Has the Bundy insurrection bitten the dust?
Posted: Thursday, March 31, 2016 9:30 am
Updated: 9:33 am, Thu Mar 31, 2016.
Guest Columnist Travis Kelly
... Jon Ritzheimer and Ryan Payne, two of Ammon’s top deputies, fancy themselves as reincarnations of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, or Travis, Crockett and Bowie at the Alamo — heroic, outnumbered rebels against a tyrannical government, determined to set the land free.
But this is no longer the wide open frontier and wild, wild West of their nostalgic ruminations, but a modern, fully populated nation wrestling with a potentially devastating ecological crisis: The greater West is now suffering a chronic drought that scientists say could be just the beginning of another century-long megadrought, like the one that eclipsed the Anasazi civilization in the 8th century. The land is going to have to be managed wisely if we are to avoid another Dust Bowl, driving the descendants of “Grapes of Wrath” Okies back to their homeland in Norman and all over the West ...
Here, in Idaho, Utah, Nevada and neighboring states, the whole bounty of the natural world is open to me; I can camp anywhere at no charge for two weeks at a single site on BLM land, then move on, hunt, fish, hike, bird watch, or just explore — without running into barbed wire and “No Trespassing!” signs. And that is my definition of “freedom” — the land doesn’t belong to some alien government, it belongs to all of us, not just greedy ranchers, drillers and miners, who also get their share ...
Teddy Roosevelt, the great Republican trustbuster, valued the health and vitality of the American West over the demands of profiteering corporations in his day. If Teddy were alive now, I know he would not hesitate to kick Cliven Bundy’s ass.
http://www.moabsunnews.com/opinion/article_8dbb6b8a-f755-11e5-914a-b7ce8f52c676.html