Actually, some courts do get it right. In this case, Hage lost on his “no such thing as federal land” stance, but the BLM behavior “shocked the conscience of the court” by creating a fight for no reason.
““In the present case, the Government’s actions over the past two decades shocks the conscience of the Court, and the burden on the Government of taking a few minutes to realize that the reference to the UCC on the Estate’s application was nonsensical and would not affect the terms of the permit was minuscule compared to the private interest affected. ..Based upon E. Wayne Hage’s declaration that he refused to waive his rights—a declaration that did not purport to change the substance of the grazing permit renewal for which he was applying, and which had no plausible legal effect other than to superfluously assert non-waiver of rights—the Government denied him a renewal grazing permit based upon its frankly nonsensical position that such an assertion of rights meant that the application had not been properly completed.”
Hage never got his money, did he. Now that he’s dead, the decision’s overturned. Like it was no harm, no foul? Really?
The goalposts are moved in these land wars. Eminent domain, water/grazing rights in question, millions of acres sought for ‘energy zones’ (which may turn around and be packaged to our enemies for their own purposes)—all these issues in contention can be argued from a stated legal point of view that favors federal positions.
They remind me of the capitulations at the end of the Ottoman Empire—which sliced up territory to the highest bidder and helped collapse that government.
The larger picture here is the sovereignty of US land. Not FEDERAL land. We each own federal land, as we are the people here. Not the Communist Chinese.