Why excerpt Facebook?. Full Text:
Readers of USA TODAY:
Some have asked why didn’t my father pay the grazing fee. This can be understood in two ways. One is founded on preemptive rights and the other upon state rights or state sovereignty. When my family rolled into this country in the 1800’s they began to tame the land and use it for survival, settling this land the same as the rest of the United States. Each family claimed their stake and developed the area. Others respected the area and understood as long as the family was using the resources or land it was the families to claim and share. When states were initiated into the union these rights or claims became more defined and further protected by state law as rights that could be sold traded or even borrowed against.
Now after over a hundred years of preemptive rights by beneficial use recognized and protected by the state, the federal government claims that the land is not state land but US territory and theirs for the taking or charging of fees.
So here we stand with a questions. Is this land Nevada State land or US territory? If state land, then my fathers rights are recognized and the federal government has no claim to charge for something that is not theirs. If it is US territory then Nevada is not a sovereign state. Only 11% of Nevada is declared by the federal government to be private or state. The rest they claim as their land to do what they want with and the people of Nevada have no rights to it.
Now more questions; Should the people of Nevada have the right to govern their own state? Why did the federal government retain 89% of Nevada land after statehood? Does the US constitution give the federal government the right to retaining state land? A good study of these questions will answer why Cliven Bundy refuses to pay an entity for something that is not theirs.
Thank you,
Ammon Bundy
Not a good way to put the question, since the land was never state land.
It wasn't state land before the creation of the state, since there was no state. And it wasn't state land after creation of the state, since it never stopped being Federal land.
He needs to find another way of illustrating his point.