"The Oregon Standoff Was A
Predictable Reaction to Oppression"
from "In Defense of
Rural America"
By Ron Ewart,
President
National Association of Rural Landowners (www.narlo.org)
and nationally recognized author and
speaker on freedom and property rights issues for over 10
years
©
Copyright Sunday, February 14
The following article
was published on Newswithviews, February 10, 2016
"The world suffers a lot, not because of the
violence of the bad people, but because of the silence of the good
people." Napoleon
* * * * * * * * * * *
When rational environmentalism became radical
environmentalism in the 1970’s, the aggression AGAINT the rural landowner has
grown to an all out war ON the rural landowner, enforced by ever-growing,
ever-expanding federal agencies that have morphed into a Nazi-like,
heavily-armed police force. A way of life on the range that grew out of the
American West and raised the protein that Americans consume, has been determined
by the environmentalists and the government to be an anachronism and passé, in
favor of the creatures and the plants. Legal grazing and water right allotments,
with the force of law, have been unilaterally overturned by federal agencies,
irrespective of the law of allotments, protected by U. S. Supreme Court
decisions. Allotment fees have been raised by several factors and grazing and
water permits have been reduced, or eliminated. Private lands have been saddled
with massive buffers and conservation easements, or outright confiscation. Due
process is a mirage as many landowners have found out the hard
way.
We depict this ongoing assault on rural
landowners in our video entitled, "Rural America in the Crosshairs."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The government, at the behest of the radical
environmentalists, has decided to turn the American West into a private reserve
for flora and fauna where no human can go. Much of America has become off limits
to any human activity. Ranches and farms are being seized and raided by
government, or are being forced out of business by government actions. The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) are
the tools that government, the environmentalists and lawyers use to do their
dirty work. The individual landowner is helpless when the all-powerful
government sets its sights on a rancher or farmer.
In a recent article in the Independent Sentinel
they wrote this:
"The land grabs began more than two decades ago."
"Thanks to the extremists involved
in
"Ranchers are having their cattle seized and being
refused water and grazing rights so the government can take over Western land
and declare it "open spaces."
"The Wildlands Project, now called the Wildlands
Network, works in coordination with the government and other extremist groups.
They have "set aside the goal of preserving 50% of the North American continent
as ‘wild land’ for the preservation of biological diversity, according to their
own stated goals on their website. It conforms to the UN
plan."
"The Wildlands plan is to create larger public
lands by acquiring private lands adjoining public lands. Re-wilding the land
that they have set aside for nature, requires moving humans into human
settlements."
That’s right. The environmentalist’s stated goal is to move
"man" out of the rural areas and into big cities with mass transportation, where
they can walk or ride their bicycle to work. No cars. Cars are bad. National and
international environmentalists have seduced the U. S. Government to pass
legislation to further that goal and they are well on their way to achieving
it.
Those that live in big cities and are dependent
on government for just about everything, are all for shoving "man" off the land
to join them in their dependent cities. Thanks to endless government and
environmental propaganda on the airways, in newspapers, in our public schools
and our liberal colleges, the general, un-informed public, thinks it’s a great
idea.
People always say that times change and they do,
but not so when you are raising America’s food and protein. It takes a lot of
rangeland and water to raise cattle and sheep. It takes a lot of flat land to
raise crops. If we give the land all away to the plants and animals and drive
the ranchers and farmers out of business, what will American’s eat?
All across the West, resistance to
government oppression, driven by radical environmentalism and Agenda 21,
is on the rise. The government is restricting access to known water rights and
cutting off access to private lands that must go through public lands, even
though the access is granted by deed or allotment. The reaction by one landowner
was swift and succinct. "Our fight was about our land.
They wanted me to put a fence 180 feet from my creek and keep my livestock from
using it. I paid for that land, and I’ll be damned if the feds are going to tell
me I can’t use even a sliver of it."
In the West, range wars were fought over water
and grazing rights and fencing off the open range. Many people died in those
wars. Then, it was private landowner at war with other private landowners or
settlers who were fencing off the land for farming. Now the war is private
landowners against the government.
But what the GOVERNMENT giveth, the GOVERNMENT can taketh
away.
From the middle of the 1800’s to 1934, the
government allowed virtually unrestricted cattle and sheep grazing on unreserved
public lands. These grazing "rights" were called allotments. Then in 1934, it
was determined that the government should better manage unreserved public lands
and passed the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 that provided for the regulation of
grazing and water rights. Currently, there are some 182,000,000 acres of public
land under grazing allotments. 182,000,000 acres is larger than the State of
Texas.
As we said, it takes a lot of land to raise
cattle and sheep. The government allotments allowed ranchers to expand their
herds on other than private land holdings. Those allotments came with water
rights because you can’t raise cattle and sheep without water. Under the Taylor
Grazing Act, the allotments were actual contracts with ranchers and were good
for 10 years, but renewable. The ranchers had to pay grazing fees during the
life of the allotment contract. Grazing cattle and sheep on public lands became
a necessary and vital component of feeding a growing and hungry
nation.
Along came environmentalism in the 1970’s and
grazing cattle and sheep on the "public’s" land just wouldn’t do. Environmental
laws were passed that mandated the government to take back the grazing and water
rights on public land from the ranchers, in the interest of "protecting" the
environment and the protection of endangered or threatened species. The
environmentalists were intent, with government’s help, to re-wild America and
they didn’t care that it was eliminating one of the vital components of feeding
this hungry nation, land and water. To facilitate their goal, the government
started dramatically raising allotment fees, or canceling allotment contracts at
the end of the 10-year term. Unreserved public land for grazing and water rights
was evaporating right under the ranchers’ noses.
Many ranchers have tried to fight back in the
courts, only to find the courts were rigged in favor of the government and the
environmentalists. The Wayne Hage family, Nevada ranchers, found out the hard
way about just how powerful the federal government really is. The Hage story and
others that have come up against an intransigent, dictatorial government, was
chronicled in a Fox News Special entitled, "Enemies of the
State." That special can be viewed at the following
link:
Over the last several decades, small, local
skirmishes, sometimes violent, started erupting in different parts of the West,
in response to the government and environmental land grab, which led to the
Sagebrush Rebellion in the 1970’s. The skirmishes started to grow in size which
culminated in the Bundy Ranch standoff in 2014 between 200 heavily-armed BLM
agents and a couple of hundred private citizens carrying guns. A shooting war
where private citizens would start dying in the desert for all to see at the
hands of federal agents, wouldn’t play well with public opinion. The event was
widely covered by the news media and the government wisely stood
down.
Emboldened by the success of the Bundy Ranch
standoff, Ammon Bundy, son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, with the help of a
bunch of rag tag armed militia, took over the Malheur Wildlife Preserve in
Southeastern Oregon. They came there in defense of Oregon ranchers’ Dwight and
Steven Hammond, who ended up in jail on a trumped up arson charge at the hands
of the BLM. The Hammond’s had continuous run-ins with the BLM over grazing,
water rights and back-burn wildfires. The arson charged appeared to be a way for
the BLM to get even.
By now, most of the public knows the
Oregon armed standoff has ended. One man was shot dead by law enforcement and
the rest have been arrested. Those arrested will probably spend some
considerable time in jail. The federal court in which they will be tried, will
not be sympathetic, nor will any jury of their peers. It was a lose-lose
proposition unless their martyrdom triggers more rural Americans to stand up and
be counted. We have described the Oregon standoff on the NARLO website on a dedicated web
page HERE.
A story out of Okanogan County, Washington
further illustrates the divide between ranchers, farmers, government management
of public lands and wildfires. That story can be read at the following
link:
The battle in Oregon may be over, but the
land war is just getting started.
But this isn’t the end of the story in the West.
The government may have won this battle in Oregon, but they have only incited
greater anger in Western landowners. Where that goes is anyone’s guess, but from
our perspective and the reading of the tealeaves, it does not appear to end
peacefully.
Many will ask, is the fight against government
by rural landowners a righteous fight? After all, the government allegedly owns
the land upon which the ranchers’ cattle and sheep are grazing. But isn’t the
better question, does the government under the U. S. Constitution, have the
right to own, control and manage the land in the first place? In Article 1,
Section 8, Clause 17, the federal government is only supposed to own and control
such lands as follows:
"To exercise exclusive Legislation
in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as
may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the
Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over
all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the
Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and
other needful Buildings."
If the literal translation of Clause 17 is true,
then Ammon Bnndy, Wayne Hage and all other Western ranchers are right in their
demand for the federal government to cede the public land back to the states and
cease and desist government’s attack on the ranchers and farmers.
The issue is far from settled and this is what
has given rise to the current conflict. When the government was reasonable in
managing the unreserved federal lands, everything went fairly smoothly. But when
government started clamping down on the ranchers’ legal contract rights to
government allotments in the name of environmentalism, the smooth-running
relationship between rancher and government evaporated and a land war has
ensued.
When in a war, and we are in a war with the
government, there are going to be all kinds of twists and turns and skirmishes
in that war. The Oregon standoff was just one of the twists and turns. There
will be many more to come as the wall between government and the citizens gets
higher and higher. It has to come to a head eventually. We can only hope the
outcome will be in favor of freedom and the Republic, but it is not a sure
thing.
There are millions of Americans that still
believe in individual, unalienable rights and want the government to stay the
Hell out of their lives. Unfortunately, the government has shoved its ugly head
in every "tent" and some of the people are beginning to balk, a totally
predictable reaction to rising government oppression. The Oregon armed standoff
was a symptom of the people's resistance to that oppression, not a
cause.
OBITUARY: We mourn
the passing of Justice Scalia, not only for personal reasons but for political
reasons as well. He was a stalwart defender of the constitution and the
rule of law. May the Republican Senate never confirm an Obama appointee in
Obama's last year in office.
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Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and
speaker on freedom and property rights issues and author of this weekly column,
"In Defense of Rural America", is the president of the National
Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO) (http://www.narlo.org) an advocate and consultant for urban
and rural landowners and a non-profit corporation headquartered in
Washington State. He can be reached for comment at: info@narlo.org.
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