Kevin, I have no detailed knowledge about that situation and there are probably more sides to the story, but let's be clear about one thing: If anybody can make claims to federal lands in the west or elsewhere in the US it would be the Native Americans from whom all that land was taken , with by the way hundreds of treaty violations , which oftentimes were forced upon the US government by settlers and land speculators who despite official treaties pushed into those lands.
In our time there is just no way to justify that kind of behavior, showing up armed heavily , not heeding the local sheriff's pleas to leave and threatening violence if the demands are not met. In a nation that prides itself to go by the rule of law , no matter how different opinions may be, there are courts to settle things peacefully.
And make no mistake, local control oftentimes means control by the locally most powerful people, who do not always have the best interests of all in mind, but are pursuing an agenda of their own financial interests. If there are fees to be paid for grazing rights then they need to be paid, for example, and I cannot imagine that a rancher would be surprised about that. There are many ranchers who pay those fees and who do not claim that they have a right to use publicly held lands for free.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

I have to add that of course I find it silly that you should have to pay for a two-year study about 1hr draft horse powered tours. Tourism should be allowed where it is appropriate and where it won't disturb nature in a way that conflicts with the park's purposes.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

I keep hearing stories of what is happening out there, but never really understood it. It sounds like the bls is seeing what people will allow. I'd of thought after the Bundy standoff they might of backed off, but its not appearing that way. I wouldn't be suprised to see this sort of thing spreading across the country.
As far as the protesters in Oregon, I support them as long as they stay "civil"(and I use that word loosely) The overreach into everyday peoples lives is out of hand.


Dave


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

It sure is a sad day. All these 4 year wonders come out of some university from back east and then get hired out here in the west. Then procede to try to tell us how to use the land. Seems like all the really want is to keep every one off all public.

I had two women FS employees wanting to write me a citation because I broke some willow whips off when I took my mules down to the creek to water. I destroyed resources they said. I had to get a supervisor up and get him to tell them to back off.

If one reads the past history of that area up in Oregon and how the BLM had took over the land and persecuted the surrounding ranchers ,you would see they have a ligitimate claim.

I sure back the ranchers up there


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

What some people don't understand is when the government gets too oppressive and starts to bully people as they are today, people have the right AND the obligation to stand up to them. The rule of law means nothing to the government that is trampling out God given rights every day.

I believe there is a big disconnect between the people east of the Mississippi and the people in the west who's kin fought, homesteaded, and improved the land and have kept that land in the family for 6-8 generations.

As for the American Indian, it was the government that committed the worse travesty on them rather than the homesteader or rancher an dthey paid the price for them in raids, ,murders,etc

Read up on the Wounded Knee massacre. The folly of the battle of Sand Creek which was another massacre. The Trail of Tears. The countless treaties broken by the government. The forcing of the American Indian onto reservations that wouldn't support a coyote, let alone a human. The promise of food and they starved. All this by the government of the United States.Then they old the American Indian to give up their guns for their own safety and you saw how that worked out. Now the same government is telling us to give up our guns for own safety and the people are too stupid to see the folly of that.

It's a sad day when people give up their rights today for a little bit of safety tomorrow.

Mark my words,this isn't the end of these types of movements


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Those ranchers who refused to pay those grazing fees held that land before the government ever claimed to own it. They held it by reason of possession.Then the government claimed that land was now their property and decided the rancher who had used that land since the mid1800's was forced off it or ordered tom pay the fees.The government did the same thing with water rights. Even today,they are recinding water rights which the ranchers and farmers had by reason of senority an giving that water to city dwellers.

The problems in Oregon,was the rancher burning 120 acers or so in order to get better grazing on federal land and the feds wants to give them 6 years in prison for it. Knowing full well the ranch can't sustain itself without the men and the ranch will end up being sold and the feds will buy it.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Vince, I am not denying that the US government broke those treaties or allowed them to be broken, the point that I am making is , that most of the times it was upon the pressure of land hungry settlers, land speculators and/or people hunting for natural treasures like gold. for example. The pattern usually was this, the Indians, who by the way had a different way of looking at land not so much as property to be owned , but as something to be used, would be given a treaty , which then was gradually broken by infiltration till a number of people large enough started demanding that the government send troops to defend them against the " marauding savages".
I am also not denying the countless bloody massacres, but let's not forget that in many cases and in many places Native Americans were considered wild game to be hunted by the land encroaching white population. That's a long story. One of the things that infuriated the colonists most before the American Revolution was that King George III as a gesture of gratitude to Native Americans who had helped him win the Seven Years War in 1763 declared the land west of a line in the Ohio Valley off limits for colonists. That aroused resentment against the government at an early time in American history. And it has continued, when for whatever reasons limits were set, people perceived that the government trampled on their rights.
As to Burns, I read that some of that contested land is considered sacred ground by a tribe living in that area.
I can't even begin to comment on the topic of guns, and Joe probably will be grateful if we don't. That's a very complicated issue and we would have to delve deep into constitutional history and also psychology. I will not comment on that any further but end with a quotation by Thomas Jefferson that I think I have given a few years ago here already:
"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them to be too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.
But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the human mind. As that becomes more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, institutions must advance also and keep pace with the times. Otherwise we might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him as a boy."


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

If you would go back and read of the war in the west, you'd know that this has been going on for many many years. We, who live on lands in the western half, are the new indian. And they will do to us, what they did to them. Most who live in cities or east of the Missouri River have little to no idea and seem to care less. The media is controlled by the government and it's drones… so you can't get the real story from watching TV or reading papers… it is a mass effort to remove all of mankind from the west except for a few big cities. My father who was born in 1914 told about FDR. He got people to leave the farms and move to the cities and then gave them money and they'd all vote for him and claim how great he was. Few saw thru' what he was doing. We are in the same mind frame from our rulers now. Freedom? Not much left and it's going fast. Before you take the side of big Government, go do some real fact checking. Range Magazine is an excellent publication that will open your eyes and keep you truly informed. Also, think about it. Follow the money trail. There are some who are making millions by the actions of our government. Most just take their little check and stay fat, dumb and happy.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

The ranchers deliberately set a fire on PUBLIC land - federal land is PUBLIC land - during a burn ban. In most circumstances that is arson, and is no different than the three idiots who took cylinders of propane into the public forest in Washington and used them for target practice, starting a major forest fire. The other incident was a fire set to cover up the evidence of DEER POACHING. The law is SPECIFIC about the length of the sentence, and the original judge under-sentenced them. The guilty parties want no part of the Bundys. The local Paiute have stated that they consider the federal government as the PROTECTORS of their land and sacred places, not the enemy. They want the Bundys to leave. Bundy has said he's on a mission from God. His church has denounced his actions. What he wants is for the public to be able to swarm over the land, harvest fish, game, timber WITHOUT RESTRICTION. Legal rape of the land. We own a piece of property in the middle of the BLM land in Oregon. Pristine river chasms that are accessible by motor vehicle have to be emptied of trash BY HELICOPTER. Everywhere the land is used for dumping filth. People destroy the land with ATVs and dirt bikes. The land was all raped of viable grazing during the uncontrolled 1800s when the fragile grasslands were so overrun with sheep and cattle that they have NEVER been able to recover.
Now the western Juniper has over-run the land, thanks to unfettered plunder, destroying what's left of the water cycle and gradually bringing the land to terminal desertification. Is this what you want? This is what the Bundys want. Free, uncontrolled PRIVILEGE to do as they please. And then, I expect this will end in bloodshed. Fooey. Bundys go home. Barb Lee, an Oregonian.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

There are a few things that the non-westerner needs to know about fire in Central/Eastern Oregon. The Bundys' occupation used the fire-starting ranchers as an excuse to bring their agenda to Oregon, but you need to understand the seriousness of deliberately starting a fire in the dry parts of the State of Oregon before you buy into their cause.

Oregon hosts an area of the most dramatic and sudden climate difference on earth. At the Santiam Pass in the Cascade Range, the amount of annual rain diminishes one inch for each mile you travel east (up to a certain point, of course). That means that by the time you are out of the mountains, covered with lush evergreens, you are in a stark, staring desert. This desert is not like the Sahara, it is covered with water-sapping western juniper, regular Roman candles in a fire, sage brush and other volatile plants. When these plants die, along with the annual grasses, there is no water cycle to reduce them to soil, so the dead skeletons of these plants stand for decades, just waiting to burn. Anywhere that has NOT burned for a few decades stands as an unstoppable torch, once lit.

The dreaded government is attempting to use certain restricted burning measures to bring the "invasive" western juniper, actually an opportunistic plant that took over when the grasslands were destroyed by indiscriminate grazing, under control. On public land, that's the fed's job, not the rancher's.

Last summer, a tire came off a trailer passing through the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, actually in an area that's burned in recent memory. The sparks caught the grass on fire and the result was the burning of tens of thousands of acres, the loss of homes, millions of dollars consumed in fire fighting resources, and in similar fires across the west, the loss of life. Once a fire starts, it is usually almost unstoppable unless caught early.

This whole "unfair treatment of ranchers" was actually the accurate sentencing of two men who deliberately set fire to such range land DURING A BURN BAN, and to conceal illegal poaching. 127 acres, not a few accidental sparks from their tailpipe. Had the fires not been controlled, ALL THE OTHER RANCHERS IN THAT AREA STOOD TO LOSE GRAZING, LIVESTOCK, HOMES, PROPERTY, LIVES. Such a loss would be a blip on the media radar, covering unprecedented range fires in the west. Setting fires was an act of profound stupidity, just like driving home drunk.

The militia is using these people as a crying towel, and the media is giving them just what they're hungry for. All they want is unprecedented, unlimited privilege, some phony God-given right to do as they please.

Barb


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Barb Lee, welcome to the way things work now. I understand your anger over what is happening in your area, but the government is not the answer. Evidenced by the toxic sludge they spilled in Colorado this past year and no one even got their wrist slapped. the Government started a fire north of my in Western Sd during a drought with predicted high winds and the fire of course got away from them and burned private ground. Again, not even a wrist slap. so when two men burn a very small portion of their neighboring ground, as a back fire to stop a fire, and it worked, you will excuse me if I find that they are in the wrong and very hypocritical. The government is not here to help us. Maybe in the past, but no more. they are run by special interests. thus a gridlocked congress and a president who ignores or betrays what he was elected to do, by upholding the Constitution of the United States. When they abide by their own rules and regulations, then we can talk. Until then, there is no reason to even discuss any of these matters, in my estimation. Maybe what the Bundy's are doing is not right, but they haven;t kiiled or threatened anyone with harm. Any who say otherwise are buying into the mass liberal media. I have friends on the ground there and get daily reports. If you feel the trees are making a mess, go fix that problem. Don't wait for others to do it for you.

In this area, in the first of Oct of 13 we had a devastating blizzard. No one had ever seen anything like it. Since then all the people who live here have taken every precaution to mitigate anything like it that will ever happen again/ And let me remind you, we deal with blizzards every year and know what to do and how to do it. We fight our own fires and do our own work. We are small family ranchers with most in the 200 to 300. We do everything we can to protect the land, as it is out love and livelihood. those who don't live here have no clue. And we are so far ahead of the government and their understanding and ways to respond and fix problems that it isn't even funny. I imagine the people who ranch in easter Oregon are very similar, other than maybe they have ,more land they run on. Face it, most who are against anyone on public land ranching, are jealous that their ancestors didn't have the intestinal fortitude or foresight to go out there and do what was necessary to make it work and then try and pass that on down to more good stewards of the land.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Some of the worst forest fires in Colorado have either been set by FS employees, (See Hayman fire) or have been from those perscribed burns that got away for them. So much for perscribed burns being the feds job.

I am familiar with big fires , The one here two years ago burned within 500 yard so of my place, 15,000 acres, and just shy of 500 home burned.

These are not PHONY God given rights. The Bill of Rights,does not give us these rights. It protects us from the government from taking away these rights. That is what is some folks don't understand. They still think when the government shows up and tells them they are there to help, they actually believe it

Whenever someone talks about how our Constitution should be a living document and change with the times,it usually means they are agreeable to the government taking away more of those rights.

I for one am not and I am perfectly happy living with the one we have. Unfortunately the current administration , although they took an oath do uphold the constitution, does not


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Now the complaints about "government not here to help us but special interests" have some merit, but "special interests" can mean many things: environmentalists' wishes, native tribes' claims, mining interests, rancher's claims, tourists' desires etc. Such is the nature of a big nation that there are many conflicting interests. They even existed inside the ranching community, I don't have to remind you of the battles between cow and sheep herders. Those who think that " we the people " is easy to define delude themselves and misunderstand history, because right at the onset of the republic there were fierce debates about that, even rebellions , e.g. the Whiskey Rebellion. Such conflicts of interest in a civilized society must not be solved with arms. If people are not happy about their government they can use the power of the ballot and the courts and make their case. But it should be pretty obvious that not everybody will win. The Native Americans didn't win and as much as I know there are few people who think one can revert the course of history. It may just be, that in the long run, due to many factors some people in the West will have to adjust their life styles, too, as much as we may deplore that. The battle for land resources and water will increase with climate change and population pressure( such as growing city populations in the western states) and can only be dealt with in cooperation. Antagonistic views to government itself are not helpful in this context, trying to influence governmental policies with reasonable argumentation is the only way to go.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

By the way, the economic pressures on small ranchers are not in the least caused by the brutal competition in the cattle market, the vertical integration of cattle production with just a few big players who control the market and our import and export policies. There is sufficient cause to be angry here, but then that comes as a logical consequence of the economic system that the vast majority of people in the country has either knowingly or unknowingly subscribed to. I can understand the frustration, but I think the ranchers should try to find support from those groups that will applaud their efforts for environmental stewardship which undoubtedly a good many ranchers can point to. That has to happen within the realm of public opinion and success will not be had when ranchers side with law breakers or fee deniers


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

There evidence that the Blm had hid some truth in the trial. These men that set the fire, was doing so as a back burn to protect there ranch from a fire that the Blm had actually started them selves instead a lighting strick like they claimed. If this is true these me should be reimbursed for their time in jail, and the Blm agents, if the did lie under oath, or with held information, should be prosecuted themselves. As the old saying goes what's good for the gander is good for the goose.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Barb, I sure appreciate your posts, but in this case it seems you have really drank the big media koolaid. There is an extreme difference between actual video footage of what has happened and what is listed daily of "the militants" both at the Bundys in Arizona last year, and what the media portrays daily in Burns.
Have you checked actual footage that is documented? These ranchers aren't crazies!

Please keep in mind I never met a rancher that treated public land better than his own and implementing holistic grazing principles.
I never met Mormon that wouldn't tow the party line in a pinch.
I don't see beginning farmer programs in the western states, they just seem to sell out to the highest paying environmentalist buying mountain ground. So I classify myself as not "one of them"
Personally I may not understand all these people, but probably because I am a prejudiced short minded individual that hasn't lived with them long enough.
But,

I try to KISS. keep it simple stupid. (reminding myself)

Yes the US constitution matters, and it is valid. The federal government is extreme overreach, continually.
Yes, the land is for the public good and resources are to be used responsibly for commerce.
When the land is consistently encroached upon by the federal governement in conflict with supply and demand, where all land use is transitioned only to recreational use, and inhibits incentive in the working population, a precedent is set which deters from the fabric of this great country.
The Fabians would have us comply, obey, put our hands out hoping they will be filled by strangers. But this is not the America I immigrated into, to contribute to and raise a family.

Bundy has reached out to and is working with the Native Americans to remediate wrongs, not against them.

If my truck ever is repaired I fully intend on getting my butt out there and thanking grown men for doing their best, even if they are not my compadres. Anyone is welcome to come with.
Look at the people who are involved there. They are not doing this for selfish benefit. They are being good neighbours in a land where everyone only seems to be thinking of what they will lose by doing the right thing. If my granpa settled a ranch and I lit a 140 acre backffire to protect it decades later, I sure hope strangers would show up to help my family if I was put in jail for 5 years....Not sure anyone would, though.
Lets keep our heads up, the right thing is always the right thing whether you can afford to do it or not.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

The problem with saying fix it at the ballot box is the fact that 47% of the US population is on the govt. dole. Either as employees, welfare recipients, or obtaining some other form of govt subsistence.

Those folks vote and they vote so as not o diminish their monthly check.There is an old saying.. You will never vote Santa Claus out of office.These people see the govt as their Santa Claus .

So all you need is another 5% of people who don't care or don't know the facts to win that side of the election, or voter apathy of the people that don' t vote.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

" ...some other form of government subsistence.." such as subsidies for agricultural products or cheap USDA loans etc.
As long as one lives within a civilized society one will in one way or other be connected or implicated . There is no escaping the fact that any economic system that uses money instead of only bartering makes people in some way or other dependent on each other and on the government. We just have to see to it that it is a fair system.
Having said that I can say as a vegetable farmer I haven't seen any subsidies yet, but I am aware that if I want to have any customers at all there need to be roads and that I profit more from their existence than I have ever contributed for their construction and maintenance.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

For those who wish to know more about this tragic situation on Oregon and the heavy handedness of the BLM, I invite you to watch this 10 minute video of what is actually happening there.

What would you do if it were your home and livelehood?

BLM burns land unsupervised: Burn ranchers home and cattle alive [VIDEO]


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum