It would be nice to hear of peoples thoughts of the situation going on in Burns Oregon.
I have to say that living in the west for the past 10 years has been an eye opener.
There is a long history of families being thrown off thousands of acres of land, in every direction, and the recipient continually ends up being the Federal Government, in violation of the Constitution.
For instance,
First the Pryor Mountains, then the Bureau of Reclamation took 30,000 acres of irrigated farmland now the Yellowtail Habiltat where you cannot even cut firewood, and made many written promises of profitable economic benefits of the changes that BLM never fullfilled. Ranchers on the Big Horns have slowly sold out and the buyer is always the Bureau of Reclamation or NPS. Local state divisions of Game and Fish, Conservation Districts etc. end up working for Federal agencies, and nothing except enforcement gets done.
In 2003 Wyoming and Montana made an agreement to not allow goat or sheep grazing on 30,000 more riparian acres, the lifeblood of family farmers. Game and Fish says they cannot provide me a copy of the agreement but grazing is now off limits! These agencies spent 2 million dollars on chemical and mechanical treatment of weeds instead.
With over 60 percent of Wyoming working as civil servants, we really are a leading welfare state of the union. And those of us with no pension, benefits, vacation time are left feeling this is a land of "No" Ranchers here won't stand up for each other, because they stand to get a little more holdings if their neighbour is thrown off land completely.
For instance, the Bureau of Reclamation wants me to pay for a 2 year study to conduct 1 hr. draft horse tours on exisiting 2 track roads, telling the story of the institution of the Yellowtail Dam.
After the Bureau of Rec bought Big Horn Mtns property they do not allow any outfitting or tax base building enterprises on the land here.
With 4 million visitors to Yellowstone last year, we are prime country for some simple summer agritourism but every government agency makes clear that public land is not to be used for community building benefit.
But the agencies buy the local mobs love by allowing them to 4 wheel and hunt, but never families to profit and build the tax base.
Yes, Agenda 21 is real.
What is worse is that a 74 year old man and son were sentenced served time, and then resentenced to a higher ridiculous charge of burning 140 acres of land. In my opinion this is unacceptable in this country, and tears apart the very fabric of our rural heritage no matter if we live in the west, or not.