@brian_lenney Enough with this virtue signaling and resolution bullshit for another country that we've already given billions of dollars and countless American lives lost fighting their wars.
And that's the point. The leftists hate rural culture and the people who live it. If they ban hunting or fishing, they are now attempting to remove that culture and now gives them "legal" authority to fine you into oblivion or put you in jail while rapists and murders run free. The next best thing that will come out of this for them is to force rural people to move from "their" state.
Rope and lampposts need to be utilized, because they won't stop.
This is all part of the attempted planned erasure of the American Western culture. This isn't some one-off bill "by those whacky lefties in Oregon". This along with selling off public lands and importing as many foreigners as possible is all part of the larger plan to erase the culture of America and the American West.
Everyone that was crowing last year wanting BLM land to be "Returned back to the States!!!"; this is exactly what you're going to get if/when that ever happens.
Back room land deals will be green-lit between the most highly connected and political class where the most amount of money can be made amongst themselves while not giving two shits about the local populations of the states that are impacted from the loss of generational land use, water resource depletion, and driving up already high electrical costs for whatever pet projects that they can make the most money from while telling the local population to pound sand.
Two hilarious things about this tweet that Rocky Mountain people see all the time. First, it’s very common for NYC/SF/DC beltway people to spend several *days* on vacation on Western public land. Shortly after, they fancy themselves policy experts and proudly proclaim their “love” of public land but then go home and go out of their way to advocate for its privatization and sale.
They return to their cities and condescendingly explain to Westerners that we must privatize public land or sell it off to foreigners/investment funds/billionaires/out of staters because line must always go up and BLM land isn’t as “pretty” as the NPS parcel where they vacationed.
Second is BLM land, from a conservation perspective, isn’t set aside for recreation or aesthetic value, and he’s displaying a complete lack of knowledge in our land portfolio that disqualifies him from weighing in on its sale. What the National Park tourists don’t understand (because they don’t live here and their knowledge of the issue is quite shallow) is the BLM land that he disparages for not being pretty is “multiple use.” This is a particularly brilliant and uniquely American management classification that allows large swaths of land to be wild and working landscapes that permit livelihoods and conservation.
Oil and gas operations can share their parcels with sensitive sage grouse leks. Mining operations can occur, with regulations, on migratory game corridors for some of our biggest deer and elk herds. Recreation and hunting can still occur right next to a seventh generation small family run cattle operation.
There’s also a big 2A connection here. Near my university, the only place the kids have to go to zero in their rifles before elk season is BLM land. They couldn’t do any shooting sports while away at college be it not for our local BLM parcel that Andrew wants to sell because it’s not as pretty as Yosemite.
BLM as an agency isn’t perfect but their scientists have been instrumental in collaborative efforts to restore the Bonneville Cutthroat trout (a symbol of the West, beloved by westerners, and endemic to the waters of Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, and Idaho) as well as Colorado’s iconic greenback cutthroat. Migration corridor habitat protection by BLM for Mule deer, bighorn, and elk has been instrumental across a number of states in the Rockies for keeping herd numbers where they need to be so we can fund wildlife conservation work with hunting tags.
If members of the America first coalition want to partner with rw people of Western states, they shouldn’t be so prideful and think that a vacation qualifies them to advocate for the sale of public land that they woefully misunderstand in terms of both the purpose and how we manage it.
Public land enables a unique heritage, culture, people, ecology, and set of livelihoods that make tourists like Andrew want to come and spend time out here. Once you put a fence around it all, and lose access to things that American legends like Teddy Roosevelt set aside for us and our children, you’re just advocating to further strip America for its parts so long as that sacred line goes up.
East coast conservative think tankers and GOP staffers should learn fast that the rw under 50 high elevation crowd isn’t Orrin Hatch. We are led by Hunter/angler groups and GWOT vets like the guys at @Sagebrush_Inst who embody servant leadership and stewards of our beloved American commons. We follow ranching families like @caseymurph1 who safeguard our land from foreign land grabs. This issue is very serious to us.
Last year when this topic came up of Federal lands being returned to the States, or sold off, I received a lot flak from other Idahoans for my stance on not wanting that to happen. This post by @RodeoProfessor is why.
These lands will be sold off to highly connected people who could care less about Idaho or any other states well-being, and the people who actually live in the states where this is happening gain nothing except loss of land for future generational use, more water resource depletion, and crowding.
@LeadersOfUSA @IsaacGloverAZ Add apathy to the list.
"I'm not worried about it because it'll never happen here!" - Last thing said before it happens here.