Posted on 09/24/2014 10:49:20 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
For generations, the people of the Four Corners region have battled the federal government over collecting and selling Native American artifacts. Then agents persuaded a local dealer to go undercover.
Operation Cerberus Action was supposed to expose a lucrative trade in stolen antiquities.
Instead, it tore a hole in a Utah town.
In the high country of the Navajo reservation, a family walked through the pinyon pines, combing the earth for the remnants of a vanished civilization.
Their breath steamed in the morning air. Dr. James Redd wandered away from his wife and daughter for a few minutes, then called back: “Hey guys, come and look.”
He pointed to a white shell, smaller than a dime, lying partly exposed in the wind-scoured dirt. It had been carved in the shape of a bird, with a hole drilled through it.
Millions of such artifacts lay strewn across the region. The doctor's wife, Jeannie Redd, reveled in the way the pieces connected her to the ancient Anasazi culture.
Jim handed the shell to Jeannie, who hooked it on a safety pin and put it in her pocket, never imagining the trouble it would bring.
Two weeks later, a man named Ted Gardiner strode up the steps to the Redds’ home, high on a knoll south of Blanding, Utah.
Gardiner was 50, tall and leathery, with a mantis-like build that helped him move about the vertical world of Utah's canyons. He was a dealer in Anasazi antiquities, and he'd been visiting the Redds for about seven months, trying to buy and sell artifacts.
(Excerpt) Read more at graphics.latimes.com ...
Federal agents spend huge amounts of time and money to pursue trade in trinkets.
Result:
Three suicides, including town's only doctor, whose home is raided by 160 armed agents.
Numerous families destroyed.
No one goes to prison.
Agent in charge gets plum job as reward.
And isn’t the agent the same one still making waves? Wasn’t he the Bundy raid guy?
We live in Wyoming and when neighbors in these parts come across a site the buldozers usually come out right away to destroy it all just to avoid problems like getting kicked off your own land. It’s ironic that these laws that are supposed to protect old things are causing their destruction.
Bingo! I think you’re correct.
I don’t think the laws are there to protect those things, they are to entrap people.
Utah to BLM: Rein in your cops
Law enforcement » Sheriffs say federal rangers overstep their authority and blame Utah-Nevada special agent for escalation of conflicts.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58394443-78/blm-love-utah-law.html.csp
I worked commercial construction when I was in college. The unspoken rules were: 1. You never found bones, 2. You never found Native American artifacts, and 3. When in doubt you found the foreman. And didn’t ask any questions after that.
I remember seeing a story about a guy who was finding dinosaur bones. He was eventually charged with felonies.
The assumption is that the government owns everything. Touching anything is a crime.
I think we need to shut down some of these agencies altogether.
Seriously, I’m looking for the politician who is willing to shut down BLM.
They have outlived their reason for being. Federal lands need to be divided up and handed off to the states. If they want to employ former BLM people to manage their lands, thats their business.
Now, they wonder why so many people are choosing to take up 'grievance studies'...
Well, duh.
You get fined for finding a fossil, but if you pick up a new gripe you get a grant.
archaeological sites = 1,000 year old trash heaps
Prima facie evidence of a government gone berserk.
We have indian “middens” all over Washington, particularly on the coast. What they amount to, actually, are garbage dumps that the “original environmentalists” left when they moved on once their village got too nasty to live in. When one of these is discovered, all work, such as construction or farming, has to come to a complete halt while our “betters” decide what to do with someone else’s land.
Smart folks know enough to cover it up and shut up. And yes, Dan Love is the same arrogant pr!ck from the Bundy incident. I wonder how many people have that jerk in their crosshairs?
I have 32 mostly unused acres in central, rural KY. The house we live in was built about five years ago and other than an old barn on the road it’s been farm land.
So I bought a metal detector about six months ago and just started using it last weekend. I actually found some stuff but the only bullet I found was a mushroomed 30-06 round.
But I joke that if I find any confederate gold, it’s getting melted down immediately and sold peacemeal. But if such a thing were to actually happen, you bet I’d melt it down. And I would not tell a soul what I found.
“... Congress made it a felony to take ancient items worth more than $500 from public or Indian land.”
So, price them below the threshold.
“Gardiner was from a prominent Mormon family...”
Well, Mormons believe they are descendants of native tribes. So, aren’t they really picking up family trinkets and entitled to do what they want with family property?
Shutting down the federal access and perceived ownership of public and state lands is goal number one. Chasing the Feds out of individual states might also be an option should they choose to be adversarial rather than the public servants they are.
When I lived in the 4-Corners area almost all people had a few shards and clay bowls found around the Animas, La Plata and San Juan rivers. Some of the gas well platforms had so many shards around them you lost interest as there were so many.
Last time I visited, the shards were all gone.
Yup. I lived in a cabin near Silver City NM for a time and the pottery shards and flint napping debris outnumbered the rocks on the ground. It was a multi-acre trash mound and there are lots of them. And they buried their dead. Wow! Who would have thunk that?
Forest Service says media needs photography permit in wilderness areas
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