Slowly, quietly, over decades of regulation by unelected bureaucrats and with the assistance of those elected to pass legislation to advance the cause of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness who have done everything but, lands that once belonged to private individuals and families have been ceded first to the state and then, to the statists.

After decades of backroom deals, bribes, pocket lining and dirty deeds, the land of the western United States now belongs to the United States government.

Just days ago, in a meeting scheduled well before the Battle of Bunkerville, legislators from 9 western states gathered with the goal of kicking the U.S. government off those lands and out of those states.

Bunkerville and the Bundy’s were merely the tipping point of a situation that had already gone well beyond enough is enough.

Ronald Reagan once said that “government is not the solution to the problem…Government IS the problem,” and those words ring as true today, if not more so than they did when first spoken.

According to Idaho Speaker of the House Scott Bedke…forests, wetlands and range lands in his state have fared better and suffered less damage from watersheds and fires than have lands in his state that are under the control of the federal government. There is a good reason for that too. Lands that are managed by the state are lands that are closer to the people who live on or near them than are lands managed by those in Washington DC but there are other reasons too.

Different states have different climates, differing resources, varying problems, needs, biological entities and  widely diverse solutions which must be employed to maintain a balance between the needs of the people and the preservation of the land itself.

The federal government relies on studies found in reports and solutions mined from those whose hell bent for regulation mindsets ignore the realities of the land, the state or the people.

Using the Bundy’s as a prime example, we can see exactly why the land over which the federal government chose to rule at the point of a gun is better served by the individual. Bunkerville, we were told, was about preserving land for desert tortoises.

According to ranchers who have been, over the past 2 decades, forced FROM that land, before the feds moved in to “protect” the tortoises, one could ride onto the range and readily see tortoises all day long. Now, when one rides that land, spotting a desert tortoise is the exception rather than the rule. In fact, the federal government had been spending $1 million dollars per year to fund a desert tortoise sanctuary at Bunkerville and now, they say they can no longer afford the expenditure so, they are in the process of euthanizing more than 1000 of the very tortoises they supposedly tried to force the Bundy family off their land to protect at the point of sniper rifles.

To set up a forward operating base from which to terrorize the Bundy family into leaving, the federal government scraped clean nearly 5 acres of what they claimed was a tortoise preserve, they destroyed water tanks which not only provided water for the Bundy cattle but other wildlife in the area and, the feds either ran to death or shot to death more than 100 head of the Bundy’s cattle dumping their bodies into pits dug with earth moving equipment which in fact, destroyed even more of the so-called tortoise preserve.

On the other hand, the Bundy’s as well as the some 53 other ranchers who had been driven from the land by the federal government had been grazing their cattle on that land since 1887. For nearly 130 years, they took care of the land. Made improvements on it. Conserved the natural resources and helped the land itself flourish.

Had they not, they would have driven themselves out of business long before the federal government ever thought of grabbing up the land.

One look at the map below presents clear evidence that the federal government is out of control.

The red indicates how much of each of our western states is currently under the boot of the federal government and, they want more. Make no mistake, it’s not tortoises or fish or insects or some obtuse flower the feds are trying to protect. That is not their interest as their behavior towards the desert tortoises at Bunkerville has now left their agenda exposed.

It is what is either on or under those lands that has the federal government ready, willing and able to seize those lands at the point of a gun. Minerals, fuel sources, water and the greed of individual politicians is what’s really behind the land grabs and they have, for decades, been masking their tyranny as the need to protect something that crawls, swims, flies or grows there.

By controlling water, the federal government controls lives. In control of minerals, the feds control the economy and, by controlling fuel sources, they protect the only thing they really care about…deals made long ago with nations that don’t care for us today to whom we now owe our ability to power our economy, our transportation, heat and cool our homes and live as the free people we have always been intended to be.

Look at that map again and you will note that in places like North Dakota, where the energy business is booming, the federal government controls a scant 2.7% of the land. In places like Nevada, where the energy business COULD boom thanks to new safer and cleaner technology were private companies and individuals free to do so…the federal government has taken possession of nearly 85% of the state.

Look at the states back east, the coal producing states and see how low federal lordship of those states are. Now are you beginning to understand why the current regime is hell bent on regulating the coal industry out of existence even with the advances in clean coal technology? If the feds can’t outright own the states, they will regulate the energy industries to death.

And look at where the Keystone XL pipeline would run. Right down the center of the non government stolen United States and ask yourselves why this regime doesn’t want it.

When the federal government sends snipers and military style armed goons to remove a rancher from his land and kill his cattle, we are no longer living in a free country.

A Government of, by and for the people has now given way to a government against the people.

 For the western states to reclaim what is rightfully theirs, their land, will not be an easy task and it will take more than armed patriot militias to run the feds off what they have stolen from the people. It’s a mess, decades in the making and one which, simply put, will require decades of to unravel which is why I continually say that no one election and no single president can fix the problem.

But that, the proverbial barrel of toxic waste over which the federal government has the individual states, is a matter for a second article.

Tomorrow…right here in The National Patriot.