Now, there is a movement among repugicans who embrace
Bundy's claim the federal government is forbidden from owning land …
There is a good reason for harsh penalties for
criminal activity besides punishing a criminal, although suffering harsh
consequences is apropos for some crimes. Although it is doubtful
whether or not penalizing a criminal will ever have any rehabilitating
or behavioral transformative affect, at least the violator is removed
from society and possibly serves as a deterrent to other criminal
activity. Conversely, when the justice system fails and criminals are
allowed to violate the law with impunity, and wingnuts' praise the
criminal as a heroic American patriot, it will just be a matter of time
until some repugican candidate campaigns on breaking the law.
Last April when serial welfare cheat and seditionist
Cliven Bundy marshaled heavily-armed militias and incited a dangerous
standoff with federal officers executing a federal court order, he
claimed the federal government had no right to the federal land it had
purchased or authority over that land. At the time there were several repugicans who agreed with Bundy, but then again they are the same
malcontents that claim the federal government’s existence is invalid;
but that is another story.
Now, there is a movement among repugicans
who embrace Bundy’s claim the federal government is forbidden from
owning land and the repugican gubernatorial candidate in Colorado is
actively campaigning on a promise of seizing all federal land. His plan,
like those in
several other repugican states, is confiscating national parks, national forests,
and all public land from the federal government and selling them off to
the Koch brothers for mining, drilling, and logging. As private land
owned by the Kochs, federal regulations and environmental protections
become null and void and America’s National Parks, wilderness areas, and
waterways become dirty energy wastelands.
The repugican candidate, Bob Beauprez, openly called for seizing all federal land in Colorado because he claims “this is a fight we have to wage.” Like Cliven Bundy, Beauprez claims that all federally-owned land in the state is private Colorado land that means “we can cancel their (federal government) lease like they are tenants.”
Beauprez is one of several repugicans running for office who agree
with Bundy that states have the right to sell off federally-owned land
to the highest bidder primarily because they do not acknowledge any
federal government authority. For his part, according to his campaign document, “Liberty’s Promise: My Plan to Protect Freedom and Constitutional Rights,” Beauprez intends on “reestablishing state rights and duties” primarily “by taking control of land from the federal government” and selling it to mining, oil, and logging interests.
Like most 10th Amendment, state rights extremists,
Beauprez’s claim to protect constitutional rights by seizing federal
land misses the important point that seizing federal land is patently
unconstitutional. Even if it were constitutional, it would place an
extreme financial burden on Colorado taxpayers in the hundreds-of-millions of dollars annually just to cover the cost of the state’s
devastating wildfires as a result of extremely dry conditions due to droughts caused by climate change. Climate change that Beauprez
asserts in his 2009 book, A Return to Values, is “
at best a grossly over-hyped issue and a complete hoax foisted on most of the world.”
According to a candidate whose state suffers from extreme wildfires and
the effects of climate change, Beauprez compared the “
global warming fervor” to “
a religious revival being spread by true believers with similar evangelical enthusiasm.”
Beauprez joins over a dozen other candidates, most
for federal office and several current members of Congress, who agree
whole-heartedly with seditious criminal Cliven Bundy that America’s
federally-owned lands are illegal and fair game to be seized by states
and sold off to the drilling, mining, and logging industry. According to
analysis
by the Center for American Progress, there are 13 candidates on the
midterm ballots as well as 7 sitting senators who are not up for
reelection from 10 states who sympathize with Cliven Bundy and agree the
federal government has no right or authority to own land. Land, by the
way, that includes National Parks, recreational waterways, and
wilderness areas that belong to all the American people to enjoy.
However, being typically Koch-funded lunatic fringe wingnut extremists, repugicans
have been on a six-year tear to seize everything from the people
including their pensions, Medicare, and now their national parks to open
to corporate mining, drilling, and logging interests.
One repugican candidate for Congress in Arizona,
Andy Tobin, joins Ted Cruz (r-TX) and Rep. Raúl Labrador (r-ID) who
believes states have constitutional purview to “declare sovereignty,
exclusive authority, and jurisdiction over the air, water, public
lands, minerals, wildlife and other natural resources within their
boundaries.” During the Bundy seditious standoff, Tobin sent a fundraising email sympathizing with Bundy as the “victim of overbearing government regulations,”
and believes relief for the criminal can only come by seizing
federally-owned land. However, based on the repugicans funded by the
Koch brothers praising the criminal Bundy as a patriot hero, it is more
plausible that their support was more about a movement to seize federal
land to give the Kochs freedom from federal and state regulations; not
helping a criminal. It does, though, inform why many Koch-funded repugicans rushed to defend Bundy as a patriot against the federal
government that was “overbearing” because it purchased the land Bundy
trespassed on for two decades.
An overwhelming majority of voters in Western states
vehemently oppose repugican’s unconstitutional proposals to seize
National Parks such as the Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain recreation area,
or lake Meade, but repugicans routinely ignore the will of the people;
especially when it conflicts with the demands of their campaign donors.
There has been a movement afoot to allow oil, gas, and mineral
exploration and drilling on federally protected land, especially in the
Grand Canyon and along pristine coastal wilderness areas on and offshore
that Willard Romney assailed President Obama for opposing during one of
the presidential debates. The movement now is mainstream and a campaign
issue in Western states.
One wonders, now, if the Bundy standoff was more
about bringing attention to, and garnering support for, the repugicans’
plans to seize federal land to sell to the highest bidder for mining,
drilling, and logging than illegally grazing cattle. Although there were
quiet murmurs among repugicans in Utah and Arizona about seizing
federal land before the Bundy sedition, there were no blatant candidate
campaigns based around an unconstitutional action that, like everything repugicans do, appears to be just another ploy to hand America over to
the Koch brothers
Introduced by Eric Swalwell (D-CA), the 
by Rachel Grate
