"I'm a sovereign human being, I stand under common law only" - Thread of Freemen

those cows are wandering a looong way to find something to eat in some of those areas

The vast majority of those federal lands in western states are not suited to any economic uses other than grazing, logging, mining, or recreation. Those activities are widely allowed on those lands, but also regulated. With the rise in environmental concerns, those regulations have become more complex, which cheeses off people like the Bundys.

The fees paid by loggers, ranchers and miners do not cover the costs incurred by the federal regulatory agencies that oversee the lands - mostly the Forest Service, which tellingly is part of the Dept. of Agriculture, and the Bureau of Land Management, most of whose lands are grasslands. Most notably, the Mining Act of 1872 set the price of a mining claim at $2.50 to $5 an acre, and that price has never been revised to this day.

Point to that map is how much land in the west is not available for private development.

I've got no problem with that, but it is very disproportionate compared to the rest of the nation, even with the lower population.

so there ain't much to do in eastern and southeastern Oregon, right?

Malheur County, just next door to Harney County, is only an hour behind Pensacola.

so there ain't much to do in eastern and southeastern Oregon, right?

parts of eastern Oregon have stuff going on. The Pendleton rodeo is an annual big deal in the state. But get too far south of the Columbia and shit is almost uninhabited. SE Oregon, man, I've never even really thought about it much less visited.

Point to that map is how much land in the west is not available for private development.

I've got no problem with that, but it is very disproportionate compared to the rest of the nation, even with the lower population.

― pplains, Monday, January 4, 2016 2:53 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

huh? it's fairly proportionate with the rest of the nation especially when you consider the population. the main reason there is so little private development is because there is literally no one there. xp

http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/79800/dnb_united_states_lrg.jpg

cool cool

https://twitter.com/OmanReagan/status/681653286840184833

SE Oregon, man, I've never even really thought about it much less visited.

I drove SR 95 from Winnemucca to Boise once and it was the most desolate terrain I have ever driven through

xp might be a which came first, the chicken or the egg, kinda thing. How can you live somewhere on land that you can't own or have any private development.

http://i.imgur.com/MPFwBLZ.jpg

And again, fuck these guys, and on the whole, I'm glad 80 percent of Oregon is under wraps. But look at the thinly populated areas of the south or Texas (which is a whole other thing altogether), and you can see where it looks like the Fed is taking up more than its fair share.

xp what are those lights in eastern montana?

oil rigs, fracking in ND.

and ufo's.

one of the dudes hanging out in Oregon refused to give any name other than "Captain Moroni"

http://itcpowersolutions.com/images/OilFieldsFromSpace.jpg

worth noting that the oil fields are lit up like car sales lots and are operating nearly 24/7 in an area without people complaining about light pollution. it's probably brighter there at 3AM than it is most places at noon.

See? Eastern Ore doesn't know what it's missing.

http://i.imgur.com/YXZrJp5.jpg

Harney County, where this is taking place, has a population of about 7500. It is also the largest county in the USA, at 10,226 sq mi. For comparison Vermont has 9,616 sq mi.

good breakdown of the grazing economics here:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-armed-oregon-ranchers-who-want-free-land-are-already-getting-a-93-percent-discount/?ex_cid=538fb

xp
San Bernardino county is the largest in the US (20,000 sq mi), but with a population of 2 mil.

Harney may be the least dense.

xp might be a which came first, the chicken or the egg, kinda thing. How can you live somewhere on land that you can't own or have any private development.

pretty sure the government would sell this land if anyone were actually interested in using it, barring environmental concerns or something.. it seems more 'logical' than wondering why they're "holding on to it" or w/e.

the ritzheimer goodbye video is depressing and seems to confirm my suspicion that these guys are desperate to add some sort of meaning to their lives, but the best they could come up with is a combination of action hero tropes and bible/constitution fanfic.

how about these people spend time, I dunno, at work, earning a living, rather than cosplaying as American heroes.

xp this is otm and also a bummer

here's a more detailed map of federal land ownership fwiw

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/US_federal_land.agencies.svg/990px-US_federal_land.agencies.svg.png

Harney may be the least dense.

Not sure about its inhabitants though.

pretty sure the government is taking care of these places BECAUSE no one else is

we could try just letting private enterprise handle it, though, that'll be great

the great basin is a unique, fragile habitat. it's easily destroyed and needs some kind of management, much stronger management than it currently sees imo. i'm not sure why so much of it is blm land compared to say the high plains, other than maybe the order of westward migration and the new deal happening when it did? it could be that all of that blm land is somewhat related to the early antagonisms between the federal government and mormon pioneers, who basically wanted to establish their own theocratic state and did for at least a few years or decades. that kind of anti-u.s. sentiment is definitely a particular flavor of thing among mormon yahoos out here. there is an old professor at the u. of u. law school who i know has sympathies in that direction. and anyway you can still catch remnants of what this theocracy might look like in hildale / colorado city.

hm i guess the BLM was established in 1946 by Truman. i often find myself wanting to know more about this stuff but i don't know where to start -- i think i'm a little scared off by the personae of local historians, lol.

anyway, at least in utah, it seems like the blm bends over backwards to make its land as accessible to buttholes with fleets of ATVs as possible and the vibe is much less "sacred untouched wilderness" than "local hicks' backyard dump station / playground".

also i mean if you've ever driven through the great basin, it's pretty rugged and inhospitable, like an order of magnitude more than the high plains. there isn't a lot of water, it's very hot or very cold and windy all the time, basin and range after basin and range over long net-zero-elevation distances doesn't exactly mesh with the rhythms of settlement and improvement.

The whole area sounds like that First Blood town.

Not sure about its inhabitants though.

These self-appointed militia yahoos have received very little encouragement from the locals.

was gonna say

I don't see anything that Harney Co. is No. 1 in, at least nationally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_statistics_of_the_United_States

And the Fed doesn't own that land just because it's up in the boonies and no one wanted it. Obviously, there are folks who'd take it. It's just that the Fed finally came around after the Civil War that maybe it should hold on to that land in the interest of national security, conservation, Native reservations, national parks and tourism, transportation, etc. It certainly didn't "take over" in most cases any property that was already owned by a (white) landowner.

Unless I'm wrong, Frank Herbert first got the idea for _Dune_ in the late '50s covering desert reclamation efforts in deep SE Oregon

Fremen

there it is

smh

I've spent a lot of time driving, camping, digging, etc. in the Great Basin and it's a lot like the first Mad Max movie. There's civilization of sorts, but really it's just people who believe in the old ways so strongly that when you get out of the car, it's still 1975. There are towns that have to support the old ways because the Old Ones still have to buy groceries, gas, fireworks, and prostitutes. Nevertheless it's still 1975 and it's weird taking a picture of 1975 with an iPhone because the people who still live in 1975 haven't seen one before. That's the part of the Great Basin that's more like Vanishing Point. The reality is that it's more like Reno 911.

Eastern Oregon is also the home of: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/rajneeshpuram/

digging?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-read-u-s-attorney-statement-on-oregon-standoff-20160104-htmlstory.html

Ecowatch points out the relationship between far right activity and mainstream Republican rhetoric. http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/05/bundy-militia-public-lands/#

As militant occupation continues in Oregon, sheriff says 'go home'

Ebony explains why black people feel their is a double standard here: http://www.ebony.com/news-views/oregon-standoff-reveals-painfully-obvious-racial-double-standard-333

http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/3377742-155/mormon-leaders-to-oregon-militia-your

official lds church response

new favorite term for this is "Cowliphate"

there's probably some reason not to make all those jokes but idgaf, the Gadsden Flag image with "send snacks" cracks me up as well.