Interior Dept. shutting down mining in 10 states

Posted by ewv 7 years, 5 months ago to Politics
195 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

From the Congressional House Natural Resources Committee. This action by an Obama political appointee, the Secretary of the Interior, shows the importance of which party is in the White House regardless of what you think of the president himself. Democrats since Clinton-I have appointed radical viros to run the government.

According to Mark Levin there are almost 4,000 political appointees assigned by the president and those he appoints to do the radical appointing. That is in addition to those they hire to be entrenched in the protected civil service. It is also in addition to Federal judges, about 40% of which have now been appointed by Obama. Another eight years of this means a nearly complete loss of control over how the Federal government functions for what political purposes, regardless of what Congress does or what new laws are passed making it worse.


USGS Study Reveals Extensive Impacts of Obama Administration’s War on Mineral Development

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 7, 2016
CONTACT: Parish Braden, Elise Daniel or Molly Block (202) 226-9019

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of the Interior (DOI) Sally Jewell is developing controversial plans to cordon off approximately 10 million acres of federal lands located in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming from mineral development. The withdrawals are one plank of the Obama administration's broader regulatory scheme to create a de-facto Endangered Species Act listing for the sage grouse. Earlier this week, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released an 800-page assessment of mineral potential within each state subject to potential future withdrawals.

House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement:

“This assessment shows significant negative impacts for western states if these withdrawals proceed. But let’s not miss the forest for the trees. Despite successful species conservation efforts at the state level, and a finding last year that listing the bird under the Endangered Species Act is not warranted, the Obama administration wants total regulatory control and a much more permanent trophy for litigious environmental groups. Along with oppressive land use plans covering parts of 10 states—with restrictions for all types of economic activities—these withdrawals have the potential to be even more punitive and damaging to energy producers and rural economies than an endangered finding. This is a de-facto listing and then some. USGS’s report is small snapshot of the pain to come. This issue will require continued oversight even after the Obama administration is finally gone. Blocking mineral development by another executive fiat is inexcusable, and the Committee will be sure to keep a close eye on it.

“Secretary Salazar told the states they should adopt sage grouse protection plans and they would be accepted. States have spent time and money to create good plans. The current Secretary is now reneging on that promise. The state plans work and the department’s proposal does not. The department’s proposal hurts military preparedness and military ranges in the West, a fact that has never been taken into consideration.”

Background:

At a minimum, the USGS report suggests the withdrawal of such a massive area could have significant negative impacts to nearly 1.3 million acres of moderate to high resource potential. The withdrawal could also affect over 7,000 mining claims across several Western states, including Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Wyoming and Montana.
###


Add Comment

FORMATTING HELP

All Comments Hide marked as read Mark all as read

  • 16
    Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 7 years, 5 months ago
    King Obama.... "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.""
    Sound familiar? It should; it is from the Declaration of Independence. Then it was King George III... One tyrant the same as the next.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
      O the Great and Powerful creates lots and lots of taxpayer paid-for government econazi jobs to destroy far more capitalist jobs that create an actual product plus way more revenue.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • -1
      Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      This topic is far more serious than analogies with generalities from the 18th century connected with the American Revolution, and it is much more widespread and serious than Obama as stand in for the king. It has been building for decades -- ultimately since the early progressives of the late 19th century -- under the influence of the viro movement for the last 50 years, and predominantly imposed by Democrats in the White House and Congress. King George could not have dreamed of the nihilistic ideology and destruction of the viro eco-fascists.

      This is no abstraction only threatening as it waits for implementation in a bad trend, they are destroying people now as personally described by the forum's own Flootus5 on this same page https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • 11
    Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
    The states should tell Secretary Jewel to get her agents out of the states or they will be jailed for speeding by state patrol officers and their vehicles seized and forfeited.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      When Obama shut down part of the government to demand more funding from Congress, the governor of Maine threatened to arrest US Fish & Wildlife officials if they continued to block access on a state highway and to a state park inholding in the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge

      And from "Activists Push to Create National Park in Maine’s North Woods" November 2, 2015 archived at http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-a...

      "LePage described a recent problem he had with NPS over snowmobilers having trouble getting to their camps by crossing the Appalachian Trail, a unit of the national park system. They couldn’t make their usual lake crossing because it had yet to freeze. An NPS officer called LePage and told him to issue summons to those campers for a court date. LePage refused.

      “'One, I’m not going to summons them,' said LePage. 'Two, I encourage them to use [the trail]. And if you come to me and try to summons them, I’m going to throw you in jail.'”
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • 10
        Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
        That's the kind of courage needed for the states to wrest control of land in their states from the zealots in the Dark Center.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
          Obama responded by abusing the Antiquities Act to decree two very unpopular and destructive National Monuments in Maine and off the coast of Maine and Massachusetts, one to destroy private property rights in the Maine woods and the other shutting down the fishery in 5,000 square miles. https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

          The National Monument scam, its history, and its purpose need to be better and more widely known and understood before the laws can be changed despite the viro lobby. Obama violated and/or ignored several laws in decreeing the monuments in corrupt collusion between the pressure group activists, the Federal agencies swarming with viros, and his direct political appointees.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
    A Libertarian Congress would end this unconstitutional rubbish. A Republican Congress will cave as they always do.
    Don't vote in fear. Vote on principle.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by mminnick 7 years, 5 months ago
      I agree a Libertarian Congress would do so. It is just that the Libertarian Party almost never runs candidates for any local or state level office and so have no real base to run congressional offices, either as a Representative or Senator.
      A part doesn't gain influence by only running every 4 years, it gains influence by running good candidates from the bottom up. Get a strong grass roots organization formed and elect House and Senate members and work to get a broader base. It took the Progressives almost 120 years to gain enough influence to totally drive the country to the brink of self destruction. It took the republicans two full election cycles to get a nation following. The Libertarians have been around long enough to establish themselves, but have not really tried to establish a national party covering all states and all elected offices. Try the grass roots approach, it works.

      Sorry for the political aside to a serious topic.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
        The Libertarian Party supported 756 congressional, state, and local-level candidates across the country during the 2014 election cycle. Its not only about the presidential election, and the Libertarian Party knows it.
        I do understand your point though, mm. It will take a lot more Libertarian candidates running for office and winning to have a significant effect. It will also require people to stop supporting the DemRep cartel control over elections.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
        Republicans often do oppose and block viro attacks using Federal agencies. Libertarians are known for being ineffectual and not operating in real-world politics.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
          Republicans joined with Democrats to rig elections to assure that Libertarians stay ineffectual and that people have no voice whatsoever in government. Keep on supporting the GOP and you will continue to get the opposite of what you claim to want.
          Republicans in national elective office are gutless, spineless, caving, betraying cowards with a few exceptions.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
            Either Trump or Clinton will take power. That is what the election is about.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
              No, it is not. This election is about taking back control from statists. Voting for Trump or Hillary concedes the battle to the statists. Voting in fear is not the answer and the past 30 years of voting for the GOP in fear of the Dems proves it. Voting for either Trump or Hillary gives consent to the DemRep cartel's rigging of elections and keeps other candidates from having a chance in the future. Don't repeat the mistakes of the past.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • -1
                Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                Everyone else knows that the Trump or Clinton will win the election and that is what the battle is. Voting to affect that outcome is not "consent" to anything. It is a vote to determine which of the two of them will take office. The thread is about the Interior Dept shutting down mining because of Obama political appointees. Stop hijacking the thread with repetitive and annoying slogans for a Libertarian Party publicity spree.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • -2
                Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                Hilary or Trump will win the election. Stop pretending that the Libertarian Party has anything to do with it. The election is not about taking control from the statists and everyone but LP zealots knows it. Voting to make a difference in an election is not a "concession to statists", it is recognition of reality. These constant promotions of repetitive LP fantasies hijacking the thread are more annoying Jehovah's Witnesses. Stop being a pest, it does not contribute to the discussion.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
                  i understand how you could be annoyed, but its not me or the libertarians,ewv. Perhaps you should vote on principle and you would feel less annoyed with yourself.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • -2
                    Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                    Please drop the insults and false accusations. You have become an annoying zealot. I am not "annoyed with myself" and "voting on principle" does not mean abondoning choices in reality for the fantasyland of a fringe candidate.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
              Your vote won't change the outcome one bit, so you should vote your principles. That's what voting is supposed to be about, not perpetually voting for the "less evil" candidate.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
                There is a difference between idealism and hard reality.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                  The hard reality is that your vote won't change the outcome. That being the case, would you rather cast an idealistic vote or a "lesser of two evils" one?
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                    Voting is the mechanism for deciding who will be president. No one vote determines that; they add them up. Everyone knows that. Telling people not to vote because their one vote doesn't determine the outcome is evasive, rationalistic sophistry on behalf of wishful claimed "idealism" not part of reality.

                    It is not moral idealism. Moral choices are made in reality among choices that are possible, not fantasyland with PR stunts for fringe candidates of dubious ideology and character that cannot win and who do not represent the principles needed for a free society. To call indulging in that fantasyland "idealism" is to subvert the concept and purpose of morality, divorcing it from reality.

                    The moral choice is the one recognizing what the choice in an election is and acting accordingly to fight the destruction from the worst candidate when there is a difference, not to blabber about "idealism" while wandering off into fantasyland as if moral choices were divorced from reality.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                    • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                      Re: “Moral choices are made in reality among choices that are possible, not fantasyland with PR stunts for fringe candidates of dubious ideology and character that cannot win and who do not represent the principles needed for a free society.” So it’s moral to choose mainstream candidates of dubious ideology and character who do not represent the principles needed for a free society, as long as one of them is likely to win? Sounds rather pragmatic to me.
                      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                      • -1
                        Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                        No, living in reality is not Pragmatism. One of the two major candidates will be president. There is no other choice in reality. Morality requires making choices that are possible in reality, not fantasizing. Rational voting requires recognizing the choice available, the difference in the consequences, and acting accordingly. That is not an endorsement of either candidate or the system imposed on us. It requires an understanding of the principles and how to apply them to make choices that are possible, not Pragmatism. Morality does not consist in abandoning the reality in front of us and replacing it with fantasy in the name idealism.
                        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                        • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                          Re: “One of the two major candidates will be president. There is no other choice in reality.” The reality is that your vote will not affect the outcome, so it’s not really a choice. You do have a choice whether to participate in the two-party charade, or vote for the candidate whose views are closest to yours. I’m comfortable with my vote for Gary Johnson.
                          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                          • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                            It looks like someone is marking me down because they disagree with my opinion. I won't return the favor.
                            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                            • -1
                              Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                              Your repetitive off-topic posts do not contribute to this thread. The reasons for rejecting your rationalist slogans have been explained many times.
                              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                              • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                                Show me where my posts have been off-topic to the posts of yours that I was responding to.
                                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                                • -2
                                  Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                                  Everything you post repetitiously promoting the LP is off topic. If you understood the original post in anything but libertarian floating abstractions you would know that. But no, it's repeated "your vote doesn't count so vote for me".
                                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                                  • puzzlelady replied 7 years, 5 months ago
                          • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                            How many times does it have to be explained to you that the election is determined by counting the votes and comparing the totals, not by "one vote" ignoring the rest. That is the way the system works. Understanding the principle is to understand why voting matters. If it didn't they wouldn't bother to count the votes.

                            Those who want to make a difference don't pretend that it doesn't matter. The two parties battling for votes certainly know it, which is why they are spending hundreds of millions in voter drives and campaigning. Telling people that voting doesn't matter so vote for my fringe party, where it would also not matter, is just stupid.

                            You can "feel comfortable" with a fantasy vote if that's what you want, but it isn't participating in the election. If you don't know enough about the candidates to understand the difference and how it matters, then don't vote, but the rest of it is subjectivist sophistry outside the realm of the election.
                            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                            • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                              Please tell me exactly how your one vote is going to influence the outcome of the election. I'm all ears.

                              Also please tell me how voting for Gary Johnson "isn't participating in the election." I go into the voting booth. He's on the ballot. I vote for him. His vote totals are counted and reported. How is that not participating? My vote will have exactly as much influence as yours on the outcome of the election - i.e., none at all. But future historians looking at the 2016 vote totals will see one more vote for liberty and against the two-party system than if I had cast a meaningless vote for one of the candidates the "major" parties had seen fit to foist on us.
                              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                              • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                                CBJ has been told several times what is wrong with his "one vote" sophistry rationalizing why we shouldn't vote, except to give it to him, so it won't be repeated. If he cared to follow what has already been written several times instead of hijacking the thread to repetitively promote the Libertarian Party he would already know.

                                Throwing away a vote to a fringe party exploiting the election for a publicity stunt is not participating in the election, which is to determine who will be president. It won't be Gary Johnson and nothing he does will change that. No "future historian" will see CBJ's "one more vote" or care.

                                A vote can't be "meaningless" for every candidate except their publicity stunt. They repeatedly tell us through a contorted rationalization that our vote doesn't matter but they want it for themselves. 'Your vote doesn't matter so vote for me'.
                                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                        • Posted by $ Abaco 7 years, 5 months ago
                          I don't know. Sounds like you're overthinking it. Then again - my "Hillary will win" could probably be called "underthinking it"...
                          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                          • -1
                            Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                            Making choices in reality and rejecting the notion of moral idealism as fantasy detached from reality is not "overthinking".
                            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                            • -1
                              Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                              The LIbertarian Party zealots hijacking this thread with systematic 'downvotes' of the posts rejecting them should be removed. The forum is for discussion, not repetitive True Believers.
                              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                    • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                      If we allow two clearly corrupt parties to dictate our chocies, eventually the "moral choice" both parties will give us will be between a Hitler and a Stalin. By that time third parties will be outlawed. (They already nearly are, with so many roadblocks thrown up by the two "major" parties.) I would rather vote my real choice while I still can.
                      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                      • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                        Please pay attention. "We" are not "allowing" the system and its downward trend. That is imposed on us.

                        It is not a choice in the election. It is not a result of ignoring the irrelevant Libertarian Party. It is a result of the culture of collectivism and Pragmatism, which the Libertarian Party does not understand and is not dealing with.

                        As everyone else knows, the election will decide whether Trump or Clinton will be president. The outcome makes a difference.

                        The "Libertarian Party" is not a "real choice" in the election, and the two LP clowns pretending in their PR stunt do not represent civilized, rational individualism and are no spokesmen for it. Stop fantasizing and stop hijacking threads on the forum. It is mindless, annoying and irrelevant fantasy doing nothing to discuss, let alone solve, real problems.

                        The LIbertarian Party's predicted history of overwhelming rejection is not a conspiracy, it is a consequence of what it is. Stop blaming this on "evil" people like us who refuse to abandon reality on behalf of mindless and irrelevent publicity seeking.
                        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                        • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                          Fantasy is continuing to support the two-party system with your vote and expecting it to improve.

                          Re: “As everyone else knows, the election will decide whether Trump or Clinton will be president. The outcome makes a difference.” The 1980 election decided whether Carter or Reagan would be President. The outcome made a difference. Ayn Rand chose to abstain. Was she wrong to do so?

                          Re: “It is mindless, annoying and irrelevant fantasy doing nothing to discuss, let alone solve, real problems.” Okay, how do you propose to solve the “real problem” of two totally corrupt political parties controlling the political process? By continuing to vote for their candidates?
                          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                          • -1
                            Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                            No one is expecting voting to "improve the two party system" by voting. Stop smearing and misrepresenting people.

                            The existence of the two party system is not on the ballot. Voting for or against candidates when it makes a difference is not support for the "two party system". The two party system already exists. The choice in this election is between Trump and Clinton. One of them will be president.

                            Ayn Rand saw no significant difference between Carter and Reagan's first campaign. Carter was not Hilary Clinton, and Reagan's speeches pandering to the mixed economy were not the utopian positions now claimed by conservatives. Ayn Rand did say that she would have to vote for Reagan if the Democrats put up a socialist-like candidate. She never said to not vote for candidates from the two parties and in particular she denounced the Libertarian Party and explained why. Invoking Ayn Rand in this PR stunt for the LP is dishonest.

                            Some real problems are solved or ameliorated by voting against the worst of the candidates, like Clinton, in the context of the choice available here in reality. Those who have read Ayn Rand and who don't misrepresent her as Libertarian know that throughout her career she advocated the solution to the decline of politics and the culture as spreading the right philosophical ideas and that there are no shortcuts. Those who have been involved in politics today know that Libertarians are inept at impacting even shorter term policy.
                            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                            • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                              If the Libertarian Party is so “inept”, then why are you so concerned about whether people vote for it or not? If the polls are correct, the LP’s presence in the race is helping Trump, not Hillary. Would you rather that we disappear?
                              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                              • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                                The Libertarian Party is inept at effecting meaningful reform of anything in politics. That does not mean that voting doesn't matter. This has already been answered. https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

                                The arguments for supporting the Libertarian Party are increasingly bizarre. Now are told that it is helping Trump, as if voting for the LP instead of Trump takes votes away from Clinton. That leftist potheads might find the LP more attractive is no argument for the LP as the road to reform.
                                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                                • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                                  Voting for the LP instead of Clinton takes votes away from Clinton. If you care to investigate, you’ll find that this is happening frequently enough that the Clinton camp is seriously attacking Gary Johnson.

                                  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/us/...

                                  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vide...

                                  And voting does matter, just not in the way you describe it. By voting for my principles, my votes over the years have had far more impact than if I had allowed the two “establishment” parties to dictate my choices. By voting Libertarian, I am adding to the vote totals of the only party that supports individual freedom. And those vote totals matter – the establishment parties pay close attention when a significant number of voters break with the two-party system, and they will often modify their stands on certain issues to protect their base and prevent further defections.
                                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                                  • ewv replied 7 years, 5 months ago
                  • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
                    Tell that to all the voters.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                    • Posted by jabuttrick 7 years, 5 months ago
                      We are trying to. Will you join with us in the effort? This effort will go on beyond this election.
                      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                      • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
                        Maybe next time.
                        Especially if someone like Jeb Bush or Paul Ryan rises to the GOP top.
                        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                        • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                          The Libertarian Party would be just as irrelevant and just as politically futile, as it has been for over 40 years.
                          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                          • Posted by libertylad 7 years, 5 months ago
                            And that is the way you want it to be so that the statist GOP cowards you support retain control, wreak havoc on free markets, and continue to destroy individual rights betraying the people they claim to represent. Your baseless insults to those who you disagree with is not effective or rational argument.

                            Libertarian ideas are the most relevant things in this election. Loyalists held control of the colonies for decades and American revolutionaries were "irrelevant" until enough brave rational people supported their claims for individual liberty in defiance of the statists of that era. Libertarians are irrelevant to you, but brushfires are growing in many young minds that will make the statists you support irrelevant. Every vote for Gary Johnson adds to the fire of liberty.
                            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                          • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
                            LOL! Yeah, more than likely unless there's some huge near-miraculous political upheaval +1..
                            Still, I'll keep my four years from now options open, though.
                            Some charismatic Libertarian super star may soon reveal him or herself.
                            Doubt it.
                            The idea of voting for another Bush really turns my stomach, though.
                            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                            • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                              The idea of voting for Trump turns our stomachs, too, but that isn't what the vote is for.
                              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                              • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
                                At least the flawed Trump isn't a RINO weasel.
                                I agree that voting Trump is not what the vote is for.
                                Toward that end, he happens to be all that's left.
                                I preferred Ted Cruz, though he managed to turn me off shortly after I voted for him in the primary.
                                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                                • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                                  And we have the intellectual vacuity of the Republican establishment to thank that Trump was the only one left, in a sincere but ignorant protest against them. He is the chickens coming home to roost.
                                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                                  • allosaur replied 7 years, 5 months ago
                                  • allosaur replied 7 years, 5 months ago
        • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
          Real-world politics is not likely to change as long as it is dominated by two power-hungry parties. Throwing your vote away to one of those parties helps keep real-world politics where it is now. As for the LP being "ineffectual", Gary Johnson's is polling higher than the margin of difference between Hillary and Trump in 20 states, so his presence in the race could easily determine who wins. How's that for effectual?
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
            Gary Johnson is not going to be president. Nor will he determine the outcome between the two candidates in "20 states". The polls already take into account the fringe candidates. Claiming that a fringe candidate is "effectual" by frantically looking for some measurable effect while evading what the election is for shows the desperation of the fringers' PR stunts to get attention for themselves. It is a distant side show from publicity seekers who do not understand how politics works, what is possible, and what is required over time to change the philosophy of the culture in a way required for a civilized society.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
              If Gary Johnson is so irrelevant, why are Hillary’s people out in force to discredit him? The polls, if you bother to look, show several percentage points difference in the results for the top two candidates when Gary is included in the pollsters’ questions (as he should be). The Libertarian Party is becoming effectual in the same way that the Socialist Party was effectual in the early 20th Century. Much of their platform was adopted into law even though none of their presidential candidates were ever elected.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • -1
                Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                Gary Johnson is irrelevant to any reform of the political system. Telling people not to vote is of course relevant. "Hillary's people" are not telling people to vote for her because "one vote does not determine the outcome of the election".

                The socialists became politically more influential because of the spread of collectivist/altruist/statist ideology, as systematically spread in politics by movements like the Fabians.

                The a-philosophical Libertarian Party wants to bypass philosophy, expecting to become influential simply by being there on the fringe going through the motions of an election and blaming people who treat their votes seriously and ignore the LP. It is not putting its policies into effect by others being elected. It is anti-intellectual, imitative 'cargo cult science' as described in physicist Richard Feynman's famous Caltech 1974 commencement address entitled "Cargo Cult Science".

                http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/...

                "In the South Seas there is a Cargo Cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas­he’s the controller­and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land."
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                  The socialists became politically more influential in part because they were deeply engaged in politics. Most of the people who voted for them (and there were plenty) probably never even heard of the Fabians.

                  Your “cargo cult” example applies more to the Republican and Democrat parties than to the Libertarian Party. Every four years we go through all the formalities of an election, but we’re missing something essential, because nothing really changes regardless of which of the two major party candidates wins.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                    It looks like someone is marking me down because they disagree with my opinion. I won't return the favor.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                    • -1
                      Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                      Your repetitive off-topic posts do not contribute to this thread. The reasons for rejecting your rationalist slogans have been explained many times.
                      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                      • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                        Show me where my posts have been off-topic to the posts of yours that I was responding to.
                        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                        • -1
                          Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                          Everything you post repetitiously promoting the LP is off topic. If you understood the original post in anything but libertarian floating abstractions you would know that. Rejecting off topic, repetitious promotionalism full of fallacious 'talking point' slogans for a fringe party is not an invitation for more of it.
                          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                          • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                            My posts have directly responded to individual posts of yours on this thread, not to your original post. And my posts have been on topic to the posts of yours that I responded to. Presumably anything you post on your own thread is not “off topic”.
                            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • -1
                    Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                    The Socialists became influential because they were intellectually engaged in philosophy and politics, not just because they happened to be politically active. The Fabians were an English organization known for their intellectual influence permeating the leadership of society. They had an intellectual collectivist/statist/altruist base to build on and exploit in a way that we don't. Their activity in the US was through surrogates, including in the Roosevelt administration. Spreading ideas that become popularly accepted means that those absorbing them don't have to know the names of the activists.

                    To compare that with the anti-intellectual Libertarian Party and its isolated election year antics is a joke.

                    You can expect the current system to become worse, not because of "two parties" but because of the intellectual forces driving both of them. Copying them in election formalities and expecting anything different than fringe status in opposition to the status quo is indeed cargo cult science.

                    To understand the history of what the Fabians and their surrogates did intellectually and politically, based on a pre-existing intellectual basis in the culture, see

                    Martin, Fabian Freeway
                    Dobbs, Keynes at Harvard
                    Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism (written by one of its long-time leaders)
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                    • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                      The socialists were both intellectually and politically active. So are today's libertarians, and they are gaining public awareness in both arenas. The LP presidential ticket has been endorsed by six major newspapers. "Libertarian Party" returns nearly as many Google hits as the Cato Institute. We reach voters that wouldn't otherwise hear of us if our efforts were confined to the "educational" sphere. And with Gary Johnson polling between 5 and 10 percent, the "fringe" is beginning to eat its way into the mainstream. That's reality.
                      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                      • -2
                        Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                        The Libertarian Party is profoundly anti-intellectual. It has for 40 years ignored the requirements for a philosophy and sense of life as the basis for a free society of rational individualism. It remains a fringe party that has gotten nowhere. It is the same attempt to use an election for a publicity stunt that it always was and which Ayn Rand denounced decades ago. To get attention for itself the so-called "party of principle" is now running a couple of has-been Republican welfare statists pandering to potheads for establishment name recognition, claiming 'clicks' as success. The repetitive, promotional sloganeering for publicity hijacking this thread only confirms again the anti-intellectual, anti-philosophical mentality. It does not belong here. Please stop it.
                        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                        • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                          The Libertarian Party is a political party, not a philosophical forum. It exists to promote political positions on issues of the day, not a “sense of life” or an epistemological viewpoint. Like any political party, it will consist of persons who differ from each other regarding other aspects of philosophy. And how “anti-intellectual” is the Libertarian Party, compared to the Republicans and Democrats?

                          As for the issue of “hijacking”, I have not initiated any conversations about the Libertarian Party. If you attack the Libertarian Party in your own thread, it is reasonable to expect that others are going to defend it.
                          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      There isn't going to be a "Libertarian Congress". That is an irrelevant diversion from what we are facing right now.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
        Its the same thing we have faced for every election in the past 30 years. Every time the GOP makes promises, issues propaganda to frighten voters into voting for the GOP because only then will it prevent the dems from destroying everything.
        Then the GOP betrays the voters and joins with the Dems in the destruction they promised to stop.
        Keep on wasting your votes on the GOP and you get more intrusive government every time.
        It is entirely relevant.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
          The Libertarian Party has gone nowhere in the last more than 40 years because people don't want it, not because of election conspiracy. The LP is not going to win the election. The choice is between Trump and Clinton. One of them is going to be in power. Please stop creating a distraction on this forum promoting the LP as if it were relevant to the election and telling people that voting in the election is a waste, as if it makes no difference who wins. The repetitive, distracting drumbeat is annoying.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
            You are really annoyed because you don't like choosing Trump against your principles.

            Be annoyed. Be very annoyed.
            What should annoy you is the results of otherwise rational people pretending that fear of one unethical candidate is a reason to vote for another flawed, unethical candidate.
            What should annoy you is otherwise rational people ignoring the destruction of liberty due to over 30 years of voting for one bad statist candidate in fear of another bad statist candidate.
            Want four more years of unconstitutional statist expansion of government power and reduction of our individual liberty? Then vote in fear for Hillary or Trump.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
              Yeah, don't vote in fear of newly appointed Supreme Court judges who can';t wait to tear apart the Constitution.
              Me dino is also scared of rattlesnakes and drunk drivers. Fear is a survival mechanism.
              Ask any retired corrections officer (who is honest). Oh, yeah. Here I am.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
                Reality gives better reasons to avoid both Trump and Hitlery. Ignore reality like you tried to ignore the asteroid, dino.
                Trump will give you the supreme court that lets Trump have the greatest power.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
                  Me dino don't think so.
                  I believe the flawed foot in mouth fathead actually loves this country.
                  He promised to appoint conservative justices and that's what he will do. Trump ain't no tricky Dicky or Slick Willie.
                  I'm not gonna own in any way, shape or form a facist Presidente Clintonista carrying on with the vile destructive work of a radical libtard Obamanation.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • Posted by $ Suzanne43 7 years, 5 months ago
                    Yes,he is flawed, but the Hilldebeast will appoint more liberal judges to the Supreme Court. She is open to blackmail and has sold us out to every dictator that has contributed to her foundation. Besides that she hates, make that loathes, people like us who are in The Gulch.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 7 years, 5 months ago
                  Reality indicates that the only way to avoid both Trump and Hillary is to leave the country. Barring death, one of them will be the next President.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
                    Well stated, but a unacceptable reason to vote for either of them.
                    Death of both. The best thing to happen to Americans in decades.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                      Someone is going to vote. Not voting doesn't stop that. One of them is going to be in power. The "acceptable reason" to vote is to add to those opposing the one who is worse here in reality. The voting is not a sanction, it determines which one of the two of them will in power.
                      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                      • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
                        Didn't say not to vote, just said that WS comment was not a reason to vote for either Trump or Hillary. Neither of them is worthy to serve as president. There is a better third choice, Gary Johnson.
                        Your "acceptable" reason is unacceptable and irrational because it has been done repeatedly for 30 years and has failed. Electing another statist will just add to the statists power. Voting for either statist against your principles and given that doing so has failed repeatedly is irrational. The statists continue in power because people do not vote on principles and vote in fear. Then they refuse to take responsibility for the results of their irrational choices.
                        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                        • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                          Please stop misrepresenting people and stop hijacking the thread with repetitive, annoying slogans ignoring everything that is said to you. A system of freedom replacing statism is not on the ballot and not a choice in the election. That is not what the election or this discussion is about. Trump or Clinton will be president as a result of the election. Has-been "liberal" Republicans in the name of the Libertarian Party would not know what to do and could not change the course of this country even if they were elected. Your flawed fringe candidate and anti-intellectual fringe party are irrelevant to the election and to the topic of discussion.
                          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                    Barring whose death? But leaving the country (alive) still wouldn't avoid the impact of what the US does. Under one of them that will be worse than the other.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • -1
              Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
              My choice is not against my principles. The context we are stuck in is against my principles. That does not change the existence of choice where it can make a difference. My principles say not to abandon reality.

              The sales pitch on behalf of the a-philosophical Libertarian Party telling us not to vote is not going to change the system we are in or the fact that one of Trump or Clinton will be power and that which one makes a difference to our lives and our future. Voting to make a difference is not an endorsement of the political system and is not "wanting four more years of unconstitutional statist expansion". "Voting" for the Libertarian Party fantasy will not stop it, and if Clinton wins it will become much worse faster. The rampant subjectivism of the Libertarian Party idolatry that hijacked this thread with its repetitive banging its spoon on the highchair while denouncing everyone else is astounding.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by $ puzzlelady 7 years, 5 months ago
                I am astounded, ewv, by your skill at weaving derogatory modifiers and insulting innuendoes into your replies. This is the first -1 I have given out in all my years in the Gulch. You have all the talents of a fine propaganda minister. Ironically, in other contexts I have frequently marked you up for excellent presentations.

                Your declaring the Libertarian Party irrelevant does not make it so. History is a record of the evolution of ideas, born in the crucible of pro and con, survival by selection. We are observing that process now.

                Those of us wanting to preserve individual freedom (individual rights, a foremost Randian value) must respectfully disagree with your pragmatic arguments favoring Trump. Perhaps you like that he is so blatantly selfish and proud of it, versus the Clinton campaign still seeming to cater to the altruistic trappings of collective selfishness. Neither of those will "grouse" about limiting mining rights (we're still on topic here).

                The Libertarians are, in fact, the only party with a coherent philosophy, respecting property rights, individual freedom and an end to wars of aggression. The RepDems are approaching the totalitarian power grab of an Orwellian nightmare, curtailing individual liberty, privacy and free thought, fostering ever more enemies, and militarizing towards another world war.

                I note people in this thread marking up and down with great alacrity. Now that is voting on principle, isn't it? Or are we driven more by emotions, whether idealistic, pragmatic, moralistic, realistic or manipulated? You may remember Rand's observation that the idealistic is the practical.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • -2
                  Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                  Your personal smears are disgusting. The refutations of the repetitive sophistry on behalf of demands for support of the Libertarian Party, all of which you have ignored, are not "propaganda" and I am not a "propaganda minister" for explaining why the hijacking of this thread is wrong and inappropriate.

                  Voting in the election to make a difference where it matters instead of following a hopeless fringe, anti-intellectual publicity stunt is not "pragmatism". Ayn Rand was not a "pragmatist" when she urged a policy of "anti-Nixonites for Nixon" to stop McGovern while objecting to Nixon, and she was not a "pragmatist" when she rejected the Libertarian Party on principle even when deciding not to vote for one of the real candidates. You don't seem to know what the philosophy of Pragmatism is or why Ayn Rand denounced the Libertarian Party, which she explained many times. Her ethics were concerned with living in reality, not Pragmatism, and not hopeless fantasizing -- with or without the pandering to pot heads and ignorance of foreign affairs -- in the name of "idealism" without regard to means to ends.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
                It appears that making the same mistake repeatedly is your addiction, ewv. I have not told anyone that they should not vote. Your argument based on that false premise is irrelevant.
                Again you propose actions that have failed in the past and you refuse to learn from that history. You also refuse to take responsibility for those mistakes and their effects. The rest of your commentary is baseless, insulting, beneath you, and undeserving of reply.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                  Giving up votes for the fringe Libertarian Party publicity stunt instead of voting in the real election for who will be president means not voting. The Libertarian Party proselytizers are repetitively demanding such non-voting in the false name of "principle" while denouncing those who vote in the election for what it is.

                  Voting for a candidate where it makes a difference within a limited choice where that is all that is possible is not a "failure to learn from history". Anyone who has learned anything from history knows that Hilary Clinton would be devastating for our lives. Throwing away votes for a fringe party publicity stunt does not change what the elections are, have been, and will continue to be in the foreseeable future.

                  We did not make them that way and you will not change it. Libertarian Party fantasy does not change what the election is in fact about or the fact that the limited choice is imposed on us, not our "responsibility" for not following you. Your accusations of "refusal to take responsibility" for not going along with you are offensive. It is false sophistry and morally reprehensible. Stop smearing people in moral intimidation to manipulate us into giving up our votes for your attention seeking.

                  If I did not already know the history of the Libertarian Policy, the repetitive nonsensical sophistry, slogans and offensive accusations trying to manipulate people through hijacking this thread, while evading all objections, would be more than enough by itself to not want anything to do with it. But I do know what the Libertarian Party is and will not sanction it, let alone sacrifice to it. It does not represent Ayn Rand, as she explained extensively, it does not represent me, and it is not relevant to this thread.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by Ed75 7 years, 5 months ago
            It is clearly time to invoke the 10th amendment of the Constitution. Each state needs to stand up and be counted since the Congress is useless, and national elections do not have much affect on the party in DC. The ownership of the land belongs with the states. The government has no deed, they just took it.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
            now "who continues to force their "disagreement" down your throat while demanding that you agree to shut up and not protest it?"
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • -1
              Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
              No one is forcing disagreement down your throat. Your hijacking of this thread with irrelevant sophistry promoting the Libertarian Party is inappropriate and wrong.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
                It appears that you have some history with the Libertarian Party that you haven't shared, ewv. I'm not asking that you share it, but something other than what I wrote is causing you to react in this way, and it doesn't appear to be the current libertarian party or Gary Johnson. I see the libertarian candidate as the best chance for a solution to the original problem posted. Yes, his election is very unlikely, but that does not make it fringe or irrelevant.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 5 months ago
    I have been at ground zero with this issue for the last two years. Myself and a partner had control of very prospective mining claims on public and private lands along the Nevada/Idaho border where there had been historic gold and silver production from 1918 - 1932.

    The mineral withdrawal with the sage grouse non-listing took our project. They issued the segregation of the public lands from the 1872 Mining Law on September 23, 2015. They had not even started the mineral inventory. The adjacent private patented mining claims are now worthless. Part of the plan.

    My little company is co-plaintiff with a couple of other private entities, nine Nevada Counties and the AG Laxalt of Nevada against the Department of the Interior, FWS, and USFS. Court testimony was provided last November (now almost a year ago), the initial request for immediate injunction was denied with an amazing display of pretzel logic. The Judge is a Harry Reid nominated, Obama appointed political hack named Miranda Du. She asked for evidence of immediate and irreparable harm. She got it from the private companies. We are dead in the water with a serious cloud on being able to raise capital for the projects. In our case we lost the ability continue the option on the mining claims. But evidence and logic is not enough to these out of control political power hungry agenda driven hacks.

    We expect the decision in December, post election of course.

    But hidden in this process is an entirely egregious re-write of the mineral examination process. Historically, when mineral examinations for what is called Valid Existing Rights are begun it is upon lands that are undergoing mineral withdrawal for a valid public purpose, i.e. Congressionally passed purposes such as military bombing ranges, dam flooded sites, and even wilderness areas.

    Congressionally passed - not just declared by the exec department bureaucrats. And for a non-listing at that.

    To survive a Mineral Examination for Valid Existing Rights, they now are saying that you must have an economically proven deposit in the ground at the time and at the balance of costs and gold prices of the day of segregation. A resource in the ground is not good. Should the gold price go up enough next year to make it economic? Should new process technology change the economics? Sorry, you are screwed and your investment of drilling, and developing the resource is lost. The mining claims are condemned and declared invalid.

    Moreover, what they are also now stipulating and turning into precedent is that the Mineral Examination for Valid Existing Rights can now be done anywhere, at anytime, and for any reason. This language is already creeping into the Plans of Operations required by the Agencies for "permission" of active mines and projects being permitted that are even outside of the ten million mineral withdrawal acres that ewv mentions in this post. Excellent post.

    The whackos have been after the 1872 Mining Law for decades. It is the last vestige of non-discretionary rights the agencies must recognize on the public lands. That irks them to no end and all the stops are being pulled out now to turn it all into a lease system. The Mining Law was passed with the objective of being able to domestically produce needed materials for national security. Imagine that. By mechanisms of privatization. The right to explore and the right to access your claims was recognized. Since 1872, they have slowly chipped away at the law, first by removing some commodities out from the Law, and then in 1992 a major castration took place. Before then, the law required that you demonstrate you expended $100 per claim in improvements. They changed that to an extortion payment straight to the government instead. So, investment and development dollars, instead of going into the ground just goes to government coffers. At the same time they put a moratorium in place on the patenting process that provided simple fee title as private land to claims that could demonstrate significant mineral value.

    Progressive socialism at its ugliest.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      In addition to killing the mining claims on unowned Federal land, how did they destroy the value of the private property planned for mining? Blocking access? Devaluing by isolating it from the necessary economic scale? Direct intervention by land use prohibition?

      These problems with mixed ownership patterns between private property and private claims on Federal land are common in the west and show up repeatedly with ranching on the range.

      The original claims to private property in the 19th century west were too limited in size to be economically feasible on the dry lands in the west, leaving a patchwork of private land with grazing leases on adjoining Federal land where private property was later prohibited outright by the progressives, even though there are remnants of grazing and water rights without owning the land outright.

      The viros are destroying what is left by harassing the ranchers -- the American Cowboy they are out to destroy -- through "fees", denial of access, permit cancellations, abusive direct harassment through legal persecution and threats as illustrated by the Hage and more recent Hammond cases, direct prohibitions invoking "protection" of non-human "species", etc. Viros activists in their pressure group lobby, their activist legal sharks, and entrenched activist agency officials are throwing everything they can at the ranchers to destroy them, yet it is rarely discussed in public or reported.

      It blew up with the Bundy revolt but even that is exploited by the viro progressives to demonize the victims by tying everyone opposed to them to the Bundy threat of violence when they snapped under the ceaseless pressure.

      The Republican House Resources Committee under Bob Bishop understands this. So does the Clinton mafia on the other side. Most of the public, including those claiming to be activists for freedom, knows nothing about it.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 5 months ago
        Thanks for the extensive replies. You are clearly versed in the western public land issues.

        In our specific case, the value of the patented claims is impacted both by the scale effect you mentioned - high grade gold bearing veins strike off of the old patenteds in both directions on to public land and we had control of both the patented and unpatended claims to prove up sufficient resource to justify capital expenditures. However, the unpatenteds were taken by the mineral withdrawal. Now technically they say we could proceed with our approved Plan of Operations, but any data acquired by drilling after the segregation date is not admissible. Who the hell is going to invest millions in drilling if you can't use the data? With investors fleeing away as fast as they could, we lost our financing to keep leases on the properties and so we lost control of the claims. And all time and money invested to date is lost. And the Judge says there was no immediate and irreparable harm. Department of Justice, my ass.

        That part of the Sage Grouse LUPA's called "Travel Management" is shutting down the numerous roads that provide that very right of access to mining claims, patented or not. They are redefining existing roads as those maintained by motorized equipment only. Two track roads that have a plant covered median are not roads and will not be allowed to travel upon or improved by motorized equipment.

        Years ago, during Son of Sage in the 1990's, I met Cliven Bundy several times. He is a good man, perhaps not slickly articulate, but is proud and independent. I remember him sitting in the shade of a pinion tree after the events of Jefferson Canyon were winding down, and he was loudly proclaiming "But, we are producers!"

        Ah, how fundamental it all is.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
          Are you working with the Pacific Legal Foundation against the attack on mining? Have you contacted Bishop's committee staff with the details of your case?
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 5 months ago
            Our County Commission Chairman has been involved directly with Bob Bishop on these matters. Including the details of our case. Because of what they did in our case is so important, it has been carried to the highest levels.

            I generated the maps in ArcGIS from their own downloadable data showing how they arbitrarily changed the maps from the Draft EIS stage to the Final EIS stage. They changed the habitat outlines from non-habitat all the way to priority habitat and then within SFA (Sagegrouse Focal Area) eligible for mineral withdrawal. After the public comment period was closed. Most illegal. And deliberately to take our project.

            I initially made these presentations to the Elko County Commission that clinched their involvement in the lawsuit, and then ultimately based upon the power of these maps generated from their own data, persuaded Davis, Graham, and Stubbs to carry us pro bono. Our evidence and story was just too good. There was no way we could afford the lawyer fees. But our evidence, generated through my map work in ArcGIS from government data was irrefutable and damning as to how illegal the government agencies have acted with this issue.

            But, the DOJ just rules what they want against all logic and evidence towards the result they want.

            Right now, how familiar is that?
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 5 months ago
            Yes, there are large connections through the lawsuit with the various interests involved here. The primary firm is Davis, Graham, and Stubbs, who are working closely with Adam Laxalt, Nevada AG, and with AEMA, (American Exploration and Mining Association, formerly Northwest Miners Association), and the Rocky Mt Legal Foundation - William Perry Pendley, etc.

            The Elko County Commission has been heavily tuned into these matters, through NACO, (Nevada Association of Counties), through Governor's Association's, through Washington, D.C. connections......ad naseum.

            I know the Elko County Commissioners rather well. I toured them up through our project area personally. Some really good people, but they are up against larger enveloping forces than even they realize.

            It is all too sad, because these guys are the highest elected officials in our jurisdiction. And they just don't know or realize, or have the kahoney's to exercise their true jurisdictional powers.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      The 1872 mining law is the last remnant of the policy of the Homestead Act for use and settlement of unowned land claimed as private property. The progressives got rid of most of it over a hundred years ago.

      As Flootus5 knows, the anti-private property viro pressure group lobby has tried many times over decades to repeal the mining law allowing private mining claims but failed. That is why they are using the agency 'rule-making' process in conjunction with "endangered species" and other tools of misanthropic tools of nihilism entrenched and growing like a cancer inside government to rewrite the law themselves.

      They can do it because they were appointed by Obama to run the Interior Department, where under mostly Democrat administrations, rule-making in the Code of Federal Regulations (now more properly called the CFP --Code of Federal Pens) has taken over legislative authority from Congress.

      This is one example of why it is so important to keep Clinton out of the White House. Republicans will not abolish the Interior Dept or re-instate private settlement of Federal land or significantly reverse the "rule-making" legislative system, but they do hold back the radical progressive agenda to wipe out what is left of private property and to destroy industry for their eco-fascist utopia.

      Flootus5 knows more than anyone else here what this means -- and exactly how and why -- for the survival of specific people personally targeted and the consequences for all of us in an industrial economy and for national security.

      It is an example of how the election and stopping Clinton and the Democrats is so important even while we have for months denounced Trump as well as Clinton for good reason. There are degrees of statism, such as the difference between a Pragmatist businessman with 1960s implicit 'liberal' premises versus a thoroughly corrupt and dedicated ideological neo-Marxist tyrant. The difference is a matter of survival.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 5 months ago
    This is an ugly situation, EWV. Congress needs to act to limit the powers of the executive branch, the way they were intended. Defund the DOI. That would help. Write a budget that requires the privatization and reduced funding of several offices to access the funding.
    Others?
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      There are many specific policies that Congress can either not authorize or de-authorize. Sometime it does when people pay attention, usually by the extraordinary efforts of a small number of people, more often than not Republicans. These are policies that can be affected and changed, making a significant difference, even within the current statist mess.

      But Congress will not defund the entire Interior Department, and the overall downward trend will continue without longer term change in the philosophy driving all of it. Clinton means much worse much faster, but Trump is not a solution, only providing the possibility of affecting specific policy for those who want to continue living here in reality, buying more time.

      The agenda of the Interior Dept. and EPA is being run by the viro pressure group lobby, which is getting away with murder because most people don't know what it is doing and what it is after. When Democrats control the Executive branch they appoint the worst of them to run the government, as they are now.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
      Sounds like the Gary Johnson platform.
      It certainly won't happen unless the Dems and the cowardly GOP congress are led by the nose to the rational policy.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 5 months ago
        This is where I get confused in the gulch. So many comments throwing Johnson under the bus, but I don't see a better alternative. Reduce government and watch the country grow. One decent set of examples, and the party will inflate.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
          Fear is a powerful motivator that the Dems and GOP masterfully use in propaganda to maintain power in spite of the obvious betrayals that the GOP and Dems have been guilty of for the past 30 years. Getting people to overcome their fears and to think rationally is a big challenge. Very few are willing to acknowledge past mistakes, take responsibility, recognize manipulative propaganda, and analyze the facts hidden behind the propaganda. Everyone is affected and few want to take any risks that might change their convenient, comfortable way of life. But the past 30 years make it clear that the same actions will result in continuing decline in liberty and destruction of the free market that makes all the comfort and convenience possible. Damned if I know how to get people to think.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • -1
          Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
          Johnson is not an alternative. Trump or Clinton will be president, and the Senate and House will probably become worse. The election is for which of the two major candidates will take power and nothing will change that. Vote for what makes a difference and don't confuse that with what else should be and what it takes to make it so over time.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
            So sacrifice your principles, vote for evil, and blame someone else when it goes wrong again just as it hass for 30 years. It wasn't your fault that you didn't listen to all the warnings and did the same thing that has failed for 30 years. You can't be blamed. Great objectivist thinking.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • -2
              Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
              None of us is "voting for evil" and neither will this election determine anything but whether Trump or Clinton is president. It makes a difference which one. Throwing away votes on the Libertarian Pary will not make any difference to "things going wrong". Your strident "warnings" are nonsense: The Libertarian Party as a fringe on the ballot is irrelevant. Stop ignoring everything that is said to you and stop hijacking this thread. You are not contributing to the discussion.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • -1
        Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
        Gary Johnson is irrelevant to this discussion. Talking, even in a non-hijacked thread, about Johnson "leading Congress by the nose" is nonsensical. The election is not about him, nor does he know what to do to influence Congress into a complete reversal, let alone "by the nose", nor could anyone do that. "Libertarians" know nothing about what it takes to fundamentally change the course of this country or how impact specific policies where it can done now.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
          If you actually care about individual liberty you can't rationally repeat the same mistake that has failed for 30 years. Supporting the GOP is a losing battle against statist control because you are allied with your enemy. You claim your support is based on defending liberty by slowing the enemy, but this tactic has always failed. Has the Libertarian Party been ineffective? Yes. The statist DemRep party has passed laws that prevent effective competition by any third party. Continuing to support the statists makes third parties ineffective by law. If you truly want to support individual liberty and free markets you must stop supporting the enemies of individual liberty and free markets. The defensive battle you have been fighting has failed. Support of libertarian candidates like Gary Johnson is one way to go on the offensive instead of continuing a losing battle of attrition that can not succeed. Local and state resistance to federal intrusion is another battle that should also be fought against leviathan (i.e., relevant to the original post topic.).
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • -2
            Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
            The strategy for reversing the downward trend of the country is spreading better philosophical ideas which determines how people vote for what policies, not "supporting enemies". Ayn Rand wrote extensively about this. Voting where it is possible to make a difference for our lives is not a sanction and not an "alliance with your enemy". Stop misrepresenting those who reject you. Ayn Rand also explained extensively why she rejected the Libertarian Party. It's "offensive" in politics has failed for 40 years, as predicted. Stop blaming it on a conspiracy against you and those who refuse to support you. The anti-intellectual Libertarian Party is a fringe operation with no idea what it takes to affect the course of a nation. Sacrificing ourselves to it in the name of "idealism" is destructive.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago
              Please share your reason for rejecting the current Libertarian party and candidates in favor of those who have repeatedly betrayed their constituents. Name calling doesn't make your argument. Calling up Rand from 30+ years ago doesn't either since she didn't know about the current situation.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 5 months ago
    One more step in the destruction of America as a 1st world country. Soon, a country dependent upon and subservient to others.
    How Obama goes down in the history books will be dependent on who writes the history. So far, it doesn't look good.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
    We've butted heads in the past, ewv, but so far everything I've read that you wrote on this post is dead on with a +1 all around.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
      Anything now a 1 used to be a 2.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
        Just fixed a couple of 0's after looking back from watching Alabama beat Tennessee 49-10. Roll Tide!
        Never thought I'd chase bandits off ewv's 6 o'clock but here I am.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
          A handful of Libertarian Party publicity seekers have hijacked the thread with multiple off-topic self promotion sophistry, burying the serious discussion https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... on an important topic. They trash rejection of their antics with repetitively annoying, non-responsive and evasive 'sound-bite' sloganeering and 'downvoting'. It illustrates the anti-intellectual, a-philosophical mentality of the Libertarian Party that Ayn Rand denounced for good reason. They are well known for not operating in the real world of politics and having no effect on policy. They expect people like Flootus5 who are directly threatened, as explained in his post, to sacrifice themselves for the LP frivolous fringe publicity spree.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
            Speaking just for myself, I have not downvoted anyone on this thread, even though I have been downvoted several times. And I did not initiate any “hijacking”. Every post of mine but one was in response to a post of yours and was on topic to that post, and the remaining post was a response to a post by another member and was on topic to that post.

            And I do not expect anyone to sacrifice themselves for anything, nor have I seen anyone else on this thread say that they expect anyone to do so.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
              Just looked around and someone (not me) is down voting libertarian campaigners
              A stealth fighter shares this sky!.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                The moderators should 'hide' the entire off topic branches promoting the Libertarian Party as irrelevant to the thread. It should be 'downvoted' for what it is, in addition to the refutations that the LP trolls evade.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
                  "LP trolls." That's funny.
                  There have been times when the moderators have been cool with me so I'll just be cool with them.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                    I wish it were funny. They have become annoying pests disrupting and polluting the thread with Cargo Cult politics imitating the major parties' throwing out anti-intellectual repetitive sound-bites dreamed up in advance as rationalizations. Ayn Rand denounced the Libertarians for good reason and they have lived up (down) to it.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                    • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 5 months ago
                      I was only laughing at LP promoters in the Gulch being called trolls.
                      They may take offense at me finding that tag funny but it is the unexpected that creates humor albeit intentional or not.
                      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                      • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                        Yes that was clear. You should know that the Libertarian Party has been at odds with Ayn Rand and her ideas for a very long time. It's also at odds with and irrelevant to anyone working to make a difference in politics and affecting government policy. The Libertarian Party slogans here claiming that the solution to the attacks on mining and the Federal lands controversy in particular is to vote for their fringe party is nonsensical.
                        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
              The entire Libertarian Party publicity here is irrelevant to the thread that you are hijacking. You do not respond to my posts refuting your rationalizations. You ignore most of it with repetitious sophistry.

              Throwing away a vote to the LP publicity seeking instead of voting in the election between Trump and Clinton is a sacrifice to LP fantasy.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
                Your second paragraph is off topic by your own standard. Either you're inviting a response to that second paragraph or you're not. If so, can you complain if the response is equally "off topic"? If not, why are you posting on a subject you yourself claim is "off-topic"?
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                  No one is inviting your repetitive off topic promotionalism. Supporting voting for the Libertarian Party as a supposed means to fight the abuse of the Federal land agencies is at best a cruel hoax, exploiting other people's suffering in a scam for a publicity stunt. The Libertarian Party is a fringe organization that has not and will not have any affect on the Federal lands management problems. Not only will not win the election, it has no record of any impact on policy and doesn't even have a position on the Federal lands problems, seemingly ignorant of the whole issue. It even waffles on the "conservation groups" responsible for it.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by fyerrick 7 years, 5 months ago
    Our Founding Fathers gave us a Constitutional Republic with the requirement to maintain her. It takes "Enlightened Citizens" to maintain our Republic. Please join us at conventionofstates.com as we Self-educate and then Stand up, Show up, and Speak up for "We the People. We thank you.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by RWeitman 7 years, 5 months ago
    Our rich heritage of developing natural resources includes mineral development. Allowing our lands to be mined can be done responsibly. A federal moratorium is repugnant to liberty. End federal overreach.

    Restoring liberty is accomplished by restoring our Constitution! Join other patriots to restore constitutional limits on the federal government by going to http://www.conventionofstates.com to view how.

    Join us by signing the petition at http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter_i...
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by ScaryBlackRifle 7 years, 5 months ago
      The Constitution has a built-in mechanism for revision and correction. I think it unwise to revise it wholesale when the current difficulties will submit to a piecemeal approach.

      When you go to a Constitutional Convention, you start, quite literally, with a clean sheet of paper ... and a lot more trust in the the good intentions of men than I think is warranted.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
        This isn't the place to debate the off-topic subject -- nothing in the 'convention of states' agenda addresses Federal control over Federal lands or land use controls in particular -- but the 'convention of states' movement is attempting an alternate process under the Constitution for amending the Constitution without initiation of Congress, not starting over. This isn't the place to discuss the feasibility of that or how it could work any better than any other political process in a country dominated by Progressive, Pragmatist philosophy based on collectivism and statism.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by ScaryBlackRifle 7 years, 5 months ago
    I'm new here, so perhaps you'll be willing to excuse my impertinence? I have some questions that weren't obvious from the material above.
    1) how do we know that the state plans work?
    2) how do we know that the federal plan will not work?
    3) how can we possibly know which would work better?
    4) since when did the various governments get this much control over land use?
    5) with hundreds of species becoming extinct each day, who made the decision to put the welfare of the sage grouse over that of humans?
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      I'm new here, so perhaps you'll be willing to excuse my impertinence? I have some questions that weren't obvious from the material above.

      1) how do we know that the state plans work?

      The claim is that it already has worked or is working, if the survival and health of the sage grouse population is the standard. The Interior Dept had previously agreed to allow the state approach, which arose in opposition to and as an alternative to a threatened controversial Endangered Species Listing under far more draconian Federal controls. The Interior Dept has reneged on the agreement and is imposing Federal control in an ad hoc manner, not calling it an Endangered Species Listing. The states are objecting to the power grab without regard to the effectiveness of the state plan and the previous agreement.

      2) how do we know that the federal plan will not work?

      It depends on the criterion for "works". It probably would preserve the species, at the expense of sacrificing people more. Since both are the criteria and goal of the viro movement, it would "work". Whether the particular species population expands isn't relevant since they are primarily after preserving the entire "ecosystem" "protected" from humans.

      3) how can we possibly know which would work better?

      Under the viro goals the Federal plan "works better" because it is more restrictive on people, i.e., misanthropic nihilism is easier to achieve with more draconian controls from the Interior Dept. For an example of how this premise destroys people see the post by forum member Flootus5 on this same page https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

      The state plan trying to at least partially protect people is a result of the combination of pandering to the viro premises and a very real limit on options under the imposition of raw Federal power and the political lobbying and voting power of viro activists within the state as the states are held hostage to Federal control.

      4) since when did the various governments get this much control over land use?

      The Federal Endangered Species Act passed Congress in 1966 under pressure from the early viro movement in the US, then called the "ecology movement". For a description of the political process by one of its supporters see Roderick Nash, The Rights of Nature. For an analysis of the 'ecology movement' in the early 1970s see Ayn Rand Return of the Primitive. For a comprehensive summary of the power and goals of the viro movement and its organizations see Ron Arnold's Trashing the Economy.

      5) with hundreds of species becoming extinct each day, who made the decision to put the welfare of the sage grouse over that of humans?

      They are political decisions made nominally in the US Fish & Wildlife Service under the political appointees of the president and lobbying and activism by the viro pressure groups, including both outside lobbyists and activists entrenched inside the government as protected civil servants. The presidential political appointments are selected from the viro activists. The decisions are made and token species selected to maximize sweeping 'habitat' controls despite political resistance. This is called "science". The damage varies over time depending on who is in the White House. The problem has been much worse under Obama and Clinton-Gore and would accelerate under Hillary. Under Bush-II political appointees Gale Norton and libertarian Lynn Scarlett, the programs expanded in the form of 'free market environmentalism' subsequently becoming the basis of the alternate 'habitat' plans such as this one.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by roseys4 7 years, 5 months ago
    Regardless of your opinion, this is another reminder that non-elected officials and Federal agencies can determine the laws under which millions of state residents live. One by one our rights are being taken away by executive order, administrative acts & judicial overreach. The States created the Federal government and its now time to take the power back. Its time for an Article V Convention… it may be a long shot, but it also is our only shot to peaceably & constitutionally restore our Constitution.
    And you wonder WHY we need a Convention of States? Government just became the largest employer in our country surpassing manufacturing for the first time in our history; The Department of Education holds our states hostage withholding funds (that we paid) for not mandating Genderfree bathrooms; The Presidents wife demands certain cerals be removed from the marketplace. Its TIME folks...If not US then who?... If not NOW, then when?...Wait for the Tyrannical Federal Government to devour the Civil Society or join us. Visit here to learn more, sign the petition, and volunteer: http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter_i...
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ puzzlelady 7 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    With all due respect, Libertarian discussions here are not off-topic. Only the Libertarians will support mining rights and the appointment of Secretaries who support Constitutional property rights. As for "one vote" not counting, all those "one-votes" do add up. Voting for "lesser evils" is the essence of pragmatism.

    It is interesting to observe that the Libertarian Party as denounced by Ayn Rand 40 years ago has not only grown and absorbed many of the Objectivist philosophical principles but is the only seedbed closest to those principles. Short of launching an Objectivist Party, work with the party that is its one philosophical principled ally. Supporting Trump's Fuhrer persona as the antithesis of Hillary's socialism is immoral, to say the least.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      You don't know what Pragmatism is. Voting in self defense where it makes a difference is not "pragmatism" and not "immoral". Throwing away votes to a fringe party with no clue as to what it takes to change the course of the nation is not "Objectivist principles". The Libertarian Party has not "grown" with "Objectivist philosophical principles" and has not become compatible with Ayn Rand. Promoting Libertarian Party election publicity certainly is off topic to this thread.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ puzzlelady 7 years, 5 months ago
        So your view is that the ends justify the means? Yes, I am voting in self-defense against continuous wars and erosion of individual rights. How do YOU propose to change the course of the nation?
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Rounds21 7 years, 5 months ago
    Abuse of power is a threat to Liberty! Reigning in the power of the federal government starts now! This is an abuse of the very fabric of our Constitution. Stand up and fight!
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 5 months ago
    This sounds like a really great reason for the States to take back their land from management by the Feds. Tell them they can take the sage grouse with them - back to DC.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      With the Federal government having assumed so much power that was never authorized, the states can't just "take it back". But they can create an open, public conflict to put pressure on Federal politicians worried about votes and bureaucrats worried about funding. One reason that is hard to do is that so many viro progressives politically dominate within the states. They have to be exposed and taken on, too. There is more to it than telling "states" to act outside the context of everything else.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 5 months ago
        "There is more to it than telling "states" to act outside the context of everything else."

        I'm not really sure I agree with that. I think that getting bogged down in the "context" of the situation is exactly how we've gotten to the point we have - by ignoring principle. That's a Progressive's favorite play - to excuse their lack of adherence to law and principle through the language of justification. The principles in play here are specifically outlined in the Constitution in the 9th and 10th amendments granting express control over everything not specifically set aside for the Federal Government to the States AND the section of the Constitution (totally ignored) which specifically forbids the Federal Government from holding land.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
          The power of the Federal government and the politics and ideology driving it are reality, not mere "language". So are the politics and ideology within the states. Addressing it requires understanding how we got where we are and what is causing it. Appeals to the states 'taking back' authority without regard to means and ideological causes do not address either the specific problems or the general situation.

          It's not as useless as slogans trying to sell the fringe Libertarian Party as the solution to all our problems because the states can and should act in some ways still possible politically, if and when anyone can get past the viros and progressives entrenched within the states

          We are well within a post constitutional era in which the 9th and 10th amendments were gone long ago. Who would enforce them, outside a futile state attempt at armed conflict with the Federal government? The states are not simply going to "take back" Federal lands and there would be little popular support for even the goal, let alone a civil war.

          Rhetorical appeals to "the Constitution" and the authority of the "states" fall on deaf ears for those who have, or who have been taught to sympathize with, the prevailing collectivist-statist mentality, which is much deeper than appeals to historic documents increasingly viewed as irrelevant.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 5 months ago
            (Just a quick note, but for once it isn't me downvoting you.)

            Political reality is what we make of it, is it not? How many political changes started with a group of individuals taking a stand and then having others go in with them? The Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't care what the political "reality" of the day was - he stood on principle and demanded change. I believe the same thing could happen in the States - if they had the will to. Does that will exist? It doesn't at a government-leadership level, I agree. But King wasn't a bureaucrat either.

            One can choose to be pessimistic and call it reality, or one can choose to be optimistic and look to enact the reality they want to see.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
              You don't change politics with slogans about the states "taking back" anything. It's gone. Reality is not "what we make of it" or what "you want to see". Standing on principles to advocate for a better future requires much more than conservative slogans about 'states rights'. Changing man-made disasters like this requires an intellectual groundwork which does not begin with 18th century documents as a premise increasingly regarded as irrelevant because of opposing philosophy. The reality causing this downward trend is much more than current political reality by itself, which is bad enough.
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 5 months ago
                From your comments, it seems that you regard the Constitution as outdated and irrelevant. Is that the case?

                I still hold that it represents the fundamental ideas which made our nation great and which - if we return to them - can do so again. Yes, with the changing times have come political changes. That's the whole point! Progressives didn't take control all at once - they steadily undermined freedom bit by bit. But to say that a move in the opposite direction isn't possible?

                Pessismists never change the world. I choose to believe and advocate for change and return for Constitutional values.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                  "Believing and advocating for change" to return to "Constitutional values" is not a substitute for objectivity in assessing means and possibility. It isn't enough to "believe" while asserting 'it's time to take it back' without regard to the means or desire of states to do that. These Federal land control problems, along with a lot more, have been building for decades for fundamental reasons that cannot be ignored.

                  The Constitution has been politically made increasingly irrelevant because its very purpose clashes with the predominant progressive mentality of collectivism and statism. The country was founded on the Enlightenment emphasis of reason, individualism, and freedom; The Constitution was limited in its role to the specific means to organize government to do that. The goal was taken for granted.

                  Appealing to the Constitution today falls on deaf ears of those with a fundamentally different idea of what government is for. That is why traditionalist appeals to the Constitution by conservatives are hopeless as a political and philosophic premise, with no principled explanation of why government should be limited to specific functions and what they are.

                  Individuals and states can politically fight specific battles like these Federal land grabs and often make some headway, but the downward trend is very bad. No one ever stopped a National Park takeover or Endangered Species Listing by pronouncing his appeals to the Constitution while fervently believing. When we have a large and powerful movement ideologically committed to exploiting Federal power to impose preservationism, and practically everyone else pandering to it as if "environmentalism" were a Holy Word, it isn't enough to say 'take back the Constitution'. The same goes for the rest of the growing tyranny.
                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 5 months ago
                    You call it objectivity. I call it pessimism. Nothing is going to happen unless one believes that the politics can change. But with the growth of social media and Internet-sourced news, there is tremendous opportunity and it is easier than ever before to get the message out. I would note that not even after the crash was there real political change in Atlas Shrugged. And there is no Gulch to retreat to. That means that if society crumbles, we're all going to get caught in it. One can't resist tyranny by giving in to it.

                    Pessimists never take action, being content to allow others to decide their course for them. One can choose to give up, or one can choose to vote for and advocate for change. I'll advocate for a return to sanity until insanity descends and starts weeding people out. I intend to be prepared either way. And if it comes for me it will still find me advocating for a return to the Constitutional principles this nation was built on.
                    Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                      Conservative "belief" doesn't cause change. Objectivity requires knowing causes, means, and how to employ them; that is not "pessimism". Pronouncements to take back the Constitution and similar conservative slogans disregard why the Constitution is ignored and will not reinstate a respect for the rights of the individual, as just explained.

                      I have engaged in more political action than you can imagine, and don't need amateur cheerleader lectures. Some policy can be impacted with sufficient means and knowledge, though the trend is down. The trend will not change without fundamental change in the accepted ideas of the culture.
                      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                      • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 5 months ago
                        "The trend will not change without fundamental change in the accepted ideas of the culture."

                        I agree, but that doesn't happen without action. That's why your words confuse me. They are filled with "nothing is going to change" yet you admit that without action, nothing will change. Belief alone doesn't institute change, but that belief is the mandatory precursor to actual change, because one has to believe in a possible outcome before one invests time or resources into making it a reality. If there is no belief, there will be no resulting action. And without action, there is no change. You can call it cheerleading if you want. I call it reality. ;)
                        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                        • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                          Actions result from ideas, not the reverse.

                          Fundamental change in ideas does not result from particular battles against specific policy, even when successful. It only slows the downward trend in politics, making the specific battles harder and harder, and eventually impossible.

                          Reversing the political trend requires first reversing the irrationalist, altruist, collectivist philosophical ideas dominating the culture. That can only be done by replacing it with a philosophy of reason and individualism. The action required for that is intellectual. Slogans about the "states" "taking back" anything, or calling for the tradition of the Constitution do not do that.
                          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                          • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 5 months ago
                            I agree that there can be no change in ideas without the presentation of new ideas. That in and of itself is a policy battle in every way. The action I was stating needed to happen is that someone with those new ideas must act to present those ideas to others. The pessimism that nothing can change as an excuse for not doing anything or rejecting action by others absolutely does encourage the status quo, which is why I can't condone it.

                            "The action required for that is intellectual."

                            To a degree, yes. But I think there is one other major part that also must be addressed: that the other person must believe that there is a benefit to change. It's all fine and good to advocate logic as the rationale for a policy or principle, but change always involves an action of faith: that a change from what has always been done to something new will effect a positive net change.
                            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                            • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                              This is not about "faith" and it is a lot more than advocating logic as "rationale for policy or principle". Reason is not rationalizing, and a philosophy of reason requires conceptual understanding. It is not logical methods without regard to conceptual meaning and values. The battle over philosophy is not over a kind of "policy". It is much more and much more fundamental. It is the opposite of what Ayn Rand called the "anti-conceptual mentality". The philosophical ideas that drive a culture and a nation are not narrow matters of government "policy".
                              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                              • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 5 months ago
                                People want to know why they should do something different. They have to want to believe you have something worth talking about. You have to give them that and you've got about thirty seconds to do it. It's elevator pitches all over again. I've done it before and trust me, there is one adage which rings absolutely true: no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. If you want them to lose interest at the drop of a hat, start talking about epistemiology or an "anti-conceptual mentality". Their eyes will glaze over like donuts.

                                The common person isn't interested in the intelligentsia of the approach - at least not at first. The common man very much wants a cause to believe in. Politicians understand this - especially progressive ones. They tap into that ignorance and drive to believe and twist it to their own ends. They have that tag line - that "hook" as they call it in marketing - and they use it to reel people in. Objectivists need to come up with something similar. "Who is John Galt?" almost works, but the normal person can't relate to John Galt. It needs to be something short and gets people thinking.
                                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
                                • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
                                  Ayn Rand's Philosophy: Who Needs It didn't start with epistemology. Those who are serious should be learning the philosophy and how to apply it, not running around with Going Galt slogans and conservative bromides, as living examples of the anti-conceptual mentality themselves.

                                  It can't be done in 30 second sound bites for those who want to understand. What else you say in a restricted context may and should be some essential point, but it can't stop there and we can't copy the left's exploitation of irrationalism, dishonesty and ignorance with their contempt of human understanding and independence, which defeats the purpose of a rational society.

                                  Reading Ayn Rand on anything is nothing like reading obscure philosophy like a Kant or Hegel, and her work (even on epistemology) is enjoyable and filled with advocacy for human value. But look at the influence the Kant and Hegel types ultimately had. And Leonard Peikoff's books were not written for academics, he said once that he wrote them (and rewrote Ominous Parallels) so a truck driver could understand it. (That is true, but it is much harder reading for academics steeped in rationalism and explicit bad premises.)
                                  Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Owlsrayne 7 years, 5 months ago
    Now, I realize how much BHO hates America. I wonder if his children will be able to get a job in a crippled America. The federal govt. should not own that much land. The states should be landowners, and then sold to industries for mineral rights. There are state laws in place to for reclamation after mining. Environmentalists have to much influence in the fed gov't which in turn motivates such a fed agenda.
    Wait for it, the peoples uprising and the next Civil War which will not be stopped!
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Comment deleted.
    • -2
      Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      Please restrict your posts to discussion of the thread topic. Your promotion is not relevant to that topic. Grasping at anything even vaguely seen by you as potentially ideologically favorable to promote your organization, throwing in a line to try to make it relevant, is inappropriate spamming, not discussion.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Comment deleted.
    • -2
      Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      Please restrict your posts to discussion of the thread topic. Your promotion is not relevant to that topic. Grasping at anything even vaguely seen by you as potentially ideologically favorable to promote your organization, throwing in a line to try to make it relevant, is inappropriate spamming, not discussion.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • -1
    Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    So now it's the purpose of the Libertarian Party as closet Trump supporters to appeal to unserious Democrat pot heads to take votes that you say don't matter away from Clinton. People who would vote for Trump to oppose Clinton are supposed to instead drop out and vote for a fringe candidate, losing half the impact of their vote against Clinton that you say doesn't matter anyway, to somehow take votes from Clinton. And this goofy nonsense is supposed to be the grand scheme to end statism in contrast to those who take the election seriously.

    Votes matter when they are counted and the total is more than the opposition, which determines who won the election, not how many votes for nothing that you add up after years of not participating in the real election. No establishment politicians have modified their actions because of fringe LP votes.

    The people who are having an impact on specific policy are those who know how the system works and actively work to influence it on issues they know about to be able to talk intelligently about them and know what to do about it. That does not include fringe Libertarians engaging in pretend politics with floating abstractions and goofy sophistry every four years to vote for them because votes don't matter -- now on behalf of the likes of has-been 'liberal' Republicans like Johnson and Weld with a soft spot for getting high on drugs and abdicating the field of foreign policy, all supposedly in the name of a free society based on rational individualism -- if that is what these "Libertarians" want at all.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 5 months ago
      The purpose of the Libertarian Party is to get votes for the Libertarian Party. The fact that the LP is currently hurting Clinton is incidental, but it is a fact. You're welcome. As for Johnson and Weld's personal and political qualities, I'll be happy to compare them to Trump's and Clinton's any time.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
        The purpose of the election is to determine who will be president of the country, not to indulge in "getting votes" for publicity for a fringe party with contradictory 'sound-bites' and no impact on public policy and the trend of the country.

        Weld and Johnson are flakes from the past of 'liberal' Republicans and cannot even begin to articulate a philosophy of individual freedom, let alone claim to be spokesmen or serious candidates. Their attempted 'big draw' is ignorance of foreign policy and pandering to pot heads. None of it is related to the topic of the thread hijacked by LP publicity seekers now claiming to be appealing to the left in the name of whatever it is they think libertarianism is.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • -2
    Posted by marktayloruk 7 years, 5 months ago
    I am a conservationist first and foremost.Overdevelopment destroys!
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 7 years, 5 months ago
      This is a forum for those interested in Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason, individualism, and human freedom, not sacrificing people to nature. Human rights does not permit "conservationism" as "first and foremost", let alone sacrificing people to it.

      The Interior Dept. just unilaterally shut down mining across 10 sparsely populated states, wrecking people's lives. There is no "over development". What is the standard for "over"?

      Condoning this abuse in the name of "conservationism" overtly sanctions the sacrifice of people to misanthropic, nihilistic nature worship. The unowned lands in the west were supposed to be settled and claimed as private property, not nationalized and subsequently locked up under eco-fascism.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  

FORMATTING HELP

  • Comment hidden. Undo