Interior Dept. shutting down mining in 10 states
From the Congressional House Natural Resources Committee. This action by an Obama political appointee, the Secretary of the Interior, shows the importance of which party is in the White House regardless of what you think of the president himself. Democrats since Clinton-I have appointed radical viros to run the government.
According to Mark Levin there are almost 4,000 political appointees assigned by the president and those he appoints to do the radical appointing. That is in addition to those they hire to be entrenched in the protected civil service. It is also in addition to Federal judges, about 40% of which have now been appointed by Obama. Another eight years of this means a nearly complete loss of control over how the Federal government functions for what political purposes, regardless of what Congress does or what new laws are passed making it worse.
USGS Study Reveals Extensive Impacts of Obama Administration’s War on Mineral Development
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 7, 2016
CONTACT: Parish Braden, Elise Daniel or Molly Block (202) 226-9019
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of the Interior (DOI) Sally Jewell is developing controversial plans to cordon off approximately 10 million acres of federal lands located in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming from mineral development. The withdrawals are one plank of the Obama administration's broader regulatory scheme to create a de-facto Endangered Species Act listing for the sage grouse. Earlier this week, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released an 800-page assessment of mineral potential within each state subject to potential future withdrawals.
House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement:
“This assessment shows significant negative impacts for western states if these withdrawals proceed. But let’s not miss the forest for the trees. Despite successful species conservation efforts at the state level, and a finding last year that listing the bird under the Endangered Species Act is not warranted, the Obama administration wants total regulatory control and a much more permanent trophy for litigious environmental groups. Along with oppressive land use plans covering parts of 10 states—with restrictions for all types of economic activities—these withdrawals have the potential to be even more punitive and damaging to energy producers and rural economies than an endangered finding. This is a de-facto listing and then some. USGS’s report is small snapshot of the pain to come. This issue will require continued oversight even after the Obama administration is finally gone. Blocking mineral development by another executive fiat is inexcusable, and the Committee will be sure to keep a close eye on it.
“Secretary Salazar told the states they should adopt sage grouse protection plans and they would be accepted. States have spent time and money to create good plans. The current Secretary is now reneging on that promise. The state plans work and the department’s proposal does not. The department’s proposal hurts military preparedness and military ranges in the West, a fact that has never been taken into consideration.”
Background:
At a minimum, the USGS report suggests the withdrawal of such a massive area could have significant negative impacts to nearly 1.3 million acres of moderate to high resource potential. The withdrawal could also affect over 7,000 mining claims across several Western states, including Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Wyoming and Montana.
###
According to Mark Levin there are almost 4,000 political appointees assigned by the president and those he appoints to do the radical appointing. That is in addition to those they hire to be entrenched in the protected civil service. It is also in addition to Federal judges, about 40% of which have now been appointed by Obama. Another eight years of this means a nearly complete loss of control over how the Federal government functions for what political purposes, regardless of what Congress does or what new laws are passed making it worse.
USGS Study Reveals Extensive Impacts of Obama Administration’s War on Mineral Development
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 7, 2016
CONTACT: Parish Braden, Elise Daniel or Molly Block (202) 226-9019
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of the Interior (DOI) Sally Jewell is developing controversial plans to cordon off approximately 10 million acres of federal lands located in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming from mineral development. The withdrawals are one plank of the Obama administration's broader regulatory scheme to create a de-facto Endangered Species Act listing for the sage grouse. Earlier this week, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released an 800-page assessment of mineral potential within each state subject to potential future withdrawals.
House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement:
“This assessment shows significant negative impacts for western states if these withdrawals proceed. But let’s not miss the forest for the trees. Despite successful species conservation efforts at the state level, and a finding last year that listing the bird under the Endangered Species Act is not warranted, the Obama administration wants total regulatory control and a much more permanent trophy for litigious environmental groups. Along with oppressive land use plans covering parts of 10 states—with restrictions for all types of economic activities—these withdrawals have the potential to be even more punitive and damaging to energy producers and rural economies than an endangered finding. This is a de-facto listing and then some. USGS’s report is small snapshot of the pain to come. This issue will require continued oversight even after the Obama administration is finally gone. Blocking mineral development by another executive fiat is inexcusable, and the Committee will be sure to keep a close eye on it.
“Secretary Salazar told the states they should adopt sage grouse protection plans and they would be accepted. States have spent time and money to create good plans. The current Secretary is now reneging on that promise. The state plans work and the department’s proposal does not. The department’s proposal hurts military preparedness and military ranges in the West, a fact that has never been taken into consideration.”
Background:
At a minimum, the USGS report suggests the withdrawal of such a massive area could have significant negative impacts to nearly 1.3 million acres of moderate to high resource potential. The withdrawal could also affect over 7,000 mining claims across several Western states, including Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Wyoming and Montana.
###
Sound familiar? It should; it is from the Declaration of Independence. Then it was King George III... One tyrant the same as the next.
This is no abstraction only threatening as it waits for implementation in a bad trend, they are destroying people now as personally described by the forum's own Flootus5 on this same page https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
And from "Activists Push to Create National Park in Maine’s North Woods" November 2, 2015 archived at http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-a...
"LePage described a recent problem he had with NPS over snowmobilers having trouble getting to their camps by crossing the Appalachian Trail, a unit of the national park system. They couldn’t make their usual lake crossing because it had yet to freeze. An NPS officer called LePage and told him to issue summons to those campers for a court date. LePage refused.
“'One, I’m not going to summons them,' said LePage. 'Two, I encourage them to use [the trail]. And if you come to me and try to summons them, I’m going to throw you in jail.'”
The National Monument scam, its history, and its purpose need to be better and more widely known and understood before the laws can be changed despite the viro lobby. Obama violated and/or ignored several laws in decreeing the monuments in corrupt collusion between the pressure group activists, the Federal agencies swarming with viros, and his direct political appointees.
Don't vote in fear. Vote on principle.
A part doesn't gain influence by only running every 4 years, it gains influence by running good candidates from the bottom up. Get a strong grass roots organization formed and elect House and Senate members and work to get a broader base. It took the Progressives almost 120 years to gain enough influence to totally drive the country to the brink of self destruction. It took the republicans two full election cycles to get a nation following. The Libertarians have been around long enough to establish themselves, but have not really tried to establish a national party covering all states and all elected offices. Try the grass roots approach, it works.
Sorry for the political aside to a serious topic.
I do understand your point though, mm. It will take a lot more Libertarian candidates running for office and winning to have a significant effect. It will also require people to stop supporting the DemRep cartel control over elections.
Republicans in national elective office are gutless, spineless, caving, betraying cowards with a few exceptions.
Then what? LOL
It is not moral idealism. Moral choices are made in reality among choices that are possible, not fantasyland with PR stunts for fringe candidates of dubious ideology and character that cannot win and who do not represent the principles needed for a free society. To call indulging in that fantasyland "idealism" is to subvert the concept and purpose of morality, divorcing it from reality.
The moral choice is the one recognizing what the choice in an election is and acting accordingly to fight the destruction from the worst candidate when there is a difference, not to blabber about "idealism" while wandering off into fantasyland as if moral choices were divorced from reality.
Those who want to make a difference don't pretend that it doesn't matter. The two parties battling for votes certainly know it, which is why they are spending hundreds of millions in voter drives and campaigning. Telling people that voting doesn't matter so vote for my fringe party, where it would also not matter, is just stupid.
You can "feel comfortable" with a fantasy vote if that's what you want, but it isn't participating in the election. If you don't know enough about the candidates to understand the difference and how it matters, then don't vote, but the rest of it is subjectivist sophistry outside the realm of the election.
Also please tell me how voting for Gary Johnson "isn't participating in the election." I go into the voting booth. He's on the ballot. I vote for him. His vote totals are counted and reported. How is that not participating? My vote will have exactly as much influence as yours on the outcome of the election - i.e., none at all. But future historians looking at the 2016 vote totals will see one more vote for liberty and against the two-party system than if I had cast a meaningless vote for one of the candidates the "major" parties had seen fit to foist on us.
Throwing away a vote to a fringe party exploiting the election for a publicity stunt is not participating in the election, which is to determine who will be president. It won't be Gary Johnson and nothing he does will change that. No "future historian" will see CBJ's "one more vote" or care.
A vote can't be "meaningless" for every candidate except their publicity stunt. They repeatedly tell us through a contorted rationalization that our vote doesn't matter but they want it for themselves. 'Your vote doesn't matter so vote for me'.
It is not a choice in the election. It is not a result of ignoring the irrelevant Libertarian Party. It is a result of the culture of collectivism and Pragmatism, which the Libertarian Party does not understand and is not dealing with.
As everyone else knows, the election will decide whether Trump or Clinton will be president. The outcome makes a difference.
The "Libertarian Party" is not a "real choice" in the election, and the two LP clowns pretending in their PR stunt do not represent civilized, rational individualism and are no spokesmen for it. Stop fantasizing and stop hijacking threads on the forum. It is mindless, annoying and irrelevant fantasy doing nothing to discuss, let alone solve, real problems.
The LIbertarian Party's predicted history of overwhelming rejection is not a conspiracy, it is a consequence of what it is. Stop blaming this on "evil" people like us who refuse to abandon reality on behalf of mindless and irrelevent publicity seeking.
Re: “As everyone else knows, the election will decide whether Trump or Clinton will be president. The outcome makes a difference.” The 1980 election decided whether Carter or Reagan would be President. The outcome made a difference. Ayn Rand chose to abstain. Was she wrong to do so?
Re: “It is mindless, annoying and irrelevant fantasy doing nothing to discuss, let alone solve, real problems.” Okay, how do you propose to solve the “real problem” of two totally corrupt political parties controlling the political process? By continuing to vote for their candidates?
The existence of the two party system is not on the ballot. Voting for or against candidates when it makes a difference is not support for the "two party system". The two party system already exists. The choice in this election is between Trump and Clinton. One of them will be president.
Ayn Rand saw no significant difference between Carter and Reagan's first campaign. Carter was not Hilary Clinton, and Reagan's speeches pandering to the mixed economy were not the utopian positions now claimed by conservatives. Ayn Rand did say that she would have to vote for Reagan if the Democrats put up a socialist-like candidate. She never said to not vote for candidates from the two parties and in particular she denounced the Libertarian Party and explained why. Invoking Ayn Rand in this PR stunt for the LP is dishonest.
Some real problems are solved or ameliorated by voting against the worst of the candidates, like Clinton, in the context of the choice available here in reality. Those who have read Ayn Rand and who don't misrepresent her as Libertarian know that throughout her career she advocated the solution to the decline of politics and the culture as spreading the right philosophical ideas and that there are no shortcuts. Those who have been involved in politics today know that Libertarians are inept at impacting even shorter term policy.
The arguments for supporting the Libertarian Party are increasingly bizarre. Now are told that it is helping Trump, as if voting for the LP instead of Trump takes votes away from Clinton. That leftist potheads might find the LP more attractive is no argument for the LP as the road to reform.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/us/...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vide...
And voting does matter, just not in the way you describe it. By voting for my principles, my votes over the years have had far more impact than if I had allowed the two “establishment” parties to dictate my choices. By voting Libertarian, I am adding to the vote totals of the only party that supports individual freedom. And those vote totals matter – the establishment parties pay close attention when a significant number of voters break with the two-party system, and they will often modify their stands on certain issues to protect their base and prevent further defections.
Else-wise you'd be looking at a 2 from the time of my post. .
Me dino didn't really mean YOUR reality.
Shoulda worded that better.
Especially if someone like Jeb Bush or Paul Ryan rises to the GOP top.
Libertarian ideas are the most relevant things in this election. Loyalists held control of the colonies for decades and American revolutionaries were "irrelevant" until enough brave rational people supported their claims for individual liberty in defiance of the statists of that era. Libertarians are irrelevant to you, but brushfires are growing in many young minds that will make the statists you support irrelevant. Every vote for Gary Johnson adds to the fire of liberty.
Still, I'll keep my four years from now options open, though.
Some charismatic Libertarian super star may soon reveal him or herself.
Doubt it.
The idea of voting for another Bush really turns my stomach, though.
I agree that voting Trump is not what the vote is for.
Toward that end, he happens to be all that's left.
I preferred Ted Cruz, though he managed to turn me off shortly after I voted for him in the primary.
The socialists became politically more influential because of the spread of collectivist/altruist/statist ideology, as systematically spread in politics by movements like the Fabians.
The a-philosophical Libertarian Party wants to bypass philosophy, expecting to become influential simply by being there on the fringe going through the motions of an election and blaming people who treat their votes seriously and ignore the LP. It is not putting its policies into effect by others being elected. It is anti-intellectual, imitative 'cargo cult science' as described in physicist Richard Feynman's famous Caltech 1974 commencement address entitled "Cargo Cult Science".
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/...
"In the South Seas there is a Cargo Cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennashe’s the controllerand they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land."
Your “cargo cult” example applies more to the Republican and Democrat parties than to the Libertarian Party. Every four years we go through all the formalities of an election, but we’re missing something essential, because nothing really changes regardless of which of the two major party candidates wins.
To compare that with the anti-intellectual Libertarian Party and its isolated election year antics is a joke.
You can expect the current system to become worse, not because of "two parties" but because of the intellectual forces driving both of them. Copying them in election formalities and expecting anything different than fringe status in opposition to the status quo is indeed cargo cult science.
To understand the history of what the Fabians and their surrogates did intellectually and politically, based on a pre-existing intellectual basis in the culture, see
Martin, Fabian Freeway
Dobbs, Keynes at Harvard
Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism (written by one of its long-time leaders)
As for the issue of “hijacking”, I have not initiated any conversations about the Libertarian Party. If you attack the Libertarian Party in your own thread, it is reasonable to expect that others are going to defend it.
Then the GOP betrays the voters and joins with the Dems in the destruction they promised to stop.
Keep on wasting your votes on the GOP and you get more intrusive government every time.
It is entirely relevant.
Be annoyed. Be very annoyed.
What should annoy you is the results of otherwise rational people pretending that fear of one unethical candidate is a reason to vote for another flawed, unethical candidate.
What should annoy you is otherwise rational people ignoring the destruction of liberty due to over 30 years of voting for one bad statist candidate in fear of another bad statist candidate.
Want four more years of unconstitutional statist expansion of government power and reduction of our individual liberty? Then vote in fear for Hillary or Trump.
Me dino is also scared of rattlesnakes and drunk drivers. Fear is a survival mechanism.
Ask any retired corrections officer (who is honest). Oh, yeah. Here I am.
Trump will give you the supreme court that lets Trump have the greatest power.
I believe the flawed foot in mouth fathead actually loves this country.
He promised to appoint conservative justices and that's what he will do. Trump ain't no tricky Dicky or Slick Willie.
I'm not gonna own in any way, shape or form a facist Presidente Clintonista carrying on with the vile destructive work of a radical libtard Obamanation.
The Gulch and way, way beyond it.
Death of both. The best thing to happen to Americans in decades.
Your "acceptable" reason is unacceptable and irrational because it has been done repeatedly for 30 years and has failed. Electing another statist will just add to the statists power. Voting for either statist against your principles and given that doing so has failed repeatedly is irrational. The statists continue in power because people do not vote on principles and vote in fear. Then they refuse to take responsibility for the results of their irrational choices.
The sales pitch on behalf of the a-philosophical Libertarian Party telling us not to vote is not going to change the system we are in or the fact that one of Trump or Clinton will be power and that which one makes a difference to our lives and our future. Voting to make a difference is not an endorsement of the political system and is not "wanting four more years of unconstitutional statist expansion". "Voting" for the Libertarian Party fantasy will not stop it, and if Clinton wins it will become much worse faster. The rampant subjectivism of the Libertarian Party idolatry that hijacked this thread with its repetitive banging its spoon on the highchair while denouncing everyone else is astounding.
Your declaring the Libertarian Party irrelevant does not make it so. History is a record of the evolution of ideas, born in the crucible of pro and con, survival by selection. We are observing that process now.
Those of us wanting to preserve individual freedom (individual rights, a foremost Randian value) must respectfully disagree with your pragmatic arguments favoring Trump. Perhaps you like that he is so blatantly selfish and proud of it, versus the Clinton campaign still seeming to cater to the altruistic trappings of collective selfishness. Neither of those will "grouse" about limiting mining rights (we're still on topic here).
The Libertarians are, in fact, the only party with a coherent philosophy, respecting property rights, individual freedom and an end to wars of aggression. The RepDems are approaching the totalitarian power grab of an Orwellian nightmare, curtailing individual liberty, privacy and free thought, fostering ever more enemies, and militarizing towards another world war.
I note people in this thread marking up and down with great alacrity. Now that is voting on principle, isn't it? Or are we driven more by emotions, whether idealistic, pragmatic, moralistic, realistic or manipulated? You may remember Rand's observation that the idealistic is the practical.
Voting in the election to make a difference where it matters instead of following a hopeless fringe, anti-intellectual publicity stunt is not "pragmatism". Ayn Rand was not a "pragmatist" when she urged a policy of "anti-Nixonites for Nixon" to stop McGovern while objecting to Nixon, and she was not a "pragmatist" when she rejected the Libertarian Party on principle even when deciding not to vote for one of the real candidates. You don't seem to know what the philosophy of Pragmatism is or why Ayn Rand denounced the Libertarian Party, which she explained many times. Her ethics were concerned with living in reality, not Pragmatism, and not hopeless fantasizing -- with or without the pandering to pot heads and ignorance of foreign affairs -- in the name of "idealism" without regard to means to ends.
Again you propose actions that have failed in the past and you refuse to learn from that history. You also refuse to take responsibility for those mistakes and their effects. The rest of your commentary is baseless, insulting, beneath you, and undeserving of reply.
Voting for a candidate where it makes a difference within a limited choice where that is all that is possible is not a "failure to learn from history". Anyone who has learned anything from history knows that Hilary Clinton would be devastating for our lives. Throwing away votes for a fringe party publicity stunt does not change what the elections are, have been, and will continue to be in the foreseeable future.
We did not make them that way and you will not change it. Libertarian Party fantasy does not change what the election is in fact about or the fact that the limited choice is imposed on us, not our "responsibility" for not following you. Your accusations of "refusal to take responsibility" for not going along with you are offensive. It is false sophistry and morally reprehensible. Stop smearing people in moral intimidation to manipulate us into giving up our votes for your attention seeking.
If I did not already know the history of the Libertarian Policy, the repetitive nonsensical sophistry, slogans and offensive accusations trying to manipulate people through hijacking this thread, while evading all objections, would be more than enough by itself to not want anything to do with it. But I do know what the Libertarian Party is and will not sanction it, let alone sacrifice to it. It does not represent Ayn Rand, as she explained extensively, it does not represent me, and it is not relevant to this thread.
The mineral withdrawal with the sage grouse non-listing took our project. They issued the segregation of the public lands from the 1872 Mining Law on September 23, 2015. They had not even started the mineral inventory. The adjacent private patented mining claims are now worthless. Part of the plan.
My little company is co-plaintiff with a couple of other private entities, nine Nevada Counties and the AG Laxalt of Nevada against the Department of the Interior, FWS, and USFS. Court testimony was provided last November (now almost a year ago), the initial request for immediate injunction was denied with an amazing display of pretzel logic. The Judge is a Harry Reid nominated, Obama appointed political hack named Miranda Du. She asked for evidence of immediate and irreparable harm. She got it from the private companies. We are dead in the water with a serious cloud on being able to raise capital for the projects. In our case we lost the ability continue the option on the mining claims. But evidence and logic is not enough to these out of control political power hungry agenda driven hacks.
We expect the decision in December, post election of course.
But hidden in this process is an entirely egregious re-write of the mineral examination process. Historically, when mineral examinations for what is called Valid Existing Rights are begun it is upon lands that are undergoing mineral withdrawal for a valid public purpose, i.e. Congressionally passed purposes such as military bombing ranges, dam flooded sites, and even wilderness areas.
Congressionally passed - not just declared by the exec department bureaucrats. And for a non-listing at that.
To survive a Mineral Examination for Valid Existing Rights, they now are saying that you must have an economically proven deposit in the ground at the time and at the balance of costs and gold prices of the day of segregation. A resource in the ground is not good. Should the gold price go up enough next year to make it economic? Should new process technology change the economics? Sorry, you are screwed and your investment of drilling, and developing the resource is lost. The mining claims are condemned and declared invalid.
Moreover, what they are also now stipulating and turning into precedent is that the Mineral Examination for Valid Existing Rights can now be done anywhere, at anytime, and for any reason. This language is already creeping into the Plans of Operations required by the Agencies for "permission" of active mines and projects being permitted that are even outside of the ten million mineral withdrawal acres that ewv mentions in this post. Excellent post.
The whackos have been after the 1872 Mining Law for decades. It is the last vestige of non-discretionary rights the agencies must recognize on the public lands. That irks them to no end and all the stops are being pulled out now to turn it all into a lease system. The Mining Law was passed with the objective of being able to domestically produce needed materials for national security. Imagine that. By mechanisms of privatization. The right to explore and the right to access your claims was recognized. Since 1872, they have slowly chipped away at the law, first by removing some commodities out from the Law, and then in 1992 a major castration took place. Before then, the law required that you demonstrate you expended $100 per claim in improvements. They changed that to an extortion payment straight to the government instead. So, investment and development dollars, instead of going into the ground just goes to government coffers. At the same time they put a moratorium in place on the patenting process that provided simple fee title as private land to claims that could demonstrate significant mineral value.
Progressive socialism at its ugliest.
These problems with mixed ownership patterns between private property and private claims on Federal land are common in the west and show up repeatedly with ranching on the range.
The original claims to private property in the 19th century west were too limited in size to be economically feasible on the dry lands in the west, leaving a patchwork of private land with grazing leases on adjoining Federal land where private property was later prohibited outright by the progressives, even though there are remnants of grazing and water rights without owning the land outright.
The viros are destroying what is left by harassing the ranchers -- the American Cowboy they are out to destroy -- through "fees", denial of access, permit cancellations, abusive direct harassment through legal persecution and threats as illustrated by the Hage and more recent Hammond cases, direct prohibitions invoking "protection" of non-human "species", etc. Viros activists in their pressure group lobby, their activist legal sharks, and entrenched activist agency officials are throwing everything they can at the ranchers to destroy them, yet it is rarely discussed in public or reported.
It blew up with the Bundy revolt but even that is exploited by the viro progressives to demonize the victims by tying everyone opposed to them to the Bundy threat of violence when they snapped under the ceaseless pressure.
The Republican House Resources Committee under Bob Bishop understands this. So does the Clinton mafia on the other side. Most of the public, including those claiming to be activists for freedom, knows nothing about it.
In our specific case, the value of the patented claims is impacted both by the scale effect you mentioned - high grade gold bearing veins strike off of the old patenteds in both directions on to public land and we had control of both the patented and unpatended claims to prove up sufficient resource to justify capital expenditures. However, the unpatenteds were taken by the mineral withdrawal. Now technically they say we could proceed with our approved Plan of Operations, but any data acquired by drilling after the segregation date is not admissible. Who the hell is going to invest millions in drilling if you can't use the data? With investors fleeing away as fast as they could, we lost our financing to keep leases on the properties and so we lost control of the claims. And all time and money invested to date is lost. And the Judge says there was no immediate and irreparable harm. Department of Justice, my ass.
That part of the Sage Grouse LUPA's called "Travel Management" is shutting down the numerous roads that provide that very right of access to mining claims, patented or not. They are redefining existing roads as those maintained by motorized equipment only. Two track roads that have a plant covered median are not roads and will not be allowed to travel upon or improved by motorized equipment.
Years ago, during Son of Sage in the 1990's, I met Cliven Bundy several times. He is a good man, perhaps not slickly articulate, but is proud and independent. I remember him sitting in the shade of a pinion tree after the events of Jefferson Canyon were winding down, and he was loudly proclaiming "But, we are producers!"
Ah, how fundamental it all is.
I generated the maps in ArcGIS from their own downloadable data showing how they arbitrarily changed the maps from the Draft EIS stage to the Final EIS stage. They changed the habitat outlines from non-habitat all the way to priority habitat and then within SFA (Sagegrouse Focal Area) eligible for mineral withdrawal. After the public comment period was closed. Most illegal. And deliberately to take our project.
I initially made these presentations to the Elko County Commission that clinched their involvement in the lawsuit, and then ultimately based upon the power of these maps generated from their own data, persuaded Davis, Graham, and Stubbs to carry us pro bono. Our evidence and story was just too good. There was no way we could afford the lawyer fees. But our evidence, generated through my map work in ArcGIS from government data was irrefutable and damning as to how illegal the government agencies have acted with this issue.
But, the DOJ just rules what they want against all logic and evidence towards the result they want.
Right now, how familiar is that?
The Elko County Commission has been heavily tuned into these matters, through NACO, (Nevada Association of Counties), through Governor's Association's, through Washington, D.C. connections......ad naseum.
I know the Elko County Commissioners rather well. I toured them up through our project area personally. Some really good people, but they are up against larger enveloping forces than even they realize.
It is all too sad, because these guys are the highest elected officials in our jurisdiction. And they just don't know or realize, or have the kahoney's to exercise their true jurisdictional powers.
As Flootus5 knows, the anti-private property viro pressure group lobby has tried many times over decades to repeal the mining law allowing private mining claims but failed. That is why they are using the agency 'rule-making' process in conjunction with "endangered species" and other tools of misanthropic tools of nihilism entrenched and growing like a cancer inside government to rewrite the law themselves.
They can do it because they were appointed by Obama to run the Interior Department, where under mostly Democrat administrations, rule-making in the Code of Federal Regulations (now more properly called the CFP --Code of Federal Pens) has taken over legislative authority from Congress.
This is one example of why it is so important to keep Clinton out of the White House. Republicans will not abolish the Interior Dept or re-instate private settlement of Federal land or significantly reverse the "rule-making" legislative system, but they do hold back the radical progressive agenda to wipe out what is left of private property and to destroy industry for their eco-fascist utopia.
Flootus5 knows more than anyone else here what this means -- and exactly how and why -- for the survival of specific people personally targeted and the consequences for all of us in an industrial economy and for national security.
It is an example of how the election and stopping Clinton and the Democrats is so important even while we have for months denounced Trump as well as Clinton for good reason. There are degrees of statism, such as the difference between a Pragmatist businessman with 1960s implicit 'liberal' premises versus a thoroughly corrupt and dedicated ideological neo-Marxist tyrant. The difference is a matter of survival.
Others?
But Congress will not defund the entire Interior Department, and the overall downward trend will continue without longer term change in the philosophy driving all of it. Clinton means much worse much faster, but Trump is not a solution, only providing the possibility of affecting specific policy for those who want to continue living here in reality, buying more time.
The agenda of the Interior Dept. and EPA is being run by the viro pressure group lobby, which is getting away with murder because most people don't know what it is doing and what it is after. When Democrats control the Executive branch they appoint the worst of them to run the government, as they are now.
It certainly won't happen unless the Dems and the cowardly GOP congress are led by the nose to the rational policy.
How Obama goes down in the history books will be dependent on who writes the history. So far, it doesn't look good.
Never thought I'd chase bandits off ewv's 6 o'clock but here I am.
And I do not expect anyone to sacrifice themselves for anything, nor have I seen anyone else on this thread say that they expect anyone to do so.
A stealth fighter shares this sky!.
There have been times when the moderators have been cool with me so I'll just be cool with them.
They may take offense at me finding that tag funny but it is the unexpected that creates humor albeit intentional or not.
Throwing away a vote to the LP publicity seeking instead of voting in the election between Trump and Clinton is a sacrifice to LP fantasy.
Restoring liberty is accomplished by restoring our Constitution! Join other patriots to restore constitutional limits on the federal government by going to http://www.conventionofstates.com to view how.
Join us by signing the petition at http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter_i...
When you go to a Constitutional Convention, you start, quite literally, with a clean sheet of paper ... and a lot more trust in the the good intentions of men than I think is warranted.
1) how do we know that the state plans work?
2) how do we know that the federal plan will not work?
3) how can we possibly know which would work better?
4) since when did the various governments get this much control over land use?
5) with hundreds of species becoming extinct each day, who made the decision to put the welfare of the sage grouse over that of humans?
1) how do we know that the state plans work?
The claim is that it already has worked or is working, if the survival and health of the sage grouse population is the standard. The Interior Dept had previously agreed to allow the state approach, which arose in opposition to and as an alternative to a threatened controversial Endangered Species Listing under far more draconian Federal controls. The Interior Dept has reneged on the agreement and is imposing Federal control in an ad hoc manner, not calling it an Endangered Species Listing. The states are objecting to the power grab without regard to the effectiveness of the state plan and the previous agreement.
2) how do we know that the federal plan will not work?
It depends on the criterion for "works". It probably would preserve the species, at the expense of sacrificing people more. Since both are the criteria and goal of the viro movement, it would "work". Whether the particular species population expands isn't relevant since they are primarily after preserving the entire "ecosystem" "protected" from humans.
3) how can we possibly know which would work better?
Under the viro goals the Federal plan "works better" because it is more restrictive on people, i.e., misanthropic nihilism is easier to achieve with more draconian controls from the Interior Dept. For an example of how this premise destroys people see the post by forum member Flootus5 on this same page https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
The state plan trying to at least partially protect people is a result of the combination of pandering to the viro premises and a very real limit on options under the imposition of raw Federal power and the political lobbying and voting power of viro activists within the state as the states are held hostage to Federal control.
4) since when did the various governments get this much control over land use?
The Federal Endangered Species Act passed Congress in 1966 under pressure from the early viro movement in the US, then called the "ecology movement". For a description of the political process by one of its supporters see Roderick Nash, The Rights of Nature. For an analysis of the 'ecology movement' in the early 1970s see Ayn Rand Return of the Primitive. For a comprehensive summary of the power and goals of the viro movement and its organizations see Ron Arnold's Trashing the Economy.
5) with hundreds of species becoming extinct each day, who made the decision to put the welfare of the sage grouse over that of humans?
They are political decisions made nominally in the US Fish & Wildlife Service under the political appointees of the president and lobbying and activism by the viro pressure groups, including both outside lobbyists and activists entrenched inside the government as protected civil servants. The presidential political appointments are selected from the viro activists. The decisions are made and token species selected to maximize sweeping 'habitat' controls despite political resistance. This is called "science". The damage varies over time depending on who is in the White House. The problem has been much worse under Obama and Clinton-Gore and would accelerate under Hillary. Under Bush-II political appointees Gale Norton and libertarian Lynn Scarlett, the programs expanded in the form of 'free market environmentalism' subsequently becoming the basis of the alternate 'habitat' plans such as this one.
http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter_i...
And you wonder WHY we need a Convention of States? Government just became the largest employer in our country surpassing manufacturing for the first time in our history; The Department of Education holds our states hostage withholding funds (that we paid) for not mandating Genderfree bathrooms; The Presidents wife demands certain cerals be removed from the marketplace. Its TIME folks...If not US then who?... If not NOW, then when?...Wait for the Tyrannical Federal Government to devour the Civil Society or join us. Visit here to learn more, sign the petition, and volunteer: http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter_i...
It is interesting to observe that the Libertarian Party as denounced by Ayn Rand 40 years ago has not only grown and absorbed many of the Objectivist philosophical principles but is the only seedbed closest to those principles. Short of launching an Objectivist Party, work with the party that is its one philosophical principled ally. Supporting Trump's Fuhrer persona as the antithesis of Hillary's socialism is immoral, to say the least.
All part and parcel of the same agenda, subjugation of the masses........
I'm not really sure I agree with that. I think that getting bogged down in the "context" of the situation is exactly how we've gotten to the point we have - by ignoring principle. That's a Progressive's favorite play - to excuse their lack of adherence to law and principle through the language of justification. The principles in play here are specifically outlined in the Constitution in the 9th and 10th amendments granting express control over everything not specifically set aside for the Federal Government to the States AND the section of the Constitution (totally ignored) which specifically forbids the Federal Government from holding land.
It's not as useless as slogans trying to sell the fringe Libertarian Party as the solution to all our problems because the states can and should act in some ways still possible politically, if and when anyone can get past the viros and progressives entrenched within the states
We are well within a post constitutional era in which the 9th and 10th amendments were gone long ago. Who would enforce them, outside a futile state attempt at armed conflict with the Federal government? The states are not simply going to "take back" Federal lands and there would be little popular support for even the goal, let alone a civil war.
Rhetorical appeals to "the Constitution" and the authority of the "states" fall on deaf ears for those who have, or who have been taught to sympathize with, the prevailing collectivist-statist mentality, which is much deeper than appeals to historic documents increasingly viewed as irrelevant.
Political reality is what we make of it, is it not? How many political changes started with a group of individuals taking a stand and then having others go in with them? The Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't care what the political "reality" of the day was - he stood on principle and demanded change. I believe the same thing could happen in the States - if they had the will to. Does that will exist? It doesn't at a government-leadership level, I agree. But King wasn't a bureaucrat either.
One can choose to be pessimistic and call it reality, or one can choose to be optimistic and look to enact the reality they want to see.
I still hold that it represents the fundamental ideas which made our nation great and which - if we return to them - can do so again. Yes, with the changing times have come political changes. That's the whole point! Progressives didn't take control all at once - they steadily undermined freedom bit by bit. But to say that a move in the opposite direction isn't possible?
Pessismists never change the world. I choose to believe and advocate for change and return for Constitutional values.
The Constitution has been politically made increasingly irrelevant because its very purpose clashes with the predominant progressive mentality of collectivism and statism. The country was founded on the Enlightenment emphasis of reason, individualism, and freedom; The Constitution was limited in its role to the specific means to organize government to do that. The goal was taken for granted.
Appealing to the Constitution today falls on deaf ears of those with a fundamentally different idea of what government is for. That is why traditionalist appeals to the Constitution by conservatives are hopeless as a political and philosophic premise, with no principled explanation of why government should be limited to specific functions and what they are.
Individuals and states can politically fight specific battles like these Federal land grabs and often make some headway, but the downward trend is very bad. No one ever stopped a National Park takeover or Endangered Species Listing by pronouncing his appeals to the Constitution while fervently believing. When we have a large and powerful movement ideologically committed to exploiting Federal power to impose preservationism, and practically everyone else pandering to it as if "environmentalism" were a Holy Word, it isn't enough to say 'take back the Constitution'. The same goes for the rest of the growing tyranny.
Pessimists never take action, being content to allow others to decide their course for them. One can choose to give up, or one can choose to vote for and advocate for change. I'll advocate for a return to sanity until insanity descends and starts weeding people out. I intend to be prepared either way. And if it comes for me it will still find me advocating for a return to the Constitutional principles this nation was built on.
I have engaged in more political action than you can imagine, and don't need amateur cheerleader lectures. Some policy can be impacted with sufficient means and knowledge, though the trend is down. The trend will not change without fundamental change in the accepted ideas of the culture.
I agree, but that doesn't happen without action. That's why your words confuse me. They are filled with "nothing is going to change" yet you admit that without action, nothing will change. Belief alone doesn't institute change, but that belief is the mandatory precursor to actual change, because one has to believe in a possible outcome before one invests time or resources into making it a reality. If there is no belief, there will be no resulting action. And without action, there is no change. You can call it cheerleading if you want. I call it reality. ;)
Fundamental change in ideas does not result from particular battles against specific policy, even when successful. It only slows the downward trend in politics, making the specific battles harder and harder, and eventually impossible.
Reversing the political trend requires first reversing the irrationalist, altruist, collectivist philosophical ideas dominating the culture. That can only be done by replacing it with a philosophy of reason and individualism. The action required for that is intellectual. Slogans about the "states" "taking back" anything, or calling for the tradition of the Constitution do not do that.
"The action required for that is intellectual."
To a degree, yes. But I think there is one other major part that also must be addressed: that the other person must believe that there is a benefit to change. It's all fine and good to advocate logic as the rationale for a policy or principle, but change always involves an action of faith: that a change from what has always been done to something new will effect a positive net change.
The common person isn't interested in the intelligentsia of the approach - at least not at first. The common man very much wants a cause to believe in. Politicians understand this - especially progressive ones. They tap into that ignorance and drive to believe and twist it to their own ends. They have that tag line - that "hook" as they call it in marketing - and they use it to reel people in. Objectivists need to come up with something similar. "Who is John Galt?" almost works, but the normal person can't relate to John Galt. It needs to be something short and gets people thinking.
It can't be done in 30 second sound bites for those who want to understand. What else you say in a restricted context may and should be some essential point, but it can't stop there and we can't copy the left's exploitation of irrationalism, dishonesty and ignorance with their contempt of human understanding and independence, which defeats the purpose of a rational society.
Reading Ayn Rand on anything is nothing like reading obscure philosophy like a Kant or Hegel, and her work (even on epistemology) is enjoyable and filled with advocacy for human value. But look at the influence the Kant and Hegel types ultimately had. And Leonard Peikoff's books were not written for academics, he said once that he wrote them (and rewrote Ominous Parallels) so a truck driver could understand it. (That is true, but it is much harder reading for academics steeped in rationalism and explicit bad premises.)
Wait for it, the peoples uprising and the next Civil War which will not be stopped!
Votes matter when they are counted and the total is more than the opposition, which determines who won the election, not how many votes for nothing that you add up after years of not participating in the real election. No establishment politicians have modified their actions because of fringe LP votes.
The people who are having an impact on specific policy are those who know how the system works and actively work to influence it on issues they know about to be able to talk intelligently about them and know what to do about it. That does not include fringe Libertarians engaging in pretend politics with floating abstractions and goofy sophistry every four years to vote for them because votes don't matter -- now on behalf of the likes of has-been 'liberal' Republicans like Johnson and Weld with a soft spot for getting high on drugs and abdicating the field of foreign policy, all supposedly in the name of a free society based on rational individualism -- if that is what these "Libertarians" want at all.
Weld and Johnson are flakes from the past of 'liberal' Republicans and cannot even begin to articulate a philosophy of individual freedom, let alone claim to be spokesmen or serious candidates. Their attempted 'big draw' is ignorance of foreign policy and pandering to pot heads. None of it is related to the topic of the thread hijacked by LP publicity seekers now claiming to be appealing to the left in the name of whatever it is they think libertarianism is.
The Interior Dept. just unilaterally shut down mining across 10 sparsely populated states, wrecking people's lives. There is no "over development". What is the standard for "over"?
Condoning this abuse in the name of "conservationism" overtly sanctions the sacrifice of people to misanthropic, nihilistic nature worship. The unowned lands in the west were supposed to be settled and claimed as private property, not nationalized and subsequently locked up under eco-fascism.