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Bundy vs. BLM

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Batman, Apr 11, 2014.

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  1. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    Pretty good roundup here: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-vegas-blm-range-war-20140407,0,1480936.story#axzz2yLVSDgc5

    Best I can tell, he says his family has worked the land since the 1880s so that entitles him to property rights under state law. Problem is, that land has been owned by the federal government since it was ceded by Mexico in 1848. Courts have repeatedly proven that the U.S. government holds the title to the land. His counterargument, it appears, is "Nuh-uh."

    "I've got to protect my property," he told The Times last year. "If people come to monkey with what's mine, I'll call the county sheriff. If that don't work, I'll gather my friends and kids and we'll try to stop it. I abide by all state laws. But I abide by almost zero federal laws."
     
  2. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    By his unilateral decision, BLM was not using his fees properly.

    Again, it is like saying you aren't paying taxes because Obamacare sucks.
     
  3. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Yeah, I don't dispute that. I don't know what all the facts are. But, if it's true, then it is problematic.

    If our gas taxes and highway tolls didn't go back into the roads, I'd be pissed. Now, I don't know that I'd simply stop paying, but I would feel like I was nit being treated fairly, and that I had been lied to.
     
  4. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    His claim is that because his ancestors were there before the BLM was formed, he and his descendants have the rights to that land for all time. He also says state laws are fine, it's only the federal laws that suck.

    The permanent injuction against having his cattle on these lands was issued in 1998. To accommodate him for even this long is to toss aside the rule of law. They should not have given the cattle back until he paid up and presented a plan to keep them on his own land.
     
  5. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    This fight has been going on for a long time. Since the 1970s, when it was called the "Sagebrush Rebellion."

    http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/PVCC/mbase/docs/sagebrush.html

    The spark that ignited the revolt was the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which says that public land must be kept in perpetual trust by the federal government. The legislation dashed Western hopes that the U.S. would gradually turn control of public lands over to local governments, which residents argue could do a better job of managing public land than bureaucrats stationed in Washington.

    In other words, they're arguing that what they want to use the land for trumps any federal wilderness preservation efforts.
     
  6. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    This is also reminiscent of the 1990s Patriot movement, when in my paper's coverage area you had numbnuts declaring their individual secession and driving around with homemade license plates (Linda Thompson of Koresh fame lived in my coverage area). It was great for classifieds revenue, because those secession notices were long.

    One difference: then, the hardly-a-flaming-liberal county sheriff and local governments looked at these people as pains in the ass. Now, they're The Base.
     
  7. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Under his logic from the last two sentences, if a state banned gun ownership, he wouldn't have a problem with that.
     
  8. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    This rancher has gotten very popular in the sovereign citizen world. He's seen as a hero who made the Feds back down.
     
  9. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Feds tend to bat last in these situations. Next time, it won't be BLM cowherders, it'll be them plus the FBI.
     
  10. MCbamr

    MCbamr Member

    Or, like saying you aren't going to enforce federal laws because you disagree with them.
     
  11. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    I'd love to see one of these "soverign citizens" proclaim he has total domination over his land, and then an armed-to-the-teeth battallion of descendants of Native American tribes who owned it long before Mr. Soverign's crew showed up, come bulldozing through the front gates with all guns blazing.
     
  12. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member


    Those Indians would be disobeying God's will because America is a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles.
     
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