Monday, March 18, AD 2024 9:37pm

Clive Bundy and the Rule of Law

 

 

The stand off between the Bureau of Land Management and rancher Clive Bundy raises some very intriguing questions about the rule of law in the land of the free and the home of the brave in this year of grace 2014.  Bundy and his family have grazed cattle on federal land for generations.   In 1993 the Bureau of Land Management changed the rules of the game, limiting the number of cattle to 150 that Bundy could graze, ostensibly to protect an endangered desert tortoise that, it turns out, are so endangered that in recent years the Bureau of Land Management has had to cull them because they have grown so numerous.  It also turns out that the tortoise and cattle co-exist fine in any case.

After 1993 Bundy stopped paying Federal grazing fees and grazed his cattle anyway, arguing that the land actually belongs to the State of Nevada rather than the Feds.  That argument has been a loser in court for Bundy.  He also has powerful enemies in Senator Harry Reid (D.Nv) and his son Rory Reid who often seem to assume that Nevada is, or should be, their personal fiefdom.  Go here  and here to read about their shady involvement in all this.  This all led to an attempted massive show of force by the Bureau of Land Management last week to round up Bundy’s cattle which was called off when videos of confrontations between the Feds and volunteers seeking to protect the Bundy cattle began filling the net.  Harry Reid has vowed this isn’t over.

Andrew McCarthy at National Review Online points out why so many people around the country sympathize with Bundy whose family has grazed cattle on public land for 140 years.

The underlying assumption of our belief in the rule of law is that we are talking about law in the American tradition: provisions that obligate everyone equally and that are enforced dispassionately by a chief executive who takes seriously the constitutional duty to execute the laws faithfully. The rule of law is not the whim of a man who himself serially violates the laws he finds inconvenient and who, under a distortion of the “prosecutorial discretion” doctrine, gives a pass to his favored constituencies while punishing his opposition. The rule of law is the orderly foundation of our free society; when it devolves into a vexatious process by which ideologues wielding power undertake to tame those whose activities they disfavor, it is not the rule of law anymore.

The legitimacy of law and our commitment to uphold it hinge on our sense that the law and its execution are just. As John Hinderaker points out, concerns about the desert tortoise—the predicate for taking lawful action against Nevada ranchers under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)—turn out to be pretextual. The ideologues who run the government only want to enforce the ESA against a disfavored class, the ranchers. If you’re a well-connected Democrat who needs similar land for a solar project, the Obama administration will not only refrain from enforcing the ESA against you; it will transport the tortoises to the ranchers’ location in order to manufacture a better pretext for using the law to harass the ranchers.

When law becomes a politicized weapon rather than a reflection of society’s shared principles, one can no longer expect it to be revered in a manner befitting “political religion.” And when the officials trusted to execute law faithfully violate laws regularly, they lose their presumption of legitimacy. Much of the public is not going to see the Feds versus Bundy as the Law versus the Outlaw; we are more apt to see it as the Bully versus the Small Fry.

Go here to read the rest.  When the Law is seen as  a neutral arbiter of disputes based upon applicable laws, people tend to have great respect for it.  That respect vanishes like water in the desert when it becomes clear that the Law is being used as a weapon by the politically connected to work their will against those who oppose them.

 

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DJ Hesselius
DJ Hesselius
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 5:09am

I think something similar is happening in the Church. Pelosi, the Nuns on the Bus, et al usually get a pass and take Communion or get an Honorary Degree from Important Catholic University. Not so much people like Sister Jane. Opine that maybe the divorce culture isn’t a good thing by citing a reputable journal and you’ve got to go on sabbatical.
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Little wonder our bishops and many priests are no longer respected.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 6:22am

Disputes of this kind frequently arise over land, because the question, “who owns this piece of land” seems like a simple one, but is, often, anything but.

A landowner sells land (or feus it heritably and irredeemably), reserving let us say, the mineral, timber and sporting rights (a very common form of grant); who owns the land? Scottish lawyers have traditionally said that the seller owns it (dominium directum), but the purchaser owns the use (dominium utile). This means that, at whatever distance in time, the seller and his successors in title can irritate the grant for the least infringement of their rights on the grounds of purpresture. In the case supposed, let a hare be shot or a few ctw of sand or gravel be extracted or a timber tree felled, or a windfall used or disposed of and the superior may declare all and whole of the lands forfeit, regardless of the amount the purchasers may have expended on them and thereby irritating all subordinate rights acquired, such as leases or lenders’ rights in security. Let the occupier resist these demands and he runs the risk of creating a further ground of forfeiture, namely disclamation, for his breach of fealty in disputing his superior’s rights.

Indeed, there has been a scandalous trade in more or less worthless superiorities, by speculators, often thieves and broken men of England, hoping to take advantage of such irritancies, either to repossess the land or to extort money for grants of novodamus, waiving the breach. In Scotland, the offenders have been subject superiors, rather than the Crown.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 6:34am

There is a law that covers everything. Today, I will commit several federal crimes just being me.

Obama and the Reids own 86% of Nevada. Why?

Regarding the “volunteers”, are you crazy? You’ve marked yourselves for death. You cannot beat them and their M/RAP’s.

This is why the progressives push gun control/assault weapons confiscations. They cannot have the serfs shooting back. The secret police don’t like it.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 6:35am

Note the title: the Bureau of Land Management. Management is not ownership. It is management because all public lands (and waterways and buildings) belong to each individual person in America in joint and common tenancy. You own it all and I own it all and Clive Bundy owns it all in joint and common tenancy. Government owns nothing of itself. Government is the servant of the people made up of people who, too, own in joint and common tenancy and are common citizens, their office set apart with the laws Donald McClarey so very succinctly reiterates.
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Harry Reid is fighting for his part of ownership. Clive Bundy is fighting for his ownership. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Bundy is there first. Reid must get consent from Bundy by maybe saying: ”PLEASE” and cannot use the government departments to serve his own purpose as Donald McClarey points out. Having said that, government against the people is treason against the nation. (and maybe, probably, perjury in a court of law)

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 6:38am

God owns the land. In the Old Testament land ownership and use is very distinctly defined.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 6:47am

The cattle keep the weeds down, fertilize and enrich the land making the cattle valuable assets in land management. Besides, Clive Bundy looks like John Wayne. Harry Reid you lose.
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It is probably another strategy of Obama’s to take a stranglehold on our food chain. Where will the cattle feed? The herds will have to be reduced if feed becomes more expensive.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 6:55am

This is crazy. First Obama got Cal Sunstein, Obama’s czar of propaganda to make persons of animals, persons without a rational, immortal soul and sovereign personhood and endowed human rights, so that your beef steak could sue you in a court of law and your pork chop could be defined as a citizen to maybe vote for Obama. Now this, if Obama can’t have it, he will destroy it.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 8:56am

Bill Clinton’s executive orders is an eye opener. For instance: “President Clinton repealed a number of important executive orders issued by Presidents Reagan and Bush, who both had issued a variety of cross-cutting executive orders calling on executive branch agencies to take important constitutional or institutional principles into account when they take regulatory action. The constitutional and institutional principles elevated by Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush were varied but fundamental. They included paying special attention to the cost and benefit tradeoffs of government regulation (Executive Order 12291, 1981); the constitutional structure of federalism with an instruction not to carelessly preempt state authority and law (Executive Order 12612, 1987); avoiding interference with the traditional family (Executive Order 12606, 1987); the constitutional guarantee against uncompensated takings of private property (Executive Order 12630, 1988); and the clarity of drafting regulations and whether any unclear rules would lead to costly and unnecessary law suits (Executive Order 12778, 1991).” from Heritage Foundation.
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Notice that the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of “just” compensation for the public taking of private property has been abrogated without three quarters of the states ratifying the change. It was Clinton who placed all public lands and waterways under the direct authority of the Executive, Clinton thinking that Hillary would be next in line for the presidency. That is now possible in 2016.
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THE SEPARATION OF POWERS
“There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.”
–Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu1
“The accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
–James Madison, Federalist 46
“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
–U.S. Constitution, Art. I, § 1
“The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
–U.S. Constitution, Art. II, § 1, cl. 1from the Heritage Foundation

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 9:26am

This dispute is an aspect of a weird anomaly that needs to be rectified, and that is that the federal government is the allodial holder of over 20% of the land area of the United States. Some of that is park and preserve land or auxilliary to federal ownership of water courses or consists of old-growth forest, but the vast bulk is commercial grazing and timber land. It is long past time that this land was auctioned off. One sticky point is that reliance on property taxes generates a bias toward deforestation, so you need a system of bounties and excises that counter-act that and stabilize total forest inventories. The other is that grazing rights on federal land are a status tenure – they are allocated to those owning adjacent pieces of property. The rights are then capitalized into the sale prices of adjacent pieces of property. You have to buy back the grazing permits from the current holders, and figuring a compensation formula is a fiendish task (though worth it in the long run).

As for the Endangered Species Act, it’s turned into a wedge for various New Class sectors to harass private enterprise. State regulation of the use of common property resources and prohibitions on poaching have a looong history and are socially necessary. Manipulating the course of nature in this way does not. Biologists wishing to preserve particular species can build their facilities and preserves from the donations they can hustle and from local governments willing to pony up for zoos. There is no need for the national government to engage in this sort of activity nor to abuse its regulatory authority for the benefit of club enthusiasts.

While we are at it, is it really necessary for the federal government to maintain all this park and preserve land? Parks, preserves, and trail systems crossing state lines make up about 15% of the inventory maintained by the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service (IIRC). The largest park in the lower 48 is the Adirondack State Park, so it’s not as if more particular authorities cannot do this sort of work, even if Ken Burns fancies that’s not America’s Best Idea. Why not deed over any intrastate parcel a state government is willing to accept with the stipulation that it remain parkland for a term of decades and the idled park rangers will be hired to run it? We get devolution and we irritate Ken Burns in the process, salutary activities both.

And while we’re on the subject of the Park Service, have you seen the federal facility at Franklin Roosevelt’s house? Turn it over to the Democratic National Committee and tell them to pony up for their own shrines.

/rant off.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 9:32am

That respect vanishes like water in the desert when it becomes clear that the Law is being used as a weapon by the politically connected to work their will against those who oppose them.

Eric Holder, Vaughn Walker, Anthony Kennedy, the appellate judiciary generally, the U.S. Attorney’s offices, sundry local prosecutors, various state attorneys-general, the legal professoriate, and the management of elite law firms all have a hand in this. The rot in the legal profession is everywhere and there is no ready way to remedy matters.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 10:19am

The first thing that comes to my mind is that thought from the government that the “law is for thee, not for me.” And as power gets more and more consolidated that is a scary thought.
Like Mary DeVoe I am reminded of the ancient truth from way back in the book of Moses, that the land belongs to God. Along with that venerable wisdom, there was to be a time of jubilee periodically to reinforce that cooperation with God’s will.
For that matter, the ruler of the nation was to be God, and the “power grab” of King David in taking a census is still instructive to us.
the arming of the BLM with weapons of war- wow! How is that explained?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 10:28am

FYI, people, I’m one-in-a-million.

The SAFE Act, passed in New York last year, had an April 15 deadline for owners of assault-style weapons to register their guns with the state. About 1 million New Yorkers refused to comply.

J. Christian Adams, “Yesterday was a significant day in the IRS abuse scandal. The scandal evolved from being about pesky delays in IRS exemption applications to a government conniving with outside interests to put political opponents in prison.”

trackback
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 10:52am

[…] Rachel Lu, Crisis Magazine Deneen, Smith & the Founding – Sardonicus, Sardonic Ex Curia Clive Bundy and the Rule of Law – Don. R. McClarey JD, The Amrcn Cthlc Doublethink: When an Attack on Speech ‘Reflects […]

Jeanne Rohl
Jeanne Rohl
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 12:20pm

Thank You all. This has been going on for a long time and the farmers and ranchers have been forced into lock step adherence to the most ridiculous rules and regulations that have driven millions of family farmers and ranchers off the land. The land is the most valuable asset in the world. Who owns the land, controls the people. All of the wars fought and the millions of displaced humanity has been over control of the land. I am so proud of the Bundy’s and all the farmers and ranchers over the last hundred years who have tried to stand up to this blatant takeover of the most valuable resource. All new wealth comes from the land. Harry Reid and his ilk know that. Those lands hold trillions of dollars of renewable wealth. Those lands (these lands) hold the families of faith and hard work and determination and respect of God given life in all of its glorious beauty and its profound loss and devastation. These lands hold the gateway to the food supply of the world. Harry Reid knows that.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 3:01pm

ART DECO:”This dispute is an aspect of a weird anomaly that needs to be rectified, and that is that the federal government is the allodial holder of over 20% of the land area of the United States.”
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Was it not the taxpayers who bought and purchased the land by their hard earned tax money that the government now claims to own? I, for one, would like to see the deed, indeed. Ugly usurpers abusing the power of their governmental office to cheat, lie and pillage. Legislate illegitimate laws and executive orders that are of no service to the people, people who had the courage to become citizens in this strange land.
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In New Jersey, where I was born and raised, The Otken farm, the Cornell Dairy Farm, 40 acres of the Michael Smith’s farm were taken and sold to developers so that the “officials ” could raise their salaries. OK and maybe a new yacht. The “officials” changed the Fifth Amendment from “public use” to “public purposes” for this theft and without three quarters of the states ratifying the change to our Constitution. Carter, Clinton and Obama have written themselves a new Constitution without the necessary 3/4 of the states’ ratification. If this is not taxation without representation, what are we paying taxes for? to be herded like cattle?

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 3:10pm

All public lands and waterways are held in trust by us and for us and our constitutional posterity, those few left who have not been aborted by the “public servants”; those few of us who have not been forced to commit suicide. Makes me mad.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 3:17pm

Anzlyne: Please excuse my ignorance, but what is a BLM?

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 3:58pm

Bureau of Land Management. Pretty well armed bureaucrats ! Not men in gray flannel suits- snipers in camouflage
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IRS, NSA , EPA and others including Hpmeland Security have been used as partisan political tools. … I am thinking now with Common Core we could also add the dept of education to that list
And while I am thinking about i, the Natoonsl Park people were used to shut down or deny access during the so called government shutdown
And what about the USDA – department of Agriculture awarding reparation payments on basis of race , building dependency to buy democratic votes.
Not to mention the DOJ.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 4:03pm

Was it not the taxpayers who bought and purchased the land by their hard earned tax money that the government now claims to own?

The Nixon era expansion of the national park system, I think did amount to that, but most was public land to begin with and never vended by the old General Land Office.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 7:14pm

Art Deco: The Louisiana Purchase was purchased with taxes, Federal money yes, collected from the people. And Alaska, Seward’s Folly. This land would have belonged to the person who put up the money. The American citizen.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, April 17, AD 2014 7:28pm

Thomas Jefferson’s Lewis and Clark Expedition was bought and paid for by citizens’ money. See: Indwellers, and the Pacific Justice Institute and Brad Daccus, people who live in the national parks for free won their case when the National Parks rangers tried to evict them, because these are public lands and citizens are the “public”.
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There was one restaurant in a public park that was closed down when the government closed down and suffered a loss of $30,000 per day. Parks services work for the Federal government and are paid for by American citizens. This country is established with citizens’ money by citizens for citizens.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 7:48am

It wasn’t federal land for most of the time he was grazing on it.

According to my folks– who are getting their information via ranch sources, so I can’t link, perhaps the Capital Press or Range Magazine will help?– Bundy was paying Grazing fees. To the state. Their grazing commission took his money even after the Feds took over the land (not bought, note) and refuse to pass it on.

Really do need to get rid of so much federal land. I believe there are some pretty strict limits on it in the Constitution, aren’t there?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 9:31am

I do not believe there are constitutional limits on federal land ownership. It’s a consequence of inertia and interest group politics. Maintaining a commons to be used for grazing is an ancient practice. You may have noticed, however, that there are no medieval open-field villages in this country and there never were. Maintaining grazing land is not a public function and even if it were, it would hardly have to repair to the central government in a country of our dimensions.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 10:51am

Art– Article I, Sec. 8, Clause 17 is what I usually see mentioned.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 11:16am

A similar situation exists in Arizona–Federally owned lands are 74% of the total square acreage; now add in 12% for the State of AZ, other municipalities 2%. Private ownership is only 12%.
With the Great Beast of State owning so much, one must not ask the question: “Whose land is it anyway?” Now consider for a moment: Why would the Feds have purchased over 2 Billion (with a capital”B”) rounds of ammunition in the last 2 years, including (as reported by infowars.com Feb 10, 2014, an enormous amount of .303 Winchester-type high-velocity sniper ammunition? Hmm. Kevlar, anyone?

adam duran
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 12:26pm

Just out of curiosity… When Clive Bundy claims “ancesteral rights” to public lands and rights for grazing his cows… How about the “ancesteral rights” of the Native People (original owners) of the land??? The Native People; Sovereign People of this Continent that was literally “stolen” from them should have rights of return of the land to them… Clive Bundy is just another “entitled” human claiming rights to receive “special” treatment and using the law to break the law

adam duran
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 12:36pm

And with that thought I should add that his actual ancestral homeland is someplace in Europe. So with that why don’t you racist white Americans go back to Europe. Leave what left of this continent to us traditional Natives Americans so we can fix and heal the land as well as ourselves. AND with the whites who are left as well as the Asians and African Americans and the Mexicans we can make this country something special. Wake up ignorant people

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 1:49pm

How about the “ancesteral rights” of the Native People (original owners) of the land??? The Native People; Sovereign People of this Continent that was literally “stolen” from them should have rights of return of the land to them…

Which ones? The most recent invaders, or the first ones we can find evidence of having lived in the area before another tribe forced them out? Assuming we can find any living relatives, of course.

Given the rest of what you said, you are probably doing the incredibly Eurocentric thing of lumping all tribes into one group– as if the Pit River Indians were just like the Modocs who were just like whatever the most recently recorded tribe around that area was, let alone like the Cherokee or whatever my great grand was. (Special hint, a lot of folks have an Indian great-great-whatever-grandmother. Not living as a hunter-gatherer is a great aphrodisiac.)

If you want to respect the tribal traditions– those of the tribes that survived, anyways– then they lost the right to the land when the stronger tribe moved in and successfully defended it. (The land is yours if you can keep it– a pretty universal tribal value.)

****

More rationally, right to use land isn’t generally absolute. If you abandon it and someone else uses it and improves it, they eventually own it. Common law background of “adverse possession.”

adam duran
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 2:33pm

Donald you don’t get it. Anybody can be racist. Its a said sick disease. I never said white people own it. The term racism was first used by two German scientist’ in the late 1800 to supposedly prove why western Europeans were better then everyone else.
Reverse racism has become a answer that a lot of minorities go yo for a while tip they find better ways to combat something that is so ingrained in American culture that most people are blind to it. Now Donald are you a elder? Do you know the old songs and stories? Do you know ceremonies or how to tell when it might rain how to find water how to make fire or any of the old ways? Anything at all?????? If not then u are not traditional and don’t know anything yet. Go learn so or come here and I can teach you. But if you not a traditional then don’t pretend.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 2:39pm

LOL Magua,

Some GI’s in Vietnam left death cards around. The tribes were known by their particular methods of mutilating their murder victins.

This land was made for only murderous, stone-age . . .

adam duran
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 2:47pm

Now firefox. I had a really good answer for you but my wife started to tickle me and I lost it so I will do this one instead. So the pit river Indians were fro. Eleven different bands who’s neighbors included the paiutes. They lived n the great basin area and differed from my mothers people greatly. My mothers people were more aligned by culture to the peoples of the northwest coast such as the Chinook to Tillamook or the Quinault peoples up north. Now my dads people were completely. Different then my moms people due to geography and environment. They lived in the valleys of the Copper Canyons of Northern Mexico. They lived caves while my moms people the playanos……basically firefox us natives have some common demoninators but we were as all different. As for the rest of your comment take some history classes and read more books go talk to some elders then we will talk.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 3:42pm

Art– Article I, Sec. 8, Clause 17 is what I usually see mentioned.

I think that would apply if the land had been purchased without the consent of the state in question, which may be true for particular parcels. I am fairly sure the bulk of the property held by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management has always been federal land.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 3:47pm

How about the “ancesteral rights” of the Native People (original owners) of the land???

It is non sequitur to speak of ‘owners’ of land in sparsely populated territories with no registry or factor markets. They could only have been usufructuaries – as status obtained after they chased off the previous band of usufructuaries.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 5:20pm

Adam-
Impressive wikipedia skills, however you failed at responding to any point made, making a rational argument, and basic reading comprehension. “Foxfier” is not that hard to spell.

YOU are the one that wanted to pretend that every tribe was the same– a thing you continue with your attempt to “explain” that they were different because they were in different environments. They’re different because they are entirely different organizations.

There’s a racist here, but it’s not Donald or myself. It’s the one trying to speak for “us” and group all Indian tribes into one monolithic group.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 5:54pm

I am fairly sure the bulk of the property held by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management has always been federal land.

I know that’s not so, because they buy new land each year. I’ve known families that sold it to them!

The Forest Service especially buys a lot of land for “preservation.”

The BLM was formed in part of the General Land Office, according to their web site, when it was combined with the Grazing Office. I’m pretty sure they’re still acquiring land, but I’m very sure that they’re also paying people to sue them to make it illegal for anybody to use land.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 6:40pm

They may buy land, but they started out with a huge hoard.

adam duran
Friday, April 18, AD 2014 10:20pm

Ok Donald glad you know some Cherokee history. You give nothing to back it up so question are you eastern or western Cherokee and if I’m not to intrusive which clan do you come from? I know a lot of this stuff was last but since you claim to know thing teach them so they don’t die out. And firefox. Sorry sleep check fixed your name. But you to are mistaken. I never claimed any native tribe or nation was the same as another. I simply stated that we are all oppressed and have been since contact by racist. And this Clive bundy guy is a idiot for claiming ancestrial rights since any body who knows history knows that us natives ( you name the tribe) were here first. Does that make this easier for you to understand firefox. Or do I need to simplify this again. No firefox. As for you implying. I’m racist to who am I racist against and what part of my ethnically mixed body should I cut off since you falsely assume I’m a racist. Calm your emotions and read closley what’s said so you understand amigo.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 3:31am

“Ancestral rights” are a mischievous thing.
In Scotland, we got rid of them in 1617 and for a very good reason: “Considdering the gryit hurt sustened by his Maiesties Liegis by the fraudulent dealing of pairties who haveing annaliet thair Landis and ressauit gryit soumes of money thairfore Yit be thair vniust concealing of sum privat Right formarlie made by thame rendereth subsequent alienatioun done for gryit soumes of money altogidder vnprofittable whiche can not be avoyded vnles the saidis privat rightis be maid publict and patent to his hienes liegis…”
“Made public and patent,” that is what justice requires and the solution is obvious: “thair salbe ane publick Register… [in which] all instrumentis of seasing salbe registrat”

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 4:57am

Adam-
Still, no actual answer to any argument– I thought for a second you might when you actually mentioned Bundy, but it was just name-calling and ignoring that the Bundy family has been maintaining their rights, rather than trying to act like genetic relation was enough. You spin, and try to get people angry to distract them– and again with the inability to spell a very simple name, and again with the pretending that “Indians” are all one political group. Which you grace yourself with membership to, and try to regulate.
Why can’t we get a better quality of random fanatics? One that actually bothers to have make an argument, instead of mistaking attempts to annoy for arguments? Seriously, every other one messes with my name. I am not much of a speller, but good grief.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 5:02am

Article I, Sec. 8, Clause 17 refers to Congress having exclusive legislative powers over the land in question.
There is a distinction long recognised in Europe between the public property of the Crown (ut de corona) and property that comes into the Crown’s hands, for example by purchase or escheat, where the Crown may hold of a subject superior, just like a private person (ut de honore) and, if it the title is itself a superiority, the vassals are said to hold of the Crown ut de persona, without the incidents of Crown vassalage.
The framers would, no doubt, be familiar with the distinction between property public in its nature and patrimonial property that happens to belong to the state.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 5:08am

I simply stated that we are all oppressed and have been since contact by racist

Aboriginals are not oppressed in this country. Reservation Indians have depressed earnings due to residence inconvenient to skilled employment, indifferent schooling, and dipsomania.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 5:18am

Art-
Dig long enough and you’ll probably hit the stylish notion that intermarriage is genocide, and not acting as Adam believes is the proper way for Indians is oppression. Got shoveled at me quite enough once folks saw my great grand’s wedding picture. (Oppression! She was wearing a clean, comfortable dress that someone else sewed!)

I take the same view as the lady my mom grew up knowing, and I grew up familiar with, who was born in a traditional village: I give thanks that my female ancestress decamped ASAP for modern medical care, and have little patience for romanticism about struggling to survive and mechanisms related to it, and less for the crab-pot mentality that rules those who take advantage of opportunity are not “really” Indians.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 5:31am

*nod* Sadly, yes, Donald.

The valley I was born in had a reservation. The difference between the kids off of it as compared to, say, the grandkids of those who went to Indian School with my grandmother was horrifying in retrospect. (Not even counting the contrast in cousins– her brother in law ended up marrying a Paiute lady in the area. Some cousins lived on the rez. Last one drank himself to death last year, younger than me. Sometimes wonder if having outside family to call on didn’t make it worse, but what are you going to do?)

CS Lewis’ observations in that Narnia novel about the Horse and the kids (A Horse and His Boy? Been too long.) are sadly appropriate.

Phillip
Phillip
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 5:31am

“AND with the whites who are left as well as the Asians and African Americans and the Mexicans we can make this country something special. Wake up ignorant people.”

This comment of itself seems somewhat racist, making the claim that Asians, African Americans and Mexicans are all the same. Three of my four grandparents left Mexico to come here. Not because they thought America needed to be changed, but because they were leaving oppression and hatred. They loved living here and, while they did experience true racism like yours, they never thought of going back. America saved them.

By the way, the other quarter of me is Native.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 6:34am

More rationally, right to use land isn’t generally absolute. If you abandon it and someone else uses it and improves it, they eventually own it. Common law background of “adverse possession.”
.
The Homestead Act is still valid.
.
Clive Bundy’s home is his “village”.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, April 19, AD 2014 6:35am

Are Native American Indians, a sovereign nation within a sovereign nation, taxed?

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