Clive Bundy

Property rights

Clive Bundy owns the grazing rights and water rights. At one time they may have been a lawful title but now they are a legal title to those rights because the Bundy family has changed their relationship with the world and the institutions of the world.

His family bought them 50 years before the BLM was created. They actually "paid" for the right. Some people are picking sides without checking on the peculiar facts in this case. We should be on the side of what is right. If there are no cattle on that range the water right will be lost. If you do not use it you loose it.

So the claim that I hear from saying "No one is trying to 'take his land away' is misleading. We should not throw terms like "land", owner and rights as if we know all the meaning and levels to those meaning.

While some BLM people think it is about turtles or government authority over government land and the power to lease public land it is really about water rights that belong to a private individual.

We should be asking "Does someone else want the water rights?"

We need to take the time to find out what is going on in the real world.

There is a private right on the land in question so therefore they cannot be classified as public lands. The general public is very confused about the details of this situation and the media is often making things worse.

After over a hundred years of lawful use the last rancher there will loose their water right and that is likely someone's plan. If there have been over 50 ranchers that have been moved off from these areas already by the BLM and Clive is the last to go, what is the driving force behind all this?

The BLM was to collect fees from the owners of the grazing and water rights in exchange for "improvements" upon the land, or so that's how the original offer was presented. But they stopped improving the graze and started using the fees to squeeze out the prior right owners of the graze and water, which is a property right.

Why?

The more than 100 year old grazing and water rights of the Bundy family that began long before the BLM came into existence are in fact property rights. The BLM offered to buy them and he did not buckle but chose to keep them. He is not leasing the grazing rights or water rights as some sort of permittee. What is being stolen here is not lease money but water and grazing rights which belong to the Bundys and not the BLM.

Has the BLM abused their power?

When they take the Bundy family to court their lawyers are paid by the government but the Bundy family must defend their right at their own expense. There is a decided disadvantage. If the people in America were interested in what is right they would have backed the Bundy fight long ago. But what happens is the government takes out one family at a time. The people are not united in the cause of justice so injustice will reign.

The real powers behind all this will be using the water rights that the BLM is trying to squeeze out of the last man to stand up for his rights by someone standing off to the side.

There is a spirit of power and control in the world where people want to rule over their brothers like Cain ruled over his. That spirit is alive and well in the bureaucrats of the government you have chosen for yourselves. Clive stood up to them and made them look bad in the public and the courts but they have an the apathy of the people on their side. People do not understand the law, land rights and certainly not the issues in this case. They also do not have the vision to see what is behind all this nor the real solution but they know when their favorite program comes on...

Bundy may loose eventually because Americans don't care about their neighbors as much as themselves. And those water rights will be sold to someone else and used for hydraulic fracturing or what is known as "fracking" when they drill for oil and gas in the area.

Those who do not support the rights of their neighbor and make judgment calls based on media drivel are what Stalin called полезные дураки or "useful fools" and the French called, "idiots utiles" and we might call "useful idiots.

There is more to this drama and here is more evidence that there is power and money behind all this. http://scgnews.com/bundy-ranch-what-youre-not-being-told

Then there is the arrogance and self righteousness that comes with the exercise of power. All these things are symptoms and are not the real cause of the problem.

But the real problem is not Harry and Rory Reid or the oil industry or even big money interests lurking in the shadows.

The real problem is that American people became socialists a long time ago. They are divided as a society because they desire to get benefits by taking from their neighbors through men who exercise authority one over the other contrary to the principles of a free society. Now the people are heavily dependent on a vast bureaucracy in which they have invested tremendous power. That power corrupts the thinking of those who wield it and makes the people slothful. Without some humility and introspection about the direction we have gone in as a society there will be more corruption.

Many people think this is about State's rights and have a personal grievance with federal authority which doesn't stop with the BLM. They "believe this is a sovereign state of Nevada." Bundy said in a radio interview, "I abide by all of Nevada state laws. But I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing."

While Bundy has a legal right to the water and graze unlike many other permitees, there is a lot of misunderstanding as to where rights and rule is and certainly how it has got to this point.

Article 1, Section 2 of the Nevada Constitution:

"All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security and benefit of the people; and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it. But the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and Perpetuate its existence, and whensoever any portion of the States, or people thereof attempt to secede from the Federal Union, or forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority."

Bundy has written "I have No contract, with U.S. Federal Government." I am not sure that is true.

If people depend on the Federal government for schools, social security, health and welfare then they will be more and more subject to its power. The more power it exercises the more it will be corrupted by that power. One rancher who supports Bundy says the BLM is out of control and it may very well be based on the comments, confrontations and cover-ups we see going on.

The covetous nature of the people excused by modern religion is the real problem and until individuals begin to address that in their own lives these situations will merely get worse.

Racist or anti Socialism

Many people began to shift their support of Bundy because of some comments he made about welfare and a work ethic.

I am not sure that his comment was all that racist. It did not seem to be about race as much as it was a comment about the effects of social welfare and public-housing project etc in North Las Vegas.

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do."

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” - Cliven Bundy

He did not say this condition was because they were black but "because they were basically on government subsidy." He is talking about socialism robbing all Americans of a work ethic.

Even Glenn said "I beg of you. A: Don’t let this harden your heart… I still say: The government is out of control. I still say they used over-the-top force. I still say return the land to the west – I am still for that."

Bundy is not running for political office and is not a professional speaker able to understand the power of the media to take things out of context. But neither were the other 50 ranchers who no longer have grazing rights in that area because they were forced out, Even if some of the sold out it is clear that they are using regulations to push people off the land. Many of those people owned grazing rights. Bundy is just the last hold out. It is not about Bundy. This is an age old story of gradual progressivism and divide and conquer. But people are already divided....

When the powers that be are done there with Bundy they will start somewhere else. In fact they already have.

Taylor Grazing Act

According to the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 on vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved land from public lands permits are given for grazing privileges in the districts to surrounding land owners. All this was for regulating the grazing of livestock on federal public lands. But that is not what this is about.

One rule under the Act was that you had to own or privately lease enough land or graze to feed your livestock for half the year. With 200 deed acres he would have to have or lease other property. Where is that? Mr Bundy and his family "owned" grazing rights as property prior to the appearance of the Federal governments rights to manage "public lands" in that area.

There were others that owned grazing rights and they were bought out under the pressure of the Federal agencies.

"Public domain lands" are those that cannot be sold since they are considered to belong to the whole community. So this is not "public land and open range" like someone leasing land or grazes from the BLM there other conditions people need to understand in this case.

Yes, Bundy will probably loose as much because of ignorance as the apathy of the people. The few Americans who stood against "unwarranted usurpations" of tyranny in 1776 did not do so because they would probably win but because they saw a moral need. They were in the minority then too. We do not address issues of right because we can win but because it is right.

There is an interesting article about “Property rights" and their origin by Mary E. Webster at http://www.newswithviews.com/Webster/mary107.htm