Nevada range war: Western states move to take over federal land

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | 04-20-2014 | Brad Knickerbocker

[ReaganÜberAlles]

The fight over Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cows grazing illegally on federal land is a symbol of a much larger issue: control of land in western states, where the federal government is dominant

[DoodleDawg]

Maybe the “penumbras” from the Kelo v. City of New London Supreme Court decision can embolden the states to just take the Federal land.

Well if the states want to go the eminent domain route, and if the courts - through some miracle - upheld their actions, then the states still have to pay for the land they appropriate. So why not just cut to the chase, get Congress to sell them the land, and avoid all the court time?

[justa-hairyape]

The main question seems to be

Are we the United States

or

Are we the Imprisoned States

[diogenes ghost]

"This whole topic needs a lot more thinking and a lot less silliness."

Amen.

The silliness of your comments shows the need for you to do a LOT of thinking....and even more reading.

You might start with the Constitution, Articles of Confederation, Treaty of Hidalgo, Hage v United States etc.

[wideawake]

You might start with the Constitution

Please cite the part of the Constitution that indicates that the states own land before they ever come into existence.

Articles of Confederation

The Articles are no longer operative. Have not been for 225 years.

Treaty of Hidalgo

No state was a party to the treaty. It was between the US federal government and the Mexican federal government. Nevada was especially not a party to it, since Nevada would not exist for another 16 years.

Hage v United States

Nothing in the decision found that the federal government did not own federal land or that the states have some magical "right" to seize federal land. It was about the federal government's violation of Mr. Hage's personal rights.

Maybe instead of making random lists, you should make supportable arguments instead.

[greeneyes]

By the Constitution of the United States, the ratification agreements, prior contracts as covered in Article VI, the land does not belong to the Feds or the State Governments. It belongs to the people of the USA.

[blueplum]

I don't see how giving state governments millions of acres of land for free helps anything.

I do. Opening land within states to new settlement will facilitate the transfer of the balance of power from the North to the West.

Following the Civil War, the Yankees were able to subjugate the South with repressive carpetbagger policies. Opening the West created a huge problem in the eyes of the Yanks because undoubtedly the power would shift to the West and carpetbagger policies wouldn't work in the West.

The Yanks tried to deal with this conundrum in several ways. Confederate soldiers were prohibited from applying to Homestead; only Union soldiers and immigrants were allowed, since they would be loyal to the North (wash dc). The effect of scarce land for development into housing and towns discouraged wide-spread settlement of a state, as did restrictions of infrastructure to designated population centers (i.e., around forts) which were widely dispersed. Widely dispersed populations are powerless.

The North tried to ensure that the western states would have little political influence going forward, leaving control of policy permanently in the hands of the North. Were the western states allowed to be more populous from the start, the shift of power would most have certainly have moved towards western values. The northern states would likely have fallen into the same insignificance the Union subjected the South to. Of course, the industrialist Union, riding high on the horse after the complete destruction of the agricultural South(which, btw, followed 30 years of the wholesale exporting of slaves from the North to the South), would have nothing of that! And so growth was intentionally limited in the Western states by restricting available land, and therefore, voting population, as a means of maintaining political control of Washington DC.

It's high time the North was reined in and western states, relegated for 150 years to the status of second-class citizens, are given the right to finally settle on land in their own states. If it means the loss of the North's political control, then so be it; it's been a long darn time coming.