Why gun control doesn't work: "Nobody is a terrorist, until he does something to cause terror in others.
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Today, the federal government controls almost half the land in the American West. In some states, like Oregon, the feds control the majority of it. Among the network of federal agencies in charge are the Bureau of Land Management (the current nemesis of the Bundy brothers), the Forest Service, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The biggest problem is the federal agencies have been using high handed powers to push people to sell out and give up ranching to suit the new agenda. They close roads, issue demands to remove livestock within impossible periods, set fires that spread onto private land, even burning down ranch houses and buildings. The Hammonds were sentenced for burning a measly 139 acres of sagebrush in a backfire trying to protect their land from an existing fire. Yet the govt burns far more private land with no penalty.
The ranch land is marginal and if they were patient, the ranchers would sell out over a generation or so, but they figure they own all the land around them so they can harass them to leave.
It's the same high handedness other agencies display toward veterans, conservative taxpayers, and disfavored energy producers. The government should be the public servant, not a royal class governing commoners. |
