Cedar Park Dad wrote:Its the government's land. The government can use it for whatever purpose it wants.
Yes, and no. I'll concede for now that the feds
control that land, but they don't necessarily own it. It's actually more like the government is exercising squatters' rights on it:
http://benswann.com/lofti-who-actually- ... z2ymLdGQqf.
It's really a debate about the meaning of Article IV of the Constitution. Big government advocates deliberately take Article IV out of context (much like they do with the Commerce Clause and the 2nd Amendment) to make the case that the article expands rather than limits federal power:
Michal Lofti wrote:At the debate’s soul is Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution, which is know as the “Property Clause”. Proponents of federal expansion on both sides of the political aisle argue that this clause provides warrant for the federal government to control land throughout the United States.
U.S. Constitution - Article 4 Section 3 wrote:The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States….
Those who say this clause delegates the feds control over whatever land they arbitrarily decide to lay claim to are grossly misinterpreting even the most basic structure of the Constitution.
{——SNIP——}
Article IV does not grant Congress the power to exercise sovereignty over land. Article IV deals exclusively with state-to-state relations such as protection from invasion, slavery, full faith and credit, creation of new states and so on.
Historically, the Property Clause delegated federal control over territorial lands
up until the point when that land would be formed as a state. [emphasis mine-TAM] This was necessary during the time of the ratification of the Constitution due to the lack of westward development. The clause was drafted to constitutionalize the Northwest Ordinance, which the Articles of Confederation did not have the power to support. This ordinance gave the newly formed Congress the power to create new states instead of allowing the states themselves to expand their own land claims.
The Property Clause and Northwest Ordinance are both limited in power and scope.
Once a state is formed and accepted in the union, the federal government no longer has control over land within the state’s borders. From this moment, such land is considered property of the sovereign state. [emphasis mine-TAM]
So, we can definitely agree that the federal government currently has
claimed control over those lands through its agency, the BLM, but that control's legitimacy is absolutely questionable. But I disagree that "it's their land", anymore than just because a squatter has tried to use the courts to take my own home away from me, that said squatter actually owns the property. (
EXAMPLE) It's just that for the past 149 years, nobody has dared to tell the federal government what it can or cannot do. It has gotten VERY used to having its way in all things wherever its authority intrudes on state sovereignty; and regardless of whether you view the Civil War as "the war of southern rebellion" or "the war of northern aggression", General Sherman put the fear of what might happen if anyone ever again dares to challenge the federal government into people's hearts. The end result is that the government is betting all its marbles on the notion that "possession is 9/10ths of the law". However, in the case of the Bundy's
real, practical possession has been in the Bundy's family for the last 140 of that 149 years. In that case, it is not hard to understand the events as the government trying to take possession of something that was neither in their legal possession prior, nor in their practical possession since. If the government's standard is "possession is 9/10ths of the law", then the Bundy's win, hands down.
If the government offered the Bundys the chance to buy the land in 1932, they were acting like grifters trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge. They had no right to sell what they did not own, and the Bundy's were smart to not buy what the seller had no right to sell.
This is very much a case of the federal government using "might makes right" instead of the Constitution to govern the affairs of men. And I would like to add that I am not politically affiliated in this debate.
Both major parties are tainted with this case. It began during Clinton's first term, continued through both of his and both of Bush's terms, and continued into the Obama administration.
What is it again? The average person commits three felonies per day?