As my name might suggest, I’ve followed this story with great interest. While the behavior of the BLM is open to discussion and criticism, I would argue the government has been incredibly patient with Mr. Bundy. He stopped paying his grazing fees in 1993 (about $1.35 per cow/calf pair per month), continued to graze his cattle on public land after his leases were cancelled for non-payment and ignored a federal court order to remove his cattle. Mr. Bundy is not a hero; he is a freeloader. Ranchers have access to more than 158 million acres of federal land. The grazing fees are used primarily to help mitigate and repair the damage that larges herds of cows can inflict. Anyone who has ever been around cattle can attest that they can stomp a mud hole quicker than any other critter on earth. This is not the first time - nor will it be the last - the BLM impounds cattle for non-payment and non-compliance. On average, it happens about four times a year. This time, some BLM employees in Nevada got a bit overzealous in carrying out their duties. Imagine if you owned pastureland and leased it to a rancher. What would you do if he had refused to pay rent for more than 20 years and refused to remove his cattle from your land?
Must be an awfully stupid rancher that lets his herd destroy it’s food source.
Therein lies one of the problems. The BLM ceased using the fees for management of the land.
Anyone who has ever been around cattle can attest that they can stomp a mud hole quicker than any other critter on earth.
There wouldn't be any mudholes there at all if the ranchers didn't put in wells and build catchments for rain water at their own expense would there?
In this present day and age, the battle lines have already been drawn.
Well, you tried, old timer.
The feds never should have gone in there with the shock-and-awe campaign, heavily armed, snipers, tasers, choppers.
If nothing else this will help show good people what the minions of Obama and Reid are capable of, and how an effective resistance might be mounted.
But as to the details of Bundy’s contract, and the long history of the dispute, and his insistence on paying the county and such—there are too many versions and too much intensity to sort it all out right now.
I’m not a rancher but I live amongst ‘em and I hear more private-land ranchers gripe about the great deal the government-land-leasers get than anything else.
But those gripes, like anything else, are one side of the story. The real lesson from the Bundy situation is that it is increasingly difficult, costly and even dangerous to dance with the devil out of D.C.