| | | From what I understand, one of Bundy's ancestors purchased the rights to the land allotment back in the late 1800s. Those rights were handed down through his family until he received them in the 1970s. The 'preemptive' rights to the range were paid for well over a century ago, and the Bundy family spent well over a hundred years constructing fences and roads, tapping water sources, etc. in order to ensure the survival of their cattle.
When the Bureau of Land Management came on the scene, they assessed Bundy (and other ranchers in the area) grazing fees, in exchange for their help with improvements and repairs to the ranches and their road approaches, etc.
It seems to me that this is where the ranchers went wrong. Acceptance of 'government help' is akin to planning one's own suicide. They were also lending legitimacy to the BLM's presence in the area, and the eventual heavy-handed actions that followed, albeit 15-20 years later.
Back in the early 90s, once it became apparent that the BLM was no longer using the grazing fees for the betterment of the ranchers, Bundy (and others) stopped paying them. It seems to me that, at that point, it was the BLM that had reneged on an agreement, and the ranchers had no obligation to fulfill their end of the bargain.
Bundy, in order to attempt to handle things in an above-board manner, tried to give his grazing fees to the county, rather than the feds, but the county refused to accept them from him.
Many of the other ranchers allowed themselves to be bought out by the BLM, and, when Bundy wouldn't fall in line, the feds decided to play the 'endangered species card'.
Many of his cattle have been taken from him. One of his children has been tased by an 'enforcer'. Law abiding citizens who are congregating in an effort to support one of their own are being treated like common criminals, and a century-plus history of successful family ranching is being reduced to a pile of convenient bureaucratic euphemisms.
This has nothing to do with an endangered tortoise, and everything to do with the arrogance of a government that has become drunk with power, and an obsession to stamp out every vestige of individual freedom that our Founders sacrificed so dearly to ensure. And it's not going to stop with Cliven Bundy. |
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