Men With Guns Are Also Active Elsewhere.

[MadImmortalMan]

The locals are so damn tired of not being able to do dick without the BLM saying so. This is how Harry Reid made his money. BLM says no to X project. Reid's son's company magically gets permission after some senator applies pressure. Business as usual.

[CountDeMoney]

Since when did you start getting Teabagged?  BLM says no to X project, because they're the Bureau of LAND MANAGEMENT. 

And no, the local yahoos don't get to do what they want on it, because they don't MANAGE the LAND when they do.

Without regulatory guidance, you have shit like towns in Texas getting blown up and chemicals in West Virginia water supplies.  The locals?  Fuck the locals.  Fucking monkeys can't be trusted with their own dicks, let alone Federal land.

[grumbler]

The locals are so damn tired of not being able to do dick without the BLM saying so. This is how Harry Reid made his money. BLM says no to X project. Reid's son's company magically gets permission after some senator applies pressure. Business as usual.

Oh, I understand the frustration.  I don't think the US government should be in the land-managing business (per se) at all.  It should sell off all that Western land* at auction and use the proceeds to pay down debt.

You'd need to manage the sales so that megacorps don't just buy it all for pennies on the mineral rights dollar asnd so that locals get the first crack at it, but that should be doable.

*not, obviously, to inclue national parks.

[derspiess]

Since when did you start getting Teabagged? 

[derspiess]

And no, the local yahoos don't get to do what they want on it, because they don't MANAGE the LAND when they do.

Actually as much as I hate to defend Bundy, he was taking care of the land, managing & improving the irrigation systems & whatnot.

[Norgy]

Nothing that napalm can't fix.

[derspiess]

Nothing that napalm can't fix.

Don't use too much.  I like my steak medium rare.

[Valmy]

One thing I have never gotten is why the Feds own like 90% of Nevada.  I thought maybe because it was a massive desert national park or something but clearly not.

[derspiess]

One thing I have never gotten is why the Feds own like 90% of Nevada.  I thought maybe because it was a massive desert national park or something but clearly not.

To protect turtles or something.

[Razgovory]

Was the hand ever privately held?

[DGuller]

One thing I have never gotten is why the Feds own like 90% of Nevada.  I thought maybe because it was a massive desert national park or something but clearly not.

DHS need some place to stockpile all their ammunition in preparation for, well, you know what.

[Norgy]

One thing I have never gotten is why the Feds own like 90% of Nevada.  I thought maybe because it was a massive desert national park or something but clearly not.

To protect turtles or something.

Might be something to do with 19th century railroad-building? I am fairly certain you won't find a turtle in a landlocked area. A tortoise, maybe.

[derspiess]

I am fairly certain you won't find a turtle in a landlocked area. A tortoise, maybe.

Anyway here in 'Murica they're all turtles. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

BLM land is basically all the land covered by things like the Mexican Cession, the Louisiana Purchase and etc that was previously covered by the Homestead Act. That's why the BLM owns very little land East of the Mississippi. It's basically all the land that people didn't homestead, which incidentally tended to be mostly the worst land for agriculture, so your deserts and such. Some of the land though is perfectly suitable for grazing, but not for large scale agriculture so for ages people had grazed their cattle on the land.

Bundy claims his family has grazed cattle on this parcel since the 1870s, but research into that claim has shown it to be questionable (he did have an ancestor in the area in the 1870s, but I don't believe they can prove he was a cattle rancher.) Anyway, prior to the 1930s people grazed on the land since it was basically unclaimed land. When the BLM was officially organized and Homesteading ended, they wrote in provisions allowing various uses of the land. Some people have grazed cattle on BLM land, some have extracted natural resources etc.

For decades there was no fee, and then Reagan started imposing fees in the 1980s. Essentially to correct free riding, because people were making money off of the land and paying nothing, which isn't necessarily bad, but the BLM was actually building access roads for people, maintaining the land in various ways and etc. So these people were actually getting the benefits of land ownership without the expenses, and the Federal government was making up the difference. I believe the grazing fees are very paltry, it's only so high for Bundy because of the size of the land he's using and the fact that he's literally never paid these fees for almost 30 years running.

Bundy's argument is basically "I used to do this and there were no fees, I don't like that there are fees now, so I won't pay them."

A bigger issue than these fees though is the unfortunate environmentalist tactic now of using lawsuits to close off perfectly productive Federal lands. They make BS claims about animals that are dispersed through the entire West being threatened by productive commercial activity on BLM lands, and with the Obama White House being responsible for defending these suits, they just immediately settle and cave to the environmental groups. It's been a "back door" way for environmentalists and the White House to essentially close off access to public lands. It's for no legitimate environmental reason, but just because of  that vein of environmentalists who believe any profit from natural resources is immoral. I've always considered myself a conservationist and do donate to conservationist causes, but the people trying to stop all productive commerce west of the Mississippi due to endangered quail or something are a blight on mankind.

[Razgovory]

One thing I have never gotten is why the Feds own like 90% of Nevada.  I thought maybe because it was a massive desert national park or something but clearly not.

To protect turtles or something.

Might be something to do with 19th century railroad-building? I am fairly certain you won't find a turtle in a landlocked area. A tortoise, maybe.

It seems that it has to do with the purchase of land after the Mexican war.  It was never Bundy's land.  He was just a renter  The BLM became concerned about over grazing back in 1990's and curtailed grazing over parts of it.  At that point Bundy refused to recognized the Federal government or whatever he does and became a squatter.

And something to show the character of the right wing militia's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZd61_9hofE  Human shields.