Not only in Oregon, but the entire West.
...In feudal Europe, the Sovereign—the Lord—owned all the land, and
everyone else was a serf or peasant. The system of land, water, mineral,
and grazing rights that’s been in use in the American west for
literally hundreds of years has maintained the federal government as the
Sovereign and the minor land owners as serfs, bowing to the Lord for
every indulgence. When the feds mostly stayed out of the way, the
conflicts were few, but now, with California in a self-inflicted water
crisis, the EPA assuming Kingly powers, and the BLM...
That's the point of the essay. *.gov, EPA, and BLM are pretty lousy neighbors, at best--and if some of the reports about their behavior vis-a-vis the Hammond family are true, the *.gov people are not only bad neighbors; they are predatory.
This is not what Constitutional government is all about. And whether it is the Oregon incident, or the next one, or the one after that, at some point in time the serfs shall rise up and there will be blood.
That's right. You can still ranch! You just need to apply for a permit... which we will of course grant... if we want to. And if not, you have no rights.
ReplyDeleteProperty rights are important for human liberty. The suggestion that the situation out West is like a lord/serf situation is not out of line. It's a kind of tenant farmer relationship that the government is pursuing, a government specifically founded in a tradition where Lockean property rights were at the core.