial (non-irrigated) 40 acres.
Nobody would have established family ranches on public lands 150 years ago if congress had told them that in a couple of generations their water rights (Can't just drill a well even on your own land out here. Even subterranean water is held in common by the States and is metered out with permits called "Water Rights".) and grazing rights would be squeezed down to the point of bankrupting them. Families would not have invested in the work and infrastructure to install watering troughs and the water works to keep them full. Miners and lumberjacks would not have invested in cutting roads through rough terrain if their rights to use the land were going to be revoked in the not distant future.
We've watched as Federal Land managers have allowed beetle infestations to destroy entire mountains of usable timber, and then spread to the next mountain, rather than cut some trees to stop the spread (think fire break). Even when the trees are dead, harvesting the timber is forbidden. Land is not reseeded and mud slides result. Small fires are put out, but without harvesting lumber, fuel builds until devastating fires do tremendous damage.
Roads that have been in existence since horse drawn wagons used them, and that were expressly protected and encouraged under
RS 2477, and expressly protected when that law was repealed in 1976, have been closed in contradiction of the law. A county commissioner has been convicted by the feds for peacefully riding his 4-wheeler ATV up one of these roads, recently. To make matters worse, the road remains accessible for trucks to use to service the municipal culinary well in the area. It has been closed by the feds to deny recreational access.
In my State of Utah, a land area larger than Rhode Island or Delaware was turned into a National Monument with the stroke of Bill Clinton's pen. He didn't even have the guts to sign the EO here in Utah, but did the deed in Arizona. The second largest reserve of low sulfur coal in the world is now off limits to any development. The town of Escalante may soon become a ghost town. Ditto Tropic. The coal town of Price is being killed with the President's/EPA's extreme environmental rules. The coal fired power plant has been shuttered. A similar fate awaits many other small mining and ranching towns throughout the West as the feds run us off our own land.
Federal SWAT teams are used to raid the homes of peaceful doctors who are suspected of having collected a few pieces of pottery or arrow heads from federal land.
Most of us became States after the War Between the States concluded. Our inter-generational memories of what was promised our grand-parents regarding perpetual multiple use of and access to federally controlled lands is as fresh in our minds as are the abuses of the carpetbaggers and Reconstruction in your memories. And while Reconstruction ended and you were allowed to rebuild, we've never been freed from the on-going economic and political oppression created and enforced by the federal control of over half of our State's land. You folks back east are basically good and decent people (at least those south of the Mason-Dixon line). But we don't want you controlling our State any more than you'd want us controlling yours. And that goes 10x for those sanctimonious, hypocritical, gun grabbing, liberal New Englanders north of DC.
Let me reiterate, that I don't agree with violation of the law. I believe that Ammon Bundy and his fellows have diverted attention away from the very legitimate issue of federal oppression of Western States and onto a bunch of nuts with guns.
But their cause is just. Their crimes are less serious than those of the Occupy Wall Street idiots. And I'm saddened to see anyone come to bloodshed when there was no immediate need to try to make an arrest.
The majority of lands in the West, those administered by the BLM, Forest Service, and some National Monuments created recently for wholly political purposes, need to be turned over to the States.
And just to put things into perspective, while taking the family on the east coast road trip this last summer I was reminded that most of the National Parks and Monuments back east from Faneuil Hall to Gettysburg to the Smithsonian and the Liberty Bell, are all free. Even the Statute of Liberty up to the pedestal is free once you pay for the ferry ride to the island and going to the crown is only $3 more. Here at home, it costs me $30 for a 7 day pass to drive into Zion National Park to see my mother's childhood home. Under federal law, $24 stays in the park, while the other $6 goes to subsidize parks where fees are not charged. I'm paying not only to visit my own ancestral lands, but also subsidizing free recreation in East Coast NPS venues. Yes, I'm a little galled at that.
So while I don't condone or support the Bundy's conduct, neither would vote for any conviction beyond being stupid.
Sorry to be so wordy. Folks east of the Rockies generally have no idea what federal land use policies are doing here in the West. Too many city slicker transplants even into Western urban areas have no idea.
Charles
