Multiple militia groups from across USA going to Las Vegas for standoff w/Bureau of Land Management

veinglory · Apr 14, 2014

Um, so is there any basis for saying this rancher owns that land or is this a digression?

robeiae · Apr 14, 2014

RichardGarfinkle said:
The concern about the distinction between citizen and taxpayer lies in the question of where the ownership comes from. Let me, for the sake of argument concede the idea that we, the people own the property and the government is only the managers of that property. As I said, in many ways, I prefer this idea. My objections were practical, not philosophical.

So whence the ownership. Does it come from citizenship? Does it come from taxpaying? Does it come from residency, tradition, labor on behalf of, proximity? Each of these produces a radically different view of and stake in the property.

If it's citizenship, we are all equal owners, and therefore all have equal voice.

If it's taxpaying, it's easy to make a corporatist case for greater say to be given to those who pay the most taxes. That turns into plutocracy faster than you can say Citizens United.

If it's tradition, we need to hand things back to the Native Americans.

If it's proximity, the matter is complicated by the fact that environmental concerns are not separable.

If it's labor on behalf of, then the employees of the BLM should be deciding in this case. It also means that many illegal immigrants should own a lot of farms and ranches.

My point is that the theory of ownership, like all theories, needs to be made coherent relative to the particular situation, and that it makes a lot of difference which way we make it cohere.

You left off an if-then for "residency."

And in that regard, a theory of ownership need not "come" exclusively from one the sources you listed. And the consequences of choosing a source or sources does not so neatly lead to the above consequences at all.

When it comes to land, the concept of ownership is most assuredly a legal one now. Hearkening back to the days of yore to discuss who had "firsties" is a fun exercise, but largely pointless imo. Fairly or unfairly, that die is cast.

RichardGarfinkle · Apr 14, 2014

Sorry. Residency begs the question of how long one has to be resident. If residency is ownership then long term rental leads to ownership. The firsties question was brought up earlier when people mentioned how long this guy had been grazing on that land.

And yes, it's not a simple if then, but each of those if thens comes to matter for each source of ownership brought into consideration.

Pup · Apr 14, 2014

RichardGarfinkle said:
So whence the ownership. Does it come from citizenship? Does it come from taxpaying? Does it come from residency, tradition, labor on behalf of, proximity? Each of these produces a radically different view of and stake in the property.

If it's citizenship, we are all equal owners, and therefore all have equal voice.

Maybe I'm missing the nuances, but it seems pretty straightforward to me. It must be citizenship, because in the end, each person's vote is what controls the land.

What frustrates people, I think, is the idea of collective ownership, but it's no different than six siblings inheriting property. Unless they get the court to order a division of the property into six separate pieces, each can't make an independent decision about their share of the whole. One can't sell 1/6 of the timber without getting the others to agree, for example, even though he does control 1/6 of the ownership.

Similarly, a stockholder who owns one share of stock can't walk into a company and use the copier free because he owns 1/1,000,000 of the company and that's the value of his share. All the stockholders would have to elect a board of directors who would agree.

And in the same way, one citizen can't control their portion of the whole, because it's all owned collectively and managed by the government officials elected by all the citizens. If there's influence due to wealth, power, connections, etc., that's where it occurs, same as if one of the siblings in a family has always bossed the others around, even if they all theoretically have an equal vote.

The funding is a separate issue, and is how the owners/citizens have voted to collect money, whether from income taxes, tariffs, land use fees, whatever.

As far as what title the citizens have to the land, well, none. It was won by force and is defended by force, and that's part of what the citizens collectively have voted for the government to continue to do--defend their ownership by force, just like a company would call security if a guy came in demanding to use the copier free, waving his share of stock.

veinglory · Apr 14, 2014

I think if you are resident under a formal contract like a lease from someone you therefore recognize as the owner, that never leads to ownership. If it did landlords would be disenfranchised from their land all over the country.

Xelebes · Apr 14, 2014

veinglory said:
I think if you are resident under a formal contract like a lease from someone you therefore recognize as the owner, that never leads to ownership. If it did landlords would be disenfranchised from their land all over the country.

That holds true in Canada where residency is much more important when it comes to taxation than citizenship, but does not mean someone who is a resident gets to have a stake (franchise) in government. Canada's ownership of the land or territory does arise largely out of residency - we live here so we make the rules and own the land. That brings up a lot of other questions, especially with other nations that resided here before us but that is a work in progress, I hope.

benbradley · Apr 14, 2014

Pup said:
Maybe I'm missing the nuances, but it seems pretty straightforward to me. It must be citizenship, because in the end, each person's vote is what controls the land.

This describes a "true" democracy. I say true to distinguish it from newer meanings of the word, which have expanded to include representative forms of government, of which the US is one. Each citizen only has an indirect vote on issues, exercised by voting for representatives who then get to vote on issues.

Pup · Apr 14, 2014

benbradley said:
This describes a "true" democracy. I say true to distinguish it from newer meanings of the word, which have expanded to include representative forms of government, of which the US is one. Each citizen only has an indirect vote on issues, exercised by voting for representatives who then get to vote on issues.

That's true, and that's why I said "in the end." In other words, every individual doesn't vote on whether to sell mineral rights under a particular piece of property--in part because we'd get nothing done except voting all day--but every individual (who's legally eligible to vote) can at least vote for those who choose the people who make the actual decision. Same as a stockholder who votes for a board of directors who hires a CEO who hires managers who hire workers who are the ones who actually decide whether its best to put the eggs on the top or the bottom of Mrs. So-and-so's grocery bag. Even if I'm standing there owning my piece of stock, I can't tell the bagger he's doing it wrong, even though I theoretically was able to give my input on how the company would be run when I voted for the board of directors.

Monkey · Apr 15, 2014

Well, Bundy told Glen Beck that it wasn't so much that Bundy felt he owned the land, as it was that Bundy refused to acknowledge that the federal government could own the land, and therefore, he wouldn't pay grazing fees to them.

He acknowledged that grazing fees were owed, and said he would pay them to the "proper" government, which, in his mind, is the state of Nevada.

http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/04/14...ot-graze-my-cattle-on-united-states-property/

In other words, this one guy is ignoring the current laws (AKA, legal reality) in favor of his own interpretation.

jeffo · Apr 15, 2014

Long thread. Interesting points. But imagine, if you will (we're all writers here with imaginations, right?

) -- how does this look to a complete outsider?

I would suggest that this just looks like the same thing that has been going on since Cain and Abel -- two groups of people are fighting over something that both want. Each group, and it's supporters, claim this piece of paper or that piece of paper mean that they own it, and the other side is just wrong. It doesn't matter which paper or how many people like the paper, I think this simply comes down to two groups fighting over something, just like all of human history.

Usually such fights end up with violence (as they have, well, forever), so I suppose it is good that this one ended without violence. But as Harry Reid pointed out, this one isn't over yet. I read that this way: "We're still fighting over the thing we both want, we're just going to find a different way or different day to fight about it."

However, one interesting twist, I think, is Waco being brought up in comparison to this event. In this NV event, it appeared that both sides were armed, and one side was willing to die for their position. One side was not willing to die for their position, so they "backed down." With Waco, in my view, one side was not armed, and was willing to die for their position, while the other side was armed and willing to kill for their position.

I just wish there were a lot fewer people willing to kill for "things" (usually money).

MarkEsq · Apr 15, 2014

jeffo said:
With Waco, in my view, one side was not armed, and was willing to die for their position, while the other side was armed and willing to kill for their position.

Just wanted to point out that, from everything I've read, the Koresh people were very much armed.

See, for example: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/waco/timeline.html

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/not_guilty/koresh/1.html

rugcat · Apr 15, 2014

MarkEsq said:
Just wanted to point out that, from everything I've read, the Koresh people were very much armed.

See, for example: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/waco/timeline.html

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/not_guilty/koresh/1.html

It also makes an assumption, in both cases, whether there is such a thing as right and wrong. Not all things are equal. Not all things are simply "There are two equally valid sides to this disagreement."

Sometimes, one side really is wrong, and after exhausting all other options, force is the unfortunate last resort. There are plenty of examples of this, up to and including Godwinning a thread.

kuwisdelu · Apr 15, 2014

Hitler.

Xelebes · Apr 15, 2014

Goebbels.

kuwisdelu · Apr 15, 2014

David Koresh Superstar.

Reziac · Apr 16, 2014

ShaunHorton said:
Now, I'm not informed on the full ecological impact of solar panels, but it seems to me that the creation of an immobile array creating large areas of shade, causes less of an environmental impact than a thousand stupid, 400 pound animals bumbling around randomly, crushing nests, eggs, and possibly turtles themselves.

Wrong. Turns out there is good research on this -- desert tortoise population explodes when cattle are present, in fact is directly tied to the number of cattle -- because the tortoises' primary food/water source is cattle dung. More cattle means more and healthier tortoises. Study from the U of Arizona:

https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/rangelands/article/viewFile/10776/10049

And it turns out this is true (more so in fact) even in overgrazed areas.

There are presently only about 10% as many cattle grazing public lands as there were at the peak of tortoise population.

Also, I've seen what solar arrays do to desert ecologies, up close and personal. They create a scorched-earth area at the plant itself, and a major dust bowl downwind. They are utterly destructive. If you want solar, put it where we already have vast flat areas close to population centers -- on the roofs of handy malls and Walmarts. There it will do no harm. But it destroys deserts.

Plot Device · Apr 16, 2014

veinglory said:
Um, so is there any basis for saying this rancher owns that land or is this a digression?

I don't believe the rancher ever claimed to own the land. He instead seemed (from what I having been piecing together with much difficulty from all this) to claim that community grazing of public lands is a right. And he wanted the previous arrangement of polite access by everyone to those public lands to remain exactly the way they were for generations.

He resented that the previously amicable arrangement of what used to be a county matter with county grazing fees became a federal matter with federal grazing fees. He simply hates the federal government --the real heart of the matter as far as his own bull-headed disposition here. He wants the federal government to retreat back to DC and everything in Nevada to stay in Nevada. (Just like everything in Vegas stays ... never mind.

)

So he was essentially boycotting the federal grazing fees for 20 years (all that time insisting he was more than willing to pay county or even state grazing fees). Meanwhile, for the past 20 years, his neighbors who also had cattle grazing there were all retreating one by one from the federal lands in compliance with the BLM order that all cattle leave. He was the lone dissenter. So his stubborn, decades long, "Bartlbey the Scrivener" refusal to leave came to this.

beck_magruder · Apr 16, 2014

Cattle grazing, if done appropriately, can actually improve habitat for many other wildlife species; they can control weeds and stimulate new growth of grass, among other things. Of course, in a perfect world, our native wildlife species would do all these things for us, but this isn't a perfect world...still, we can take what we've got and make the best out of it...ergo CRP and rotational grazing, assisted by the guidance of BLM and USFS permitting programs.

I'll admit I didn't go through all the posts on this thread, but for me personally, I think a lot of this comes down to a tragedy of the commons and misunderstanding of BLM/USFS's goals of sustaining national forests and grasslands for multiple use. I've been reading lately about Teddy Roosevelt/Gifford Pinchot and their quest at the turn of the 20th century to set aside public lands, primarily to protect them from the railroad/timber companies who were going to completely destroy them if left unchecked. Bundy has been portraying the federal government as taking what was his and impeding his freedoms as an American, when what (in my understanding) actually happened was Bundy decided the public land was his, and his alone, and he shouldn't have to pay to use it like everyone else.

Very frustrating for me to read about that. I'm a firm believer that, without government programs and agencies to protect our natural resources, we would exploit them all to hell. Granted some private industries (like timber companies) have a vested interest in sustainable timber harvest, or they'll run themselves out of a job, but in the early 1900s nobody understood this and the USFS/BLM were extremely necessary. And I think the current system still works. Some private land may be taken care of properly now, but what happens if it's sold to someone else? What happens if Weyerhauser decides selling to housing developers is more profitable than harvesting timber? We need public land.

Plot Device · Apr 16, 2014

beck_magruder said:
Cattle grazing, if done appropriately, can actually improve habitat for many other wildlife species; they can control weeds and stimulate new growth of grass, among other things. Of course, in a perfect world, our native wildlife species would do all these things for us, but this isn't a perfect world...still, we can take what we've got and make the best out of it...ergo CRP and rotational grazing, assisted by the guidance of BLM and USFS permitting programs.

I'll admit I didn't go through all the posts on this thread, but for me personally, I think a lot of this comes down to a tragedy of the commons and misunderstanding of BLM/USFS's goals of sustaining national forests and grasslands for multiple use. I've been reading lately about Teddy Roosevelt/Gifford Pinchot and their quest at the turn of the 20th century to set aside public lands, primarily to protect them from the railroad/timber companies who were going to completely destroy them if left unchecked. Bundy has been portraying the federal government as taking what was his and impeding his freedoms as an American, when what (in my understanding) actually happened was Bundy decided the public land was his, and his alone, and he shouldn't have to pay to use it like everyone else.

Very frustrating for me to read about that. I'm a firm believer that, without government programs and agencies to protect our natural resources, we would exploit them all to hell. Granted some private industries (like timber companies) have a vested interest in sustainable timber harvest, or they'll run themselves out of a job, but in the early 1900s nobody understood this and the USFS/BLM were extremely necessary. And I think the current system still works. Some private land may be taken care of properly now, but what happens if it's sold to someone else? What happens if Weyerhauser decides selling to housing developers is more profitable than harvesting timber? We need public land.

First of all, I agree that public land is a good thing. Teddy Roosevelt had the right idea.

Second, I believe Bundy was (and still is) a real idiot on a lot of matters here.

However, this whole stupid situation in Nevada this past week has quite pointedly brought to light some of the issues with the BLM and runaway fed ownership of land which that have been pissing off a lot of people for years now. And these people were pissed enough to want to go to Bundy's aid not necessarily because 100% of those people agreed 100% with Bundy's position. Instead because other issues were conveniently able to be soap-boxed via the limelight of his own run-in with the feds. In other words, Bundy's federal entanglement last week had a few elements to it here and there in its overall makeup that each --on separate levels for different people-- rang true and had similar notes comparable to other people's miserable stories of running afoul in federal land disputes.

To draw a comparison ... back in the 1970's a group of American Nazis wanted to stage a parade rally in the town of Skokie, Illinois. And Skokie was/is the home of a rather sizeable population of Jews, and back in the 1970's some of those Skokie residents were Holocaust survivors.

The parade permit was denied. But then that particular chapter of the American Nazi Party sued on the grounds of First Amendment rights being denied. And who came to the aid of the Nazis in this legal battle? The ACLU did. And the lead ACLU attorney was himself Jewish. They fought and they won. The lead attorney explained that he disagreed with everything the Nazis stood for. But he firmly believed that their right to free speech cannot be infringed or else everyone el;se's right to free speech becomes jeopardized.

And I agree.

Getting back to Bundy: he's as ASS! But his run-in with the feds last week has a few threads of truth to it, and valid issues have been raised in spite of what an idiot he is. Too bad Bundy is such an ass, though because had he been a boy scout, those collateral issues could have been given more weight. His own purple past tarnished what could have been an excellent discussion over just how efffed-up it is for 80%+ of Nevada land to be owned by the federal government, among other issues.

jeffo · Apr 16, 2014

I hate Illinois Nazis.

Plot Device · Apr 16, 2014

jeffo said:
I hate Illinois Nazis.

90 seconds.

Not safe for work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khwwvFIIV6Y

:wag:

Don · Apr 19, 2014

Something was already going on out west, and this has probably had an impact. Now I wonder about the timing even more.

Western lawmakers gather in Utah to talk federal land takeover

It’s time for Western states to take control of federal lands within their borders, lawmakers and county commissioners from Western states said at Utah’s Capitol on Friday.

More than 50 political leaders from nine states convened for the first time to talk about their joint goal: wresting control of oil-, timber -and mineral-rich lands away from the feds.
...
The summit was in the works before this month’s tense standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management over cattle grazing, Lockhart said.

Three house speakers and a US senator were among the participants, so this hardly sounds fringe.

At least some of the argument is environmentally-based.

Idaho Speaker of the House Scott Bedke said Idaho forests and rangeland managed by the state have suffered less damage and watershed degradation from wildfire than have lands managed by federal agencies.

benbradley · Apr 19, 2014

If only the States had some sort of representation in the US Federal Government...

ShaunHorton · Apr 19, 2014

Don said:
Something was already going on out west, and this has probably had an impact. Now I wonder about the timing even more.

Three house speakers and a US senator were among the participants, so this hardly sounds fringe.

At least some of the argument is environmentally-based.

Every name listed in the article is Republican. I'll go ahead and call that fringe, and put this up there with all the calls for secession.

Synonym · Apr 19, 2014

I heard somewhere that the BLM controls enough acreage to equal the size of the nation of South Africa. (Now, before anyone gets their knickers in a knot, I haven't had a chance to look that up.) I'll give it a look-see here in a minute.

There have been rumblings for years by the people that live near BLM managed lands, about their 'one size fits all' management style. I'd be very much interested to hear more about this Western States meeting.

Nobody cares or knows more about the land than those that live next to it, in my opinion. If your neighbor hasn't cleared the brush, or dead fall, you are the one that's in danger of getting burned out by wildfire. If the land is off-limits because of an endangered species, but you hear that someone with big money and close ties to a politician is going to be allowed to build a sub-division, then you wonder how special treatment trumps endangered species. Tends to make folks a little mad when it happens often enough.

Multiple militia groups from across USA going to Las Vegas for standoff w/Bureau of Land Management

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