Posted on 04/16/2014 12:46:53 PM PDT by Kaslin
Feature: Nevada standoff signifies movement against federal control of public lands
BUNKERVILLE, NEV.—For some, the story of Cliven Bundy and his 20-year fight against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is about one man’s refusal to pay grazing fees on public land he doesn’t own.
For the family, and scores of supporters that have come to his aid in the face of aggressive force used by the federal government, what happened in Bunkerville, Nev. is about the “rise of the West.”
“As important as it is for a man to fight for his ranch and his livelihood, this is much bigger than that,” said Ammon Bundy, Cliven’s son. “This is the American people fighting for their freedoms.”
The BLM brought 200 armed officials, helicopters, and snipers with them to take the Bundys’ cattle away, a result of a two-decades court battle over $1 million in unpaid grazing fees, and the BLM’s decision to block off nearly a third of the land for the “critical desert tortoise.”
After a week of heated clashes with the family, the standoff ended on Saturday when the federal government called the operation off citing safety concerns, and cowboys and protesters stormed the impound gate to set the Bundys’ cows free.
As of Monday, not a single BLM ranger remained. But for the Bundys, and many like them, the fight has just begun.
***
Hundreds of supporters from across the country gathered off Interstate 15, about 70 miles outside of Las Vegas, on Monday. A sea of cowboy hats, “No BLM” pins, and American flags, many members of the crowd had their own story of federal bureaucrats infringing on their land.
“I’m standing on a metal knee that I got from a Bundy bull 43 years ago,” said Allen, who came from just across the border in Utah.
Allen used to do rodeo, and was bucked off one of Cliven’s brother’s bulls in 1971.
“We’re totally completely surrounded by the Forest Service where our ranch is on the mountain,” he said. “And they screw with us constantly.”
Allen said he’s been harassed by Forest Service Rangers patrolling near his family’s livestock ranch, telling him he can’t ride his ATV on the land because it isn’t “licensed.”
“I tell them, ‘You’re on my property, dude. You ain’t gotta tell me what I’m gonna do on my property.’”
“I’m sorry the Bundys are going through this, but it’s a good thing,” said Bruce Olsen, from Arizona. “It had to happen sooner or later.”
“I’ve been waiting for this event for 59 years,” he said.
Olsen grew up near Kansas City, and watched thousands of farmers displaced after the government built a dam he said the community didn’t want or need.
“The federal government in this country is gone,” Olsen said. “The best thing that could happen to this country is go to Washington, D.C., throw a long chain around the District of Columbia, drag it down the Potomac out to sea, let it sink. And it’d be two months before anyone in America ever missed them.”
David R. Rawls from Florence, Ariz., has spent most of his life battling the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service.
When Rawls, 70, was 15 years old the family was told that a railroad would be built through their six mining claim properties. His family then spent decades battling the government in the courts, and Rawls and his mother were evicted by dozens of heavily armed U.S. Marshals and Forest Service officials.
His father, a “real man of the West,” died a decade into the ordeal.
“All of the strain of this put him under so much stress, after 10 years he got kidney cancer and died,” Rawls said. “He got heart broke and sick. When dad saw that everything he had worked so hard for all his life was being stolen he got sick and died.”
Rawls has set up camp just off River Cliff Road. His white van that’s covered in political signs and quotes from Thomas Jefferson sits on the shoulder, along with hand-made six-foot signs telling his story, and messages against “totalitarianism.”
“They’re just thieves,” he said.
“Over the last 55 years I’ve watched with an eagle eye, I’ve watched them wipe out thousands of small miners, thousands of small farmers,” he said. “They’ve basically wiped out the family farm.”
Rawls said he hopes the Bundy standoff will bring awareness to what his family and so many others have gone through at the hands of federal bureaucracies.
“If fault was done to us, and a whole bunch of other people, these people could get wide exposure in this country. They would turn everything around,” he said. “The American people would be really outraged of what’s been going on.”
***
Bundy is wrong.
“The doctrine of eminent domain is very old and very clear.
I learned about it in the EIGHTH grade.”
When you get to the 9th grade you’ll learn that eminent domain is about roads, railroads, etc, not freaking turtles that have did just fine around cattle for 100’s of years!
He may not be legal but, wrong?
I haven’t heard of eminent domain being used in this case. As I understand it, the land is federally owned already.
Now it may seem strange to you and me that he would graze his cattle on federal lands and expect to not pay for it...but it probably wasn’t strange when his grandfather started in 1870, and large cattle herds freely roamed unfenced land...with huge cattle drives, etc.
I acknowledge that the federal government owns the land. But the fact that they do puzzles me. I live in Kansas. There was a time when the federal government gave out land here for free...the goal was to encourage people to move here, and develop the land for a useful purpose. Fast forward 150 years, and the federal government wants the exact opposite - it will do everything in its power to prevent useful development of land.
I think the goal of the federal government should be to liquidate land. Currently 86% of Nevada is federally owned. At very least, to give the people of Nevada a majority interest in their own state, the federal government should attempt to get its ownership down to 49%.
That would be moral. And they might as well start with Bundy. Bundy can own his piece, and instead of paying ‘grazing fees’ to the federal government, he can pay property taxes to Nevada.
State of Nevada needs to get control over the land—at least that part in question—Kick out BLM and they can manage it. A simple solution to the mess. Where is Nevada’s Governor in this?
Keeping lands out of federal hands is one stipulation the people of Texas had before it agreed to join USA
We are still profiting
:-) Snicker.
“Where is Nevada’s Governor in this?”
Hiding under a desk.
He's wrong because he KNEW the land was under "eminent domain." He knew it. Why did he think that he was, somehow, NOT subject to that?
I do wonder what his thinking was. I'm sure that his attorneys ALSO told him: eminent domain. He HAS to have attorneys. Anyone with two cents to rub together needs an attorney now and then.
I feel badly for him but not too much. He's a big boy, not stupid, knew the rules and broke them. Why? Who knows.
MAYBE the publicity for his cause is what he wanted. I'm sure we'll learn more as the story unfolds.
Good one. :o)
Does the gambling industry have ANY part of this? Hard to believe their finger isn't in this pie too.
Now it may seem strange to you and me that he would graze his cattle on federal lands and expect to not pay for it...but it probably wasn’t strange when his grandfather started in 1870, and large cattle herds freely roamed unfenced land...with huge cattle drives, etc.
I acknowledge that the federal government owns the land. But the fact that they do puzzles me. I live in Kansas. There was a time when the federal government gave out land here for free...the goal was to encourage people to move here, and develop the land for a useful purpose. Fast forward 150 years, and the federal government wants the exact opposite - it will do everything in its power to prevent useful development of land.
I think the goal of the federal government should be to liquidate land. Currently 86% of Nevada is federally owned. At very least, to give the people of Nevada a majority interest in their own state, the federal government should attempt to get its ownership down to 49%.
That would be moral. And they might as well start with Bundy. Bundy can own his piece, and instead of paying ‘grazing fees’ to the federal government, he can pay property taxes to Nevada.
I think that you are correct on all points.
I think perhaps the Nevada desert is staying federal for future projects that the government (state and federal) might not want us to know about. It IS out in the middle of nowhere, very inhospitable. Who really knows.
My advice to Bundy: move on. He's right but he AIN'T gonna win with this. Not a chance. Nothing is worth the ulcers and money this is causing him, his family and his friends.
Life is too short.
One suspects cloudmountain is FAA using one of his many alisases.
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