ownership

High Country News published an article about the Bundy trials in Nevada, where once again, the militias and individuals who pointed guns and refused to pay grazing fees as required by contracts with the Federal government, were released from the indictments.  The analysis relies on court testimony and the Federal judge's decision that employees of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) abused their powers.

What the analysis doesn't emphasize sufficiently, is that the militias, the Bundys, and others threatened, bullied, intimidated not only government employees, but essentially have disrespected the millions of American citizens who all follow laws and own federal lands.

As we have discussed earlier, there is a movement by a small minority of people who want to re-create a land where they can run roughshod over anyone who believes public lands belong to all of us, not just a cattle grazer or a miner.  It is like they see the world as 1871 not 2018.  

Regardless what happened in court, it is up to all of us to make sure we are not transported back in time by this ideology of extraction worship.  Their twisted interpretation of the Constitution and belief that "it's theirs," can only be won if we allow them to win.

Public lands are out lands.