Not on purpose, of course!
Angry Rancher Cliven Bundy is demanding to graze his cattle on public land, land he does not own and has never owned, at zero cost. The land owned and managed by the government, in trust for you and me and all Americans, is apparently Bundy's to use and abuse at will…because freedumb.
And he has used right-wing media to whip up all of the armed nut jobs in shouting range.
Apparently Bundy was granted the right to graze 150 cattle for a fee on public land, but instead decided he was going to graze 900 cattle for free.
From the Center for Biological Diversity:
“Mr. Bundy has long falsely believed that Gold Butte is his ranch,” said Terri Robertson, long-time advocate for protecting the rich cultural and natural resources of Gold Butte and currently president of Friends of Sloan Canyon. “We all know that is not the reality, and it is time for him for obey the law.”
“Mr. Bundy's defiance of the law and decades-long free grazing on public lands is a poke in the eye of every rancher who rightfully pays for their use of the public lands, and a further thumb of the nose to those responsible, progressive ranchers who graze sustainably, allowing for threatened species to survive on their allotments,” said Karen Boeger, a former BLM advisory committee member.
...
“In 2005, the area suffered from widespread wildfires with catastrophic impacts on native desert vegetation,” said Jane Feldman, conservation chair for the Southern Nevada Group of the Sierra Club. “Efforts to revegetate the burned area have been severely hampered by the constant and unrestricted access of cattle and their grazing on fragile newly sprouted shoots of vegetation. In fact, controlled studies on how best to revegetate the area had to be abandoned due to the impacts from the trespass cattle.”
...
“The point cannot be lost that Mr. Bundy is an affront and potential danger to the safety of the public servants — men and women who have chosen to get into this work because they love the land — and the contract wranglers who have been hired to round up the herd,” said Alan O’Neill, former superintendent of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. “For too long, Mr. Bundy’s bullying and threats have stopped the appropriate action in seizing his herd and levying fines. To allow him to continue to flout laws that others adhere to is certainly an affront to all Americans.”
And
this:
"Despite having no legal right to do so, cattle from Bundy’s ranch have continued to graze throughout the Gold Butte area, competing with tortoises for food, hindering the ability of plants to recover from extensive wildfires, trampling rare plants, damaging ancient American Indian cultural sites and threatening the safety of recreationists,” the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement.
And we, the taxpayers, get to pick up the tab for all the work that must be done to deal with this angry, ill-informed nut and all the damage done by his trespass cattle.
The crux of Mr. Bundy's argument which allows him to act like he owns land he does not own and has never owned appears to be this:
A father of 14, Bundy insists that generations of his family have ranched and worked this unforgiving landscape along the Virgin River since the 1880s.
...
The Bundy family vows the war will continue.
“My ancestors created the rights to that land one hundred and some odd years ago,” Bailey Logue [Bundy family member] said. “And we’re not giving them up.”
So the Bundy family ANCESTORS created the rights by being present on the land and using it. The formation of nations and states, constitutions, and the passage of laws ARE IRRELEVANT. Even the Nevada Constitution which states that the land is federal land. That is their argument.
Therefore I assume the Bundy family is in favor of turning over large portions of the United States of America to the Native Americans, as their obvious claims certainly predate this country and all of its laws. Certainly the Native Americans' claims predate the Bundys' 1880 claims.
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Can we all explore this question on twitter? Cliven Bundy, do Native Americans have claims to their ancestral lands just like you claim to?
Using Bundy's argument, does the land then really belong to Native Americans? #BundyRanch
Fox News has
requested information related to this story be tagged
#BundyRanch.
Right wingers who have been hot on exploiting this incident:
@FoxNews
@MattFinnFNC
@Hannity
@RedState
@EWErickson
@CharlieDaniels
@MichelleMalkin
@GlennBeck
@TheBlaze
@BreitbartNews
@RealAlexJones
@WalshFreedom
@DLoesch
@ChrisLoesch
@HeyTammyBruce
@BryanJFischer
@Greg_AbbottTX
And while you're at it:
@ReviewJournal (Las Vegas)
@8NewsNow
@Lawrence
@Maddow
@ChrisLHayes
@EdShow
@ThinkProgress
@AP
@Politico
@LOLGOP
Using Bundy's argument, does the land then really belong to Native Americans? #BundyRanch