You are wrong on so many levels. Over 60% of Utah land is owned by the federal government, and it is a similar ratio in most of the West. Grazing rights may be gained on private real property by a prescriptive easement or by adverse possession. It does not apply to government owned land (federal, state, municipal...). If Bundy was allowed to graze on federal land, it was because it was allowed (gov't chose to not stop it). Much of this land was acquired early in the history of the United States as a result of purchases, wars, or treaties made with foreign countries. The federal government used this land to encourage growth, settlement, and economic development.
The sheer fact that grazing rights were never codified for many years caused a plethora of range wars to start in the West. However, in 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act formally set out the federal government's powers and policy on grazing federal lands by establishing the Division of Grazing and procedures for issuing permits to graze federal lands for a fixed period of time. The Division of Grazing was renamed the US Grazing Service in 1939 and then merged in 1946 with the General Land Office to become the Bureau of Land Management, which along with the United States Forest Service oversees public lands grazing in 16 western states today. Some grazing land was homesteaded, but not much in the West. Today, the federal government employs principles of land use planning and environmental protection to preserve the natural resources and scenic beauty found on public land. The land in question is unequivocally owned by the federal government. Permits have been issued here before the BLM existed. And yes, it sucks if they aren't improving the land as they said they would, but it is public land, and I would HOPE the government charges a business to use it.
In regards to principles of ex post facto laws, you are wrong as well. Laws can always change, but they apply prospectively. Here is a hypothetical: lets say grazing on federal lands was legal for 50 years but illegalized today. If you kept grazing tomorrow, you would be breaking the law and subject to penalty. The fact is, the law was never codified before the Taylor act, but when it was first grazed by Bundy's family it was a federal territory, subject to their control. And permanent grazing rights were never established, that is a large part in what allowed two district courts to rule the cattle could be removed.
Basic constitution courses should be taught to everyone somewhere between middle and high school. It is so sad what so many people incorrectly believe regarding basic constitutional rights.
Pretty clear you have no idea what the Constitution says or means. Pretty clear you work for the government, have been indoctrinated by government administrators, and public schools, and state-supported propaganda retailers like PBS. Pretty clear you got your basic moral instruction from Sesame Street.
Probably nobody could recite the details of the grazing law as you do without Wikipedia perhaps but most likely from a point of view inside the BLM.
Now don't get me wrong. You're not unusual. Your point of view is likely the same as most Americans today with the same info base. Most BLM folks are decent human beings who have families and live fairly responsible lives. You represent the "Status Quo" in a sense, an unfortuante socialized American Status Quo that is not critical enough of the direction we are going.
Most ranchers have more or less accepted the primary tenets of law as they have been presented to them, in gradual revisions over time, by government administrators because they thought that was the Law, and they thought their government was doing basically good stuff. Even I myself, when I drive by one of those BLM signs "Your public lands" experience a sort of warm fuzzy feel-good like maybe it is land that does belong to the "people".
Where you are all wrong, as in totally..... abysmally. . . . tin hat wrong. . . . is in think your government today is either law-abiding or acting in the public interest. The American Cowboy is being rounded up and put out of business, on purpose, in order to clear the humans off the land, by an occupying totalitarian fascist state apparatus. . . which hires ordinary folks like you and feeds you a lot of feel-good BS while you are being told to help "manage the peoples' lands".
The Bundy grazing range was a titled grazing right. Until the unconstitutional provisions of the Taylor Grazing Act were enacted by an ignorant and socialist-indoctrinated Congress, courts were regularly recogjnizing existing grazers as having an established interest in the land, and the water they were using. It was unfit under the Homestead Act for settlement because of insufficient water to settle the land for agricultural purposes. Its first grazing use was under Mormon socialist principles as a Mormon community grazed it communally. Later, the involved families divided the use among themselves.
Mormons were conscripted by the Federal government to help fight the Mexican War where the United States took title to this land under the ensuing treaty, and today the Mexican governments' public schools are teaching their kids that the US govt stole the land from them. They, however, never "owned" this land. It was occupied and claimed by the Paiute indians, related to the Shoshone indians of Nevada, who today still assert a legal claim to the Nevada lands under federal "ownership". The US govt has literally thousands of broken treaties with American indians.
The US govt does not have a constitutional right to hold lands, as this was not a delegated power under the original Cojnstitution, and there has never been an appropriate amendment giving the US federal govt. that power. An act of Congress has presumed that power, but it is not constitutional. It is the State that should administer these lands, not the Federal government, and it should most appropriately be the various counties that enact land-use codes and environmental statutes, or impose regulations affecting users of these lands.
Harry Reid, as I understand it, used his influence with Barack Obama in the selection of the BLM chief during this administration. Harry Reid is interested in converting the use of this land, in a neat little two-step, to a huge solar power development. First, they have to get Bundy off. Then a lot of big wigs will have a lot of high-priced negotiations/dinners/etc etc in swank Vegas resorts, and a new deal will be signed. President Barack Obama wants to make this part of his "green" legacy.
The solar plant will be frying overflying birds, like endangered raptors, even Golden Eagles, as well as geese and ducks aiming for the marshes in the Virgin River beds and Lake Mead. The turtles will we utterly destroyed off this land. The solar panels will be presenting glare problems to people who try to go on a desert hike in the Valley of Fire and the Grand Canyon Nartional Monument.
About the only "green" aspect of this whole project will be the money that changes hands between corporatists.
If you really want to keep your credentials as a human being, you will need to resign your BLM job.
