Posted on 04/08/2014 4:07:26 PM PDT by sergeantdave
For 20 years, a tough-as-leather Nevada rancher and the federal government have been locked in a bitter range war over cattle grazing rights.
This weekend the confrontation got worse, when the feds hired contract cowboys to start seizing Cliven Bundy's cattle, which have been grazing on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The government officials brought a show of force that included dozens of armed agents in SUVs and helicopters.
Bundy, 67, who has been a rancher all his life, accuses BLM of stampeding over on his rights.
“This is a lot bigger deal than just my cows,” Bundy told FoxNews.com. “It’s a statement for freedom and liberty and the Constitution.”
The fight involves a 600,000-acre area under BLM control called Gold Butte, near the Utah border. The vast and rugged land is the habitat of the protected desert tortoise, and the land has been off-limits for cattle since 1998. Five years before that, when grazing was legal, Bundy stopped paying federal fees for the right.
“For more than two decades, cattle have been grazed illegally on public lands in northeast Clark County,” the BLM said in a statement. “BLM and (the National Park Service) have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially. Impoundment of cattle illegally grazing on public lands is an option of last resort.”
But Bundy said he has grazed cattle on the land for decades, and his father and father's father did long before his 1,000 cattle roamed the area. He has long defied orders from bureaucrats he says are bent on running him out of business.
Just before the round-up began this weekend, Bundy said federal agents surrounded his 150-acre ranch. His son was arrested on Sunday in an incident involving the agents....
More at link.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
150 years? Keep convincing yourself.
The government does not drive prices down by ‘competing’ with private landowners. Public property is used to generate funds that pay for services without taxes, which is a good thing.
Most ranchers would prefer to use private land, but look at how much of Utah & Nevada & Arizona are public land. The land is usually lower quality and less accessible, and the contracts written in terms less favorable to the rancher, so the rancher will normally pay more to use private land if it is available. It often is not.
Nor do I want to see all public land go away, because like a lot of the public, I like using it for hiking, riding, motorcycles, etc.
Thanks everyone for the replies. Allow me to call in a couple of experts on land use in the West to add some perspective...
Thank you for informing me as to what “most” Utah, Nevada and Arizona ranchers would prefer to do. Those competing with these ranchers would prefer that they get off the public teat.
Hmm. My knee-jerk is to support this guy, but when I stop and think ... it’s not his land. Why on Earth does he think he is entitled to it? Seems to me he has that “entitlement” thing down pat. But in the end, what he was doing was illegal. I don’t care who owns the land, if it’s not your, you don’t get to use it.
The feds own 84.5% of Nevada. Shore are a lot of them public teats there.
I should have added that, of course, the government drives down prices by competing with private operators. The price of cattle at any stage of life is a function of supply and demand. By keeping a rancher in business who could not otherwise make it on his own, the government is artificially increasing the cow-calf herd, driving down the price of live cattle.
Contrary to popular belief, they’re not that well-endowed on average.
Unless of course you meant hanged?
isn’t this a case where the court ORDERED the feds to issue the permits and the government played stalling games.
The song - This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.
Come to mind. /s
The Kings Forrest.
Illegal aliens have NO RIGHTS to “use” our land, yet they do it every day and in more and more numbers . . . . holder & company pick & choose what laws they want to uphold , violating the oath he/they took. If “they” are above the law - so am I.
So close to civil war now. So close.
“Those competing with these ranchers would prefer that they get off the public teat.”
What public teat?
What is the federal government “giving” freely to these businesses? Hmmm? In what sense is the federal government giving anything special to the ranchers?
“By keeping a rancher in business who could not otherwise make it on his own...”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You really ARE clueless, aren’t you! The feds own 63% of Utah land. They charge less for grazing, but they provide far less. Still, it is often the ONLY option open to a rancher.
what largess did you supply his family?
There is a good review of public land - how it was acquired and how it is used - here:
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RL34267_12032007.pdf
“The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo in Spanish), officially entitled the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic,[1] is the peace treaty signed in 1848 in Guadalupe Hidalgo between the U.S. and Mexico that ended the Mexican–American War (1846–48). With the defeat of its army and the fall of the capital, Mexico entered into negotiations to end the war. The treaty called for the United States to pay $15 million to Mexico and pay off the claims of American citizens against Mexico up to $3.25 million. It gave the United States the Rio Grande boundary for Texas, and gave the U.S. ownership of California, and a large area comprising New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. Mexicans in those annexed areas had the choice of relocating to Mexico or receiving American citizenship with full civil rights; over 90% remained.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo
“All land in Utah became part of the public domain when the United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848. This land came into the possession of the United States government with a clear and undisputed title. No state contested title, and no private rights had been established previously. Therefore every original land title in Utah can be traced to a patent or other document transferring that land from the federal government. Prior to 1848, Congress had already established laws governing the transfer of land from federal to private ownership.”
http://archives.utah.gov/research/guides/land-original-title.htm
Thanks for posting this.
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