Wow, Thriller finally made a decent post. Glad I didn't log in before reading the site or I wouldn't have seen it.
sure guvmint employees, both of you. I think a guvmint that pays morons is a bad guvmint.
So the Fed government has broken faith with states like Utah, Arizona and Nevada because it was essentially a cardinal principle that federal lands would be open to private use and ownership.
Congress in the 1800s played to the interests of settlers..... farmers.... and really gave ranchers the short shrift by not recognizing private grazing rights. Caused range wars, Americans killing Americans, the stuff of movies like "
Shane".
Congress passed the Homestead Act, and a lot of states, even states with marginal water resources went almost entirely into private hands. But John Wesley Powell, one of the worst characters in US history, a virulent anti-Mormon and one of the first "progressives", born and raised by a Methodist minister near Palmyra New York, didn't think the Homestead Act should be honored. It's still the law of the land.
Bundy's range is in Shoshone territory governed by a treaty with the Shoshone nation, as most of Nevada is. Paiutes are a southern Shoshone branch of American natives, distinct from Hopi and Navajo. The US guvmint has never done right by the Shoshone, any more than the grazing range cattlemen. The land was in Utah territory, then Arizona, then Nevada across less than fifty years from the 1860s when the Bundy's started grazing there into the 1910s when it finally went into Nevada state hands as it was shaved off of Arizona territory when Arizona was made a state. The recorded grazing property right makes the case for the Bundy's. It has to be administered by Clark County NV, that is the only legal administrative unit with any jurisdiction over the tract. And until Clark County buys the grazing right, the only fees they can legally assess are those directly attributable to the maintenance of the tract. If they do some work , like improve some water resource, or put a fence up, sure send a bill. The Bundys don't claim to own the land itself, or the minerals on or under the land, just the grazing use.
The grazing property right was recorded under the administration of three territories as a taxable property interest. The US Constitution denies that the Federal government can take private property interests from citizens without paying a fair price for them.
modern communists/self-styled "progressives" don't believe in personal or private property. Dems don't think your business is yours, or your money or income. They believe they the smartass knowitalls of superior rank who are the true "enlightened" elites, who should have everything at their disposal.
That's why Harry Reid and his son Cory.... damned Mormons if there ever will be such cretins properly labeled.... thought their deal with the Chinese solar company that wanted to carpet the turtle heaven with solar panels, believed they could just get their handy honcho thugs at the BLM and FBI to run the Bundys off. Reids Harry and Cory should go to jail for life for abuse of guvmint authority and threatening citizens with bodily harm while attempting to convert private property to their own financial gain.
Utah had lands shaved off of its territory by several acts of Congress. The first rancher to graze my land recorded a deed to the grazing in relevant Utah recorders office. It is the same fact with a whole lot of old grazing rights that existed prior to the Taylor grazing act.
But I feel damn sorry for the native Americans. The US guv has violated every treaty they ever made with the native Americans, and it's gonna be a helluva social justice fight to ever get such "inconvenient" property rights recognized.
Frank, the Federal guvmint has no authority over local land use issues. Utah State does have such authority, as do cities and counties. You should not be defending Federal usurpation. The mining, grazing and Homestead Acts should be, properly, things that States administer.
We got a whole crapload of States who got theirs first who want to run Utah too.