Letter: ‘Sagebrush rebels’ not satisfied with government handouts

I was surprised to learn that cattle rancher scofflaw Cliven Bundy was only recently jailed.

In 1993, the Bureau of Land Management modified his grazing permit to reduce the overstocking of his cattle on 578,724 acres of public land due to environmental damage. Bundy then quit paying his grazing fees and further stocked the range with nine times the number of cattle allowed by the permit.

The BLM cited him several times for environmental damage, lack of removal of extra livestock and of grazing payments, but he continued his defiance. A court battle in 2008 found in favor of the BLM, but he refused to mend his ways.

In 2014, the BLM began to impound Bundy’s herd to remove them from 20 years of overgrazing public land and to reimburse the BLM for an estimated $1.1 million in grazing fees. With the help of publicity, he then encouraged a range war with the BLM, assembling more than 100 armed loonies who kept the BLM from impounding his herd.

Apparently the government’s sagebrush socialism of charging much less of what a grazing fee costs on private land is not enough to satisfy our “sagebrush rebels.”

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Letter: ‘Sagebrush rebels’ not satisfied with government handouts."