RE: Cliven Bundy got to use public land without paying even a fraction of what it is worth. He is a tenant - no more and no less.
The question that concerns most FReepers is this — Why is the FEDERAL government in control of 84% of land in a State?
Bundy actually wanted to pay for grazing TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN NEVADA.
The dispute began in 1993, when the BLM interfered with Bundy’s grazing rights, citing protection of the Mojave Desert tortoise. Everything was OK before that.
It is not clear how cattle are a threat to the tortoise. They capped his herd to 150 animals on a 250-square-mile rangeland allotment. When Bundy saw his grazing fees were no longer being used to help ranchers, but to thwart them, he stopped paying monthly federal land fees of $1.35 per cow-calf pair, insisting that local government, not the BLM, should be in control of the lands.
Bundy’s family has raised cows on the land since the 1870s. The BLM was established much later in 1946. Cozy with federal judges, beginning in 1998, the BLM began to get rubber-stamped court orders requiring Bundy to remove his animals.
You don’t address the points I made. Krugman is right there tends to be a lazy anti-intellectualism on the Right.
Again, as long as the land is federal, Bundy has two choices: he can pay his fees or he can move out. What he does not have the right to do is to treat land that doesn’t belong to him as his own private property.
And I don’t consider someone who isn’t a dutiful tenant a hero. I am sure no one on here would say someone who lives in an apartment should be a moocher at the landlord’s expense. The exact same principle is operative in Nevada; only the identity of the landlord happens to be BLM who acts on behalf of all of us in management of the federal lands - the American people.