Tony Dean posts a George McGovern Op-ed regarding the Federal government’s increase designations of Wilderness area. Excerpt:
Over the years, I've heard some wildly exaggerated fears expressed about what might happen when a wilderness area is designated. A gap exists between such rhetoric and reality. Just one-tenth of one percent of all South Dakota land is protected under the Wilderness Act today. The new proposal involves just one-twelfth of all national grassland acres in our state - meaning those who prefer motorized recreation will have a far larger portion. That seems more than fair.
Theodore Roosevelt reminded America that our "public land, land that belongs to everyone and thus to no one, is one of the permanent homes of the American spirit." Nowhere is that home for the spirit more alive than in the vast grasslands of our great state. While we can, let's protect to the fullest extent this vital part of our heritage - truly wild prairie grasslands.
Henry Lamb points out that this socialist idea is hardly representative of "the American spirit":
The foundation of socialism is the idea that government should own the sources of production and distribute its benefits "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
The land owned by the federal government is rich in resources, which should be the property of the states and the people who live there. The states and the people who live there should decide how the land and its resources are used.
But no. In the West, the federal government not only dictates how the land will be used, it also dictates how the law will be enforced. Duly elected county sheriffs are forced to stand aside while law-enforcement officers of the U.S. Forest Service confiscate the private property of ranchers who allow their cattle to eat grass that the federal government claims as its own – despite a hundred years of undisputed ownership by the rancher's family.
The federal government should not own land other than that authorized in the Constitution. It should not be dictating how land is used in any state, and it should not be enforcing its will over the authority of local elected officials.
Several efforts to change this situation in the past have failed. The problem only worsens, and the tension between government and private land ownership is inspiring a new, better-organized effort to get the government out of the real estate business. Perhaps a new revolution is in the air.
Earlier in his column, Lamb makes this point:
The sovereign right of the king to own, to tax and control the use of land led directly to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and, after six years of bloody war, to the Treaty of Paris in 1783. This treaty was not with the federal government, which did not yet exist. The treaty was between the king of England and each of the enumerated states. The treaty specifically recognizes these states:
...to be free sovereign and independent states, that he [the king] treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.
If socialists like Tony Dean want to have land that is free from four-wheelers, then buy it themselves instead of having the taxpayers fund the anti-American
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