Armed militias threatening unarmed civil servants will provoke the type of response in many occasions.
The Feds were very well armed. That's what brought the militias in. They should let all of the ranchers graze for free. Maybe it would bring down beef prices. The cost of feed, due to the ethanol mandates, is ridiculous.
If everyone could just do what they wished on public land, it would be chaos. One of the things that BLM does is make sure that there is enough land to support the legal herd that is authorized, lest overgrazing ruin the habit and create another dust bowl.
These ranchers put in wells and watering troughs. They could probably do a better job of irrigating that land than the BLM. Agreements could've been made between both parties I'm sure. A lot of lease agreements around here have "Land Improvement clauses in them. The agreements range from adding wells and pumps, improving drainage, or land leveling.
That's just it. This is public land to be kept in perpetuity of that our progeny may still enjoy it in hundreds of years. Leveling and irrigation are destructive of environment and habitat. Grazing is easy on the land if properly managed. Everybody in the cattle and sheep business in the West relies on BLM and Forest Service grazing contracts. It's a win-win situation if you just keep out the anarchist radical kooks who want to freeload.
Those anarchist radical kooks will and have taken better care of the land than the liberal hippy dumbasses. This wasn't even about cattle. This was about Harry and Rory Reid making a few million on a land deal at the taxpayers expense. They just didn't expect a rancher to stand up to them. They should go find some libs with some land. We know they don't mind slobbering on the govt knob.
In fact much cattle grazing destroys the high desert. Cattle's hooves and grazing habits aren't the same as bison. It takes significant management to prevent loss of habitat. Whether Dirty Harry is doing his customary slimy deal or not isn't germane to what Bundy has done.
