Posted on 03/10/2010 11:52:14 AM PST by Willie Green
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Effective January 24, 2003, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was transferred under the Homeland Security bill to the Department of Justice. The law enforcement functions of ATF under the Department of the Treasury were transferred to the Department of Justice. The tax and trade functions of ATF will remain in the Treasury Department with the new Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.
“Now that was unnecessary. You must be falling back on old habits. You can’t provoke me into doing something that will give you an excuse to arrest me because, among other things, you’re retired.”
Don’t be ridiculous. My apologies, but your initial retort was smartass in nature, and I responded in kind.
I didn’t know that.
I consider that to be a problem.
“My apologies, but your initial retort was smartass in nature, and I responded in kind.”
First, I apologize too.
I looked at my post 62 response to your post 9 trying to read it from your point of view and I can see how you might think it was a smartass retort. But I didn’t mean it that way or even close. I wasn’t trying to zing you, or be humorous at your expense or sarcastic or anything like that.
I was agreeing with you that “They have, as always, badly overstepped their authority”. I was rushed when I wrote that particular post and it came out unfortunate.
I do see the Louisiana Purchase, the Alaska Purchase, and “acquiring” all that land from Mexico as overstepping the authority the Federal Government has under the Constitution. (I wrote ‘“acquiring” all that land from Mexico’ because I didn’t want to go into how we took the land as a result of winning the Mexican-American War and then paid Mexico for it and later made the Gadsden Purchase outright.)
I don’t see any Constitutional authority to acquire land as it was done, except maybe the Article II, Section 2 authority to make treaties and I think that would be thin justification except in cases like Texas and Hawaii. Even with that justification, I don’t’ see any Constitutional authority to expend taxpayer money in such land acquisitions.
So I agree that “They have, as always, badly overstepped their authority”.
And I think that, if they’d just stuck to the territory won in the Revolution and not started land grabbing, we might not have much of the trouble we have today.
Of course, we’d probably just have different trouble.
Apology accepted, gladly.
I appreciate your information and opinion vis a vis federal acquisition of land.
I suspect that had our forefathers not moved west we would currently be dealing with the Brits and Russinas on this continent. It would have been a very different world, that is for sure.
Take care.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse , it gets worse .
Having had the opportunity to go back and read the whole thread, I’ve got to take my hat off to you on this one. Your research appears to be spot on with the subject matter. Is it my understanding that somewhere in one of your posts the federales basically pulled a slight of hand to retain “ownership” of lands they held in a what should have essentially been a fiduciary capacity?
That is exactly right. It is akin to a lawyer who is supposed to be handling an estate for minor kids until they grow up taking the property for himself instead.
Wayne Hage did a lot of initial research in his “Storm Over Rangelands.” He finaly won his case postuminously for having property ownership interests in water use rights, ditch easements and forage on federal lands that pre-dated the withdrawal into USFS. I did a great deal of my own research during the 90s.
I worked with ranchers who had grazing allotments on public lands and got involved in the property rights - Sagebrush rebellion issues at that time. Now I work with various natural resource users - miners, ranchers, farmers and timber.
I don't think the state was even paid anything for it either. Can anybody explain to me how the Feds can legally do this. Isn't it unconstitutional?
Why is the government grabbing land all over the entire western part of the USA? I don't think it just has to do with Riady, I think there's is something more to it. Anybody have any answers, as to what is really going on?
I am particularly interested in just how strong the feral gummint's claim to ownership of "public" lands is and aside from the Sagebrush Rebellion, have there been other more or less successful challenges.
The land was already public land. Clinton used the Antiquities Act to set it aside from multiple use as a National Monument (usually eliminates mining and logging - also grazing can be extinguished, roads can be decommissioned and the public can be limited to designated roads and trails.)
When you say Public land, do you mean Federal Land? If so, do you know, was the land always Federal Land and how did they obtain it from the states? Or did they retain it when the territory became a state?
Do you recall what excuse Clinton used - I have forgotten?
Clinton was reducing the availibility of coal and natural resources so that his friends and donors in Indonesia could export more to the US and make more money. IIRC the Riady Group.
Yes, I knew that, but he used some other grand-sounding excuse as his public reason, I just can’t remember what particular lie he used.LOL
I think he was clainming to be a great environmentalist and protecting more land. I dodn’t recall much more than that. I think the state objected, but he did it anyway.
The only and “retained” from the state in actual ownership by the federal government in the western states is in Alaska. See my prior posts about public land and how it became “federal land” under FLPMA.
One attorney is probably more lethal than all the projectiles I'VE ever fired.
Thanks. I read through the posts. I am not sure that I understand it all, but it seems to me that the western states have been turned into a bunch of “unequal” states, and are being denied the ability to develop the natural resources within their states.
And for what purpose? It appears to me that there is more going on than the usual corruption and benefit for friends and campaign contributors, but I have no clue what.
Anyway, I am glad they are at least trying to fight this, and I hope they win.
I want some congressman to author a bill entitled “States Rights Property Protection Act of 2010.” It would reuire the Federal government to forfeit ownership of any real estate outside of Washington DC. All land owned by the Feds would revert back to the State and each State may lease back to the Feds use of the land if they so chose.
Enough is enough with this out of control federal bureacracy. This expanded federal government must ne stopped - NOW!
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