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BLM Stands Down in NV


Subdeacon Joe

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It ain't over... Not by a long shot.

 

However, I sure hope all chances of Americans getting hurt by over eager Federal employee's is over.

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It ain't over... Not by a long shot.

 

However, I sure hope all chances of Americans getting hurt by over eager Federal employee's is over.

Yup... The pressure cooker is still there... Just vented to relieve a little 'pressure' this time ;) there was a good thread with a lot of info on it with this subject but the moderators must have deemed it 'political' and removed it.

 

GG

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Just a simple question. The man admits that he stopped paying for the grazing rights on the land he admits he doesn’t own. He owes over a million dollars in back fees. A lawful eviction notice has been served and he has ignored it. If this was your land he was leasing what would you do?

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Just a simple question. The man admits that he stopped paying for the grazing rights on the land he admits he doesn’t own. He owes over a million dollars in back fees. A lawful eviction notice has been served and he has ignored it. If this was your land he was leasing what would you do?

If that question was that simple the answer would be as well.... but it's not that simple. If I built a house on property owned by no one and lived in it for 1/2 a century before you decided it was yours ....without you having paid a penny or invested a moment in it. Then I'd wave the same finger at you that Mr. Bundy has.

 

Now you've invented legal penalties and interest on the rents that you say I owe as well as confiscatory regulations out of whole cloth and expect me to abide by them just because you say so.

 

That's the definition of tyranny. I for one am thankful that there are still men among us with the balls to refuse to bend under the thumb of tyrants.

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If that question was that simple the answer would be as well.... but it's not that simple. If I built a house on property owned by no one and lived in it for 1/2 a century before you decided it was yours ....without you having paid a penny or invested a moment in it. Then I'd wave the same finger at you that Mr. Bundy has.

 

Now you've invented legal penalties and interest on the rents that you say I owe as well as confiscatory regulations out of whole cloth and expect me to abide by them just because you say so.

 

That's the definition of tyranny. I for one am thankful that there are still men among us with the balls to refuse to bend under the thumb of tyrants.

We'll said Brother

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We have had some confrontations in this county with BLM and the Forest Service over closing of some roads. So far they have backed down. It ain't over.

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Why are we crowing about the people in Nevada getting off their asses and standing up to the government when we won't do it ourselves over the proliferation of confiscatory gun laws?

 

I can't even convince everyone to join the NRA and write a few simple and inexpensive letters.

 

Are we that lazy and / or cowardly?

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If that question was that simple the answer would be as well.... but it's not that simple. If I built a house on property owned by no one and lived in it for 1/2 a century before you decided it was yours ....without you having paid a penny or invested a moment in it. Then I'd wave the same finger at you that Mr. Bundy has.

 

Now you've invented legal penalties and interest on the rents that you say I owe as well as confiscatory regulations out of whole cloth and expect me to abide by them just because you say so.

 

That's the definition of tyranny. I for one am thankful that there are still men among us with the balls to refuse to bend under the thumb of tyrants.

+1

 

GG

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If that question was that simple the answer would be as well.... but it's not that simple. If I built a house on property owned by no one and lived in it for 1/2 a century before you decided it was yours ....without you having paid a penny or invested a moment in it. Then I'd wave the same finger at you that Mr. Bundy has.

 

Now you've invented legal penalties and interest on the rents that you say I owe as well as confiscatory regulations out of whole cloth and expect me to abide by them just because you say so.

 

That's the definition of tyranny. I for one am thankful that there are still men among us with the balls to refuse to bend under the thumb of tyrants.

 

 

Does he have title to the land? if he does then I'll support him if not then it's not his property no matter how long he has squatted there

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So what you are saying is that any rancher leasing BLM land can just stop paying with no adverse consequences?

 

This just an FYI Henry, in the state of Nevada as late as The 1980s you could still homestead up to 320 acres for a $25.00 filing fee and $1.25 an acre. The main thing you had to do is show some improvement every year for five years and use it for agriculture. So I think Bundy has meet those requirements a couple times over

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So what you are saying is that any rancher leasing BLM land can just stop paying with no adverse consequences?

 

 

Turn it around, are you saying that any federal agency may claim any land as theirs and force a rancher to pay taxes/rent on property that has been in his family for a century?

 

Expand that a bit - are you saying that any federal agency may make any regulations it wants and the people have no recourse?

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Most easterners do not realize the importance of issues lke water and land access in the west. The Federal government takes liberties out here that would outrage most anyone. Arbitrary regulations appear out of thin air all the time. "It's in the public interest", they say. Last time we had a public meeting here on the designation of lands as protected sage grouse habitat, BLMsent two officers in full swat gear with M4s. The sheriff convinced them they weren't needed. These agencies like to wield a big stick and people are getting fed up.

I won't take sides on the situation in Nevada because I haven't studied it enough. Nor will I leap to Ruby Ridge or Waco comparisons. But I do know that the government has a history of running roughshod over a lot of citizens out here.

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Does he have title to the land? if he does then I'll support him if not then it's not his property no matter how long he has squatted there

WISE UP! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAwALTdrMZ8#t=47

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAwALTdrMZ8#t=47

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Bundy may be in the wrong for not paying grazinf fees and keeping his cattle on the land. Who has the right to the land is hazy to me so I am not going to take sides, but if its public land why is the government charging to graze cattle there?? Doesnt public land belong to us? We ran into the buracratic EPA in NM once. Their word was LAW and they wouldnt even discuss it.

The BLM seemed a might heavy handed there but thats our governments style cause we allowed them to get away with it!!!

No matter what orginazations of the government are involved, they answer to no one but the unelected buracrats (sp).

City governments arent too hard to deal with, County governments are a little harder but not too much. State governments can sometimes be a little overbearing but the Federal government.... Impossible to deal with!!!!

What the heck happened to states rights???????????

off me soap box now

Tascosa :FlagAm:

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Turn it around, are you saying that any federal agency may claim any land as theirs and force a rancher to pay taxes/rent on property that has been in his family for a century?

 

Expand that a bit - are you saying that any federal agency may make any regulations it wants and the people have no recourse?

Another concept to add to the discussion is eminent domain. http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent_domain

 

This is a complicated situation in law and there isn't a simple answer.

 

I don't like the idea of extinction of any animal species or plant variety. However, we are dependent on cattle ranching for many reasons...

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I don't like the idea of extinction of any animal species or plant variety. However, we are dependent on cattle ranching for many reasons...

OT:

I don't like the idea of trumped up threats of extinction for the purposes of stealing land.

 

GG

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This just an FYI Henry, in the state of Nevada as late as The 1980s you could still homestead up to 320 acres for a $25.00 filing fee and $1.25 an acre. The main thing you had to do is show some improvement every year for five years and use it for agriculture. So I think Bundy has meet those requirements a couple times over

 

 

As I said if he has followed all the rules I'll support him, this will continue to play out in the courts. Even as far back as the mid 1800's when you claimed property by homesteading it title was issued.

I will certainly grant you the fact that the feds do tend to way over react with shows of force that are seldom necessary. The whole situation should be resolved in the courts first there is no hurry

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Another concept to add to the discussion is eminent domain. http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent_domain

 

This is a complicated situation in law and there isn't a simple answer.

 

I don't like the idea of extinction of any animal species or plant variety. However, we are dependent on cattle ranching for many reasons...

 

 

From the reports it seems that the desert tortoise is making a good come back, And the BLM either has killed or was planning to kill, hundreds of them.

 

I would also submit that the proposed "solar farm" for that area would likely result in far more loss of tortoise habitat and deaths of tortoises than the cattle ranch does.

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I complied this story some years ago for a college class. Dunno that it necessarily fits the thread, but I'm passionate about my opinion of BLM and their land management techniques. So I thought that maybe sharing it might illustrate the basis for my opinion. It also illustrates the vast pieces of land in parts of the west, that are absolutely unsettled and essentially belong to no one, other than the ranchers that use them, and have used them, since the mid 1800's in some cases.

 

Most of the big ranches out there are well over 100 years old.

 

 

The story:

 

I got stranded in the mountains in Idaho for a week once.

Group of us in high school, I was 17 so 1998, went "camping" for a long weekend. Figured we'd follow some dirt roads out into the mountains, dive off of those onto some jeep trails we thought we knew about, and hang out a hot springs that was way out in the middle of nowhere for a couple days.

Plan was screwed from the word go, the only other guy with a good 4WD that had a winch decided not to take his, so we all went on in one vehicle.

Nothing wrong or bad happened until the second night on jeep trails, when my distributor self destructed. I had an 84 bronco, with the 300 I6. The rotor on this distributor installs with screws, and one of those screws backed out. Never happened before, never happened afterward. But it happened then.

This was about 80 miles down a gravel road west of the closest town in Idaho, and about 60 more miles to the east on that road to get to the closest town in Oregon, in the nothingness that is the extreme southwest corner of Idaho. We were 15 miles or so off that gravel road on jeep trails.

To make matters a little more complicated, it had been snowing like crazy as we punched that 15 miles through drifts on the jeep trail to get over a small mountain and descend into the basin where we broke down. So walking back to the gravel road, that wasn't kept open during the winter, was kinda out of the question.

Camping on thanksgiving weekend in the mountains is a bad idea it turned out.

We decided all being young and in shape and the next best thing to mountain men ourselves, to walk from where we thought we were to highway 51, hitchhike to Mountain Home, call somebody to bring parts, and be back out to where we were broke down by the next afternoon. By this time it was about 7:00 PM and still snowing sideways so, another great decision. After our initial recon of the map we decided it was only 20 miles or so to HWY51 so, we figured 12 hrs of walking.

Somebody's Dad had forced them to bring along a state of the art handheld GPS, and it only weighed 5 or 6 pounds, so we turned it on and marked our location at the bronco. We took a rifle, a sleeping bag, and a couple packets of ramen noodles, "just in case," and started walking.

After a couple hours my feet were starting to tell me what my brain hadn't, that I was a bona fide idiot. Cowboy boots ain't made for hiking through the mountains in the snow. We all stopped and turned the GPS back on, and got out the map to see how far we'd made it. GPS said we were 7 miles from the bronco, so we were making decent time, things being what they were.

However, now that we had a GPS turned on and were taking some time to rest we decided to see what it said our position was. Go figure, four 17 yo's didn't know how to read a map correctly. About 30 minutes of arguing later we figured we were a good 10-15 miles further from the highway than we originally thought. So, less than 30 miles left to go from where we sat. It got even better from there, dumba** had misread the map in more than one way. The grid squares were not 2 miles each, they were 4 miles each... So, now we're about 50-60 miles from highway 51.

Morale dipped a bit.

After more arguing we decided that even though it was gonna take a couple days longer than we figured, we'd still go for the highway. I only walked another mile or so before I decided I was officially stupid, and it was time to go back to the shinny red bronco in the basin full of white snow and wait for somebody out looking for us to see it.

One of the other guys, Cliff, decided to turn around with me, and the other two, Adam and Ian, continued on, saying they'd see us in a couple days.

The two of us decided we'd go to the bronco for our own sleeping bags and some more food, then make our way back up the basin toward the mountain to where we'd seen an old line cabin. We left the GPS and the map with the other two, and headed on out. Somewhere along the way Cliff started checking out, and by the time we were within a mile or two of the bronco he was falling on his face in the snow and refusing to get up. It was now impossible to consider making the line cabin, and it was everything my 17yo butt could do to motivate/drag/carry him the rest of the way to the bronco, where we spent the night.

The next morning we woke up to Adam yanking the bronco door open with ice frozen into his long hair and his beard, and a look on his face that suggested he'd spent the night running from wolves.

Turns out that about two miles after Cliff and I turned around they happened upon a small canyon completely blocking their path, and had been forced to either turn around, or spend the night out in the open in the snow and wind, rather than try to climb down the walls of the canyon in the dark.

Also turned out that a GPS and a map are no match for a kid raised in the mountains when it comes to dead reckoning, and they had spent most of the rest of the night trying to find the cabin.

Unknown to either myself or Adam, Ian had been in a major car accident that had nearly crippled him several months before, and was under strict orders from the doctor to NOT partake in any strenuous activity. So sometime in the middle of the night Ian checked out completely. Adam stuffed Ian and himself into the sleeping bag they had and they spent the night under a tree.

The next morning with no snow falling, Adam was able to figure out where in the basin they were, and they were able to quickly find the line cabin. Then, not finding us he assumed the worse and ran from there to the bronco, about 3 miles.

So, after discovering that we were ok, he turned around walked back to the cabin. He did take the time to tell us that the cabin was only one room, but was still weather proof and there was a woodstove in it. We got the supply's we had together and joined them at the cabin later in the morning.

It was now Sunday, and we were due back in town that evening, so we figured by Monday somebody would be out looking for us and by Tuesday they'd find us.

Monday we piled up a bunch of brush and some old tires we found at the cabin for a signal fire in case we heard anybody, and made some other improvements/preparations for our stay/discovery.

Tuesday we drank the last of the beer and smoked the last couple cigarettes, and ran nearly out of food.

Wednesday, cabin fever had Ian and Cliff (brothers) in a strangle hold and they we getting really hard to deal with. Cliff shot a rabbit with his 12 gauge at about 10 feet, so we couldn't eat it. I also went "hunting" and managed to sneak to within about 20 feet of a deer, which I shot right next to the eye with a 22 rifle. It ran away and I eventually lost the blood trail, and I never found it. To this day I still think my Grandpa was full of crap on the subject of killing deer with a 22. I did however find a BLM sign that we had missed in the snow. The sign said we were staying at "Old H Ranch" and that it was only another 13 miles to "Old C Ranch" on the jeep trail.

Thursday it started snowing again. Adam decided to walk to Old C Ranch and see if there was anything there to help our situation. He did, and I hunted. Cliff and Ian came up with a master plan to get us rescued. The plan involved hiking in the one foot-plus deep snow to the base of the mountain, then hiking through ever increasing snow to the top of the mountain where a radio tower was. Then the plan called for a 12 gauge to disable the radio tower, and a campfire to keep us warm until they came to fix the tower.

Once Adam returned after dark, he reported that C Ranch was an old unused full ranch house with multiple bedrooms, a big stack of firewood, a bathtub, and quite a bit of canned food. There was also an old tractor there, and two horses. I immediately abandoned all notions of disabling radio towers and suggested we all moved to C Ranch. No rancher is gonna leave two horses unattended for the winter. Adam agreed. Ian said he'd be damned if he was gonna walk 13 miles to sit in another busted down old cabin for the rest of the winter, he was gonna go for the tower. Cliff didn't say anything, he was trying to put a new wick in the lantern. Adam told Ian he was stupid, which was enough motivation for Cliff to come to his brothers defense with the knife he had been working on the lantern with. Adam kept him at bay, but mentioned killing him as soon as he figured out how to get past the knife. Cliff then decided to pack his sleeping bag in his pack, pick up his stuff and take off into the night, in the falling snow, with his brother Ian right on his heals.

Friday it wasn't snowing. Adam and I got up and straitened out the cabin as best we could, left a note detailing the two separate plans and our names, and started walking. We swept the snow off the bronco and left an identical note there. Several miles past the bronco we ran smack into the rancher that owned the land we were unknowingly trespassing on, who was out looking for any strays they had missed on his 4wheeler. About two minutes after that, a plane flew over us and circled us for a couple minutes. We found out later that the plane was flown by an Undersheriff from across the border in Oregon, who had gotten fed up with the Idaho authorities search efforts and decided to go have a look around in his private plane.

The rancher took Adam and I to C Ranch on his 4wheeler, and gave us some coffee and the keys to his truck. With instructions to stop at the first ranch we got to, about 20 miles down the trail. Which we did, and several hours after our arrival there, our parents arrived to alternately hug us and kick our butts for an hour or so.

After flying over us, apparently the Undersheriff was able to back trail us to the cabin from his plane. From there enough of the brothers tracks remained in the snow that he was able to follow them and locate them, huddled under a tree about 5 miles up the mountain from the cabin.. He flew from there back to his town and called the Idaho Sheriff with the coordinates. The Idaho sheriff department helicopter got lost and couldn't find the brothers, so the Undersheriff apparently got back in his plane and led the helicopter to them later that afternoon.

Life Lessons:

Don't trust handheld GPS's, although I'm getting over that now.

Don't ever ever trust BLM maps. People from out west know what I'm talking about. H Ranch, C Ranch, and the actual "main" ranch were all absent from the BLM maps. In actuality, if we'd have skipped following the various jeep trails, we were only 20-25 miles or so from the "main" ranch the whole time.

Pack more food than you need.

Pack a rifle capable of doing something.

Pick your friends wisely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, the take away...

 

Last I knew, the BLM used acreage under their control to justify their budget, and by "adding" land to their domain every year, they get a bump in their budget the next year.

 

So, in the case of this area in southern Idaho/Oregon, the Mindieta family had apparently owned the ranch we were on since the later part of the mid 1800's. Say, 1860ish, I don't know for sure. But... They staked their claim when the area was still Oregon, according to the old man that found us out there. The ranch address was Oregon, and the main house was in Oregon, though about half his land was in Idaho.

 

So, generations later, this old man and his sons were still running the ranch, and had conceded several THOUSAND acres to BLM over the years. Somewhere along the way, the old man had stopped "selling" his land to BLM, and had decided he could maintain what he had, and needed all that he had left, and took a firm stand with them.

 

They didn't care, apparently, as they'd gated his roads, placed BLM signs all over the place, etc... When he stopped agreeing to sell, they simply stopped asking. And continued pushing their boundaries into his land.

 

The thing that really made my family angry, and continues to disgust me, is how the maps we had used, being BLM maps... Had completely ignored his ranch and the buildings and property lines associated with his ranch. Thereby, as far as a map of the area was concerned, BLM was responsible for, and could expect funding for, a much larger area than they "owned."

 

The impact on the four of us, was that we obviously had no idea where we were, and were not able to come up with a solid exit plan, due to faulty maps.

 

So, lets say that one of us had been hurt, and another of us had been forced to make that long walk that first night to get help. We'd have walked nearly 60 miles for that help, never knowing we were less than 30 miles from help in the other direction.

 

Because those published maps suited the agenda of some manager at BLM.

 

Instead of being the accurate and reliable tool that we, and many like us, needed them to be.

 

So, in my opinion, BLM has a long and glorious history of making reckless and irresponsible decisions that knowingly affect livelihoods of others, and have great potential to affect the very lives of others.

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BLM stands down...Balderdash!

 

They just wait until they are out of the publics eye and come at the Rancher from a different direction.

 

Ans some claim the North "won".

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So what you are saying is that any rancher leasing BLM land can just stop paying with no adverse consequences?

Read the family blog.

His family(homesteaders)had legal access to that land before NV. was a state.

BLM is driv'n the folks out for mining interests, I'll bet.

Look what BLM did for Harry Reed......Do some search'n.

LG

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BLM stands down...Balderdash!

 

They just wait until they are out of the publics eye and come at the Rancher from a different direction.

 

Ans some claim the North "won".

Either way.... They did for the moment.

 

GG

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