Uh, if they can elect and elect a rustler to be their Senator time after time?
That’s the point. What business do the feds have owning so much land that isn’t needed to be protected like a national park? They should sell it off voluntarily or by Congressional legislation. IMO, Nevada has a right to its land without some compelling reason otherwise.
...but the U.N.’s Agenda 21 which Obama has fully embraced speaks otherwise. Another battle front.
Time for the states to start taking it back.
You just know this land is being used as colateral for all the loans we have been getting from the chinese to support our current welfare state....
With all due respect, sir, the nature of political rights, the economic and intrinsic value of humanity, morality, and our relationship with G-d are MAN-BASED, not DIRT-BASED.
So, while there are many good arguments against a government holding much dirt, the how a state’s dirt is owned is a small component of Statehood. Alaska versus Rhode Island being fine examples. Is an Alaskan more or less free than a Rhode Islander? More of Alaska is held by the Feds. But there are substantially more restrictions on the behavior of a “citizen” in Rhode Island.
So, I’ll argue that while we should have governments divest themselves of dirt because holding dirt is not their core function, merely holding dirt is not as inimical to freedom and citizenship as bureaucracy, laws limiting behavior, taxes, etc.
I love ya, Jim. And I concur on divestiture of land by governments. I choose to hold that issue lower than more direct assaults on our freedoms.
Economic warfare against republican states.
Lock up as much land as possible to kill jobs and business. Slows outflow from Democrat states.
Even shut down huge areas from recreational activity, to make it less attractive to move there.
The elites in Washington want control so that they have more things to tax, which of course generates greater revenues to feed the hungry beast of big government. Its all about self-serving interests and weilding political power.
They don’t want you to be independent. They want you to be dependent on them.
The vast majority of Ohio was owned by the federal government in 1787.
16 years later, it became a state and most of the land had transitioned to private hands.
By 1815, federal holdings in Ohio were minimal.
If Nevada had followed that rate of progress, 90% of NV land would have been in private hands by 1900.
East answer, there is _no_ state if it doesn’t have land. The _very_ definition of state within USA is the 50 land regions which are owned and controlled by soveriegn states.
Sorry JR, I had to edit that a bit:
The elites in Washington DC, most of whom have never set foot in Nevada (outside a casino or bordello)...
That’s RIGHT!! Go away feds. Stay out of the west.
You have posed an interesting question!
Here is another, related question:
“Should the LEGAL residents of the Sovereign State of Nevada be given an annual 86 % Personal Federal Income Tax exemption?”
Let me take it one step further.
The federal government is interfering with the rights of a state like Nevada in that it is preventing the state from growing new towns and cities.
The state cannot compete on an equal footing with other states, when the federal government is hoarding land that might otherwise be settled into a new town or city. That new town or city would change the demographics of the state, perhaps to the point of reapportioning representatives in Congress or even tilting the voting pattern from one party to another.
That new town or city might bring new industry to Nevada, and with it new revenues and taxes.
None of that is possible when the federal government is strangling a state like Nevada in a way that it does not in other states.
Nevada should go to the Supreme Court to force the federal government to release the land back to Nevada, so it can be on an equal protection footing with the other states in the union.
All states with significant lands being held by the federal government should demand those lands be returned to the state, so that the state can grow its population, its revenue base, and its representation in Congress. By hoarding these lands, the federal government is essentially choosing its representation in Congress, by limiting the ability of western states to control its own destiny.
-PJ
Republican Ronald Reagan had argued for the turnover of the control of such lands to the state and local authorities back in 1980. Clearly, the surrender of all claims to any land for statehood was illegal under the Constitution. This is no different from Russia seizing Crimea. The Supreme Court actually addressed this issue in Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 44 U.S. 212 (1845) when Alabama became a state in 1845. The question presented was concerning a clause where it was stated “that all navigable waters within the said State shall forever remain public highways, free to the citizens of said State, and of the United States, without any tax, duty, impost, or toll therefor imposed by said State.” The Supreme Court held that this clause was constitutional because it “conveys no more power over the navigable waters of Alabama to the Government of the United States than it possesses over the navigable waters of other States under the provisions of the Constitution.”The Pollard decision expressed a statement of constitutional law in dictum making it very clear that the Feds have no claim over the lands in Nevada. The Supreme Court states:
The United States never held any municipal sovereignty, jurisdiction, or right of soil in and to the territory of which Alabama, or any of the new States, were formed, except for temporary purposes, and to execute the trusts created by the acts of the Virginia and Georgia legislatures, and the deeds of cession executed by them to the United States, and the trust created by the treaty of the 30th April, 1803, with the French Republic ceding Louisiana.So in other words, once a territory becomes a state, the Fed must surrender all claims to the land as if it were still just a possession or territory.
Hear, Hear!
Do the Feds pay property taxes like us pleebs? Never thought to ask that.
That might be a nice place to start, if not.