From: ufo777@webtv.net (ufo777)
Subject: [Illusions] Fwd: Jan. 10 column - horse mail, pt. 1
Date: 8 Jan 1999 03:15:10 -0500
To: illusions@bticc.net

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    FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JAN. 10, 1999
    THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
    Talking to the animals

    The mailbag filled up as usual, after I wrote last week about the
shooting of 34 horses in northern Nevada.

  Bob Abbey, state director of the federal Bureau of Land Management for
Nevada, wrote in to whine "Your statements about the management of
federally protected wild, free-roaming horses and burros are incorrect and
mislead your readers about how the federal government reduces the size of
wild horse herds."

  Mr. Abbey insists "The BLM makes every attempt to find good homes for
these wild horses or burros removed from public rangelands. These living
legends often become a companion animal. In your own community, many of
these animals have been placed with compassionate adopters who ride the
animals for pleasure and in competition."

  Ah, the "house pet" gambit.

  Mr. Abbey conveniently forgets Martha Mendoza's syndicated expose on his
agency's wild horse adoption scandal, "Above the Law," which ran on the
front page of the Review-Journal and many other newspapers in the West back
in March of 1997.

  In that investigative series, Ms. Mendoza revealed that, though federal
law restricts horse adoptions to four per person per year, a Texas BLM
compliance officer, Don Galloway, "with his managers' support," had been
approving adoptions "of more than 100 horses at a time by having one person
gather signatures from family, friends and neighbors. Using this technique,
Galloway had placed more than 5,000 horses with adopters over about seven
years. His work was commended by his superiors."

  "I was doing my job, I was moving horses. I followed the law,'' Mendoza
cited Mr. Galloway telling her in a telephone interview from his home in
Colleyville, Texas.

  Furthermore, "Galloway arranged to keep 36 horses for himself and told
two undercover investigators he planned to sell them for slaughter, which
is against the law," Mendoza reported, in a wide-ranging series which
exposed BLM managers pressuring employees not to talk to investigators,
concealing documents from a grand jury, and, in one case, a BLM district
manager "tipping off the subject of a search warrant that law enforcement
agents were about to visit his house, which is against the law.

  "BLM officials falsified adoption documents and falsified computer
records of brand identification numbers used to track adopted animals,
which is against the law," Mendoza reported.

  The bottom line? At least "hundreds" of those "adopted" horses can't be
located due to false BLM computer entries. No one knows how many of these
"adopted house pets" end up hanging on hooks in Belgian butcher shops, but
it's obviously plenty.

  Which is fine with me, mind you. A humane death and some productive use
is better than starving on the range, which is what more usually happens
when an arrogant, distant government declares any fast-breeding species to
be "protected" because they're cute, in order to placate the daydreams of
ignorant urban "environmentalist" pantywaists.

  The BLM only gets into trouble here because of political pressures not to
admit what should be obvious - any successful herbivore needs control
through predation. And unless we're going to re-introduce the extinct
plains grizzly, that means us.

  Plenty of readers wrote in to remind me that horses aren't native to the
desert, anyway, having been introduced by the Spaniards in the 16th
century. "Any TRUE environmentalist should be DEMANDING the removal of
these animals  :-)," wrote fellow Nevadan J.S., adding the e-mail
equivalent of a grin.

  "Very well said," added E.M. of Scottsdale. "Substitute wolf for horse,
and you have the current situation here in Arizona, where the so-called
environmentalists who live no where near the area of wolf introduction are
mewling about the shooting of several wolves."

  Brief and sensible, Ian McGavin of Sparks, near the scene of the
shootings, wrote a letter which we published in the Las Vegas
Review-Journal on Jan. 7:

  "The killing of 30-plus feral horses near Virginia City has triggered
more outrage, rewards and calls for punishment from around the world than
the brutal killing and torching of men, women and children by the federal
government at Waco.

  "Something is perverse and sick in our society.

  "Killing these horses may actually provide many benefits. According to
the BLM, the feral horse population in Nevada is out of control, with
riparian areas being destroyed by overgrazing; springs and streams being
ruined; and wildlife such as deer being negatively impacted. There have
also been instances of mass horse starvation (a death of suffering far
greater than shooting). I have personally witnessed this starvation of
horses in the Virginia City area.

  "Horses need humane management, otherwise they are more destructive to
the environment than locusts. Without management and culling, they
overbreed and inbreed resulting in hammerheaded, potbellied, broom-tailed
and rank dispositioned mustangs," Mr. McGavin continued.

  "Prior to federal bureaucrats seizing control of this renewable resource,
Nevada ranchers and cowboys managed the horses to the profit and benefit of
man, horses and the land.

  "Killing of surplus horses near Virginia City will actually benefit the
remaining horses, provide sustenance for mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes,
predatory birds and take pressure off of and save the lives of countless
deer, rabbits, squirrels, game birds and other forms of competing wildlife
and vegetation.

  "Do-gooders and bureaucrats are having a field day flying around in
helicopters, playing Dick Tracy with taxpayer money and expressing moral
outrage at the death of animals. Priorities in our Godless society need to
be re-evaluated," Mr. McGavin concluded.

  Those were the more sober-minded letters.

  From San Francisco, meantime, occasional correspondent Starchild was also
heard from, accusing me of "speciesism" and asserting "If there is a
comparison to be made, laws against mistreating animals ought to be
compared to laws against child abuse."

   More specifically, "I agree that non-human animals should have private
owners, or more properly, guardians, just as should young human children,"
Starchild explained. "If we discuss a parent's financial obligations to a
sick or needy child, then the obligations of property-owners to animals
under their guardianship will become more clear. If you buy a piece of
land, it should be your responsibility to care for the animals that come
with it. If that care is more than you can afford, then you should abstain
from buying the land, just as you would not adopt a child you could not
provide for."

  I tried for a moment to picture the reaction of the Higginbothams and the
Clarks -- rugged early settlers of Ohio and Minnesota on my mother's side
of the family -- to the assertion that they wouldn't be allowed to clear
and claim their wilderness lands unless they were prepared to establish
veterinary clinics for the care of the little squirrels and raccoons, and
intervene to keep the hawks from eating the baby bunnies.

  I then asked Starchild how, precisely, we should expect animals to
formulate their rights, or express them, or claim them, or defend them. "Do
they have a right to trial by jury?" I inquired. "By a dozen animals of the
same species? Does an animal have a right to to be free from warrantless
search and seizure?"

  In the case of a man-eating tiger, "something like a jury trial actually
might be appropriate," replied my San Francisco correspondent.

  Truly it is a Brave New World, isn't it?

  Next time, Susan from the city tells lazy cattle ranchers: "Get a real job."


Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com.

***


Vin Suprynowicz,   vin@lvrj.com

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John
Hay, 1872

The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not
get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases
to discriminate between good and evil.  He becomes a slave in body and
soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt
against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943

* * *


    FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JAN. 11, 1999
    THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
    Drumming up sympathy for folks who refuse to get paying jobs

    Last time I was sampling some of the mailbag in response to my recent
piece on the shooting of 34 horses in northern Nevada.

  Repeating a common error, a lady we'll call S.C. wrote in to advise me:

  "The land that the wild horses roam upon is not private land, it is
federal land. If you'll recall (or look it up) this fact is why
government-subsidized grazing permits are bid upon by people who choose to
ranch.

  "That there is no right to graze cattle on federal land is challenged
frequently by federalist extremists and the federalists always lose because
the position is untenable. Federal land belongs to all the people, not a
few anachronistic, government-subsidized ranchers who refuse to recognize
that trying to graze cattle in the desert is absurd, whether other animals
are competing for the sparse desert fodder or not.

  "Such people should be ridiculed, not sympathized with. This form of
cattle raising is uneconomical and eats up taxpayer money while doing
nothing but supporting the myth of the west. Ranchers who kill animals on
property they do not own, i.e. federal lands, are just criminals taking
advantage of the system which already misguidedly favors them in the name
of 'cultural heritage.'

 "This is the 'culture' which has existed for barely 100 years and then
only came about thanks to the Army Corp. of Engineers and Bureau of
Reclamation (yes, the federal government again). To try and drum up
sympathy for people who refuse to get paying jobs is misguided. However,
your further sympathy for and defense of criminals is inexcusable."

  I replied:


    #  #   #

  Well, hello, Susan --

  Unfortunately, you've managed to get just about everything wrong.

  The 30-odd horses shot near Sparks were shot on state land, not federal
land. That's why the chief investigator in the case (as I duly noted) is a
state official, not a federal one.

  The federal government has never even CLAIMED to own the BLM and Forest
Service land which it administers here (unlike, say, Nellis Air Force Base,
on which the federals at least make some token "payments in lieu of
taxes.") The state legislature never authorized the sale of these lands (as
required by the Constitution, were the federals to seek title), nor would
such lands fall under the Article I Section 8 definition of "forts,
magazines, dockyards, and other needful buildings," which are the only
purposes for which the federal government is authorized to purchase and
wield sole jurisdiction over land within the several states (other than the
District of Columbia.)

  No such purchases have ever occurred; no deeds are recorded (either in
the name of "the United States government," nor filed under "All the
people.") Neither the federal government nor "All the people" pay any
property taxes on these lands to the clerk of Storey County, or any other
Nevada county. Thus, if either the USG or "All the people" HAD once owned
these lands, they would now presumably be in default for 134 years of back
property taxes, and the lands would be auctioned off.

  The "federalist extremists" (though many would actually describe
themselves as "anti-federalists," surely) seem to be doing quite well with
their current court case in Washington D.C., "Hage versus United States,"
with some important preliminary rulings having gone in favor of their
arguments, that the early federal grazing acts did not CREATE, but rather
acknowledged PRE-EXISTING private grazing and water rights on these lands.

  The way split titles work in the arid West -- with different owners
allowed to own the mineral, the grazing, and the water rights to the same
large parcels -- can indeed be confusing, I'll admit. They grew out of the
simple fact that a family can't make a living out here on the traditional
"40 acres and a mule."

  Yet once a cattleman claimed his 10,000 acres (or whatever), to disallow
separate mineral claims by prospectors would have DISCOURAGED mineral
exploration and exploitation, which adds to the wealth of the nation and
all its people. Federal policy, quite correctly, was rather to ENCOURAGE
such exploitation of resources, by the few, hardy souls who could and would
brave this forbidding environment.

  They came to this land based on certain government promises, that if they
could "prove up" claims and demonstrate they were putting the land to
productive use, those land claims would be honored in perpetuity.

  But I guess we're much more sophisticated, these days, as to what federal
promises are worth, aren't we?

  For a detailed run-down of the arguments being presented in the Hage
case, and their success to date, I suggest you contact Margaret Gabbard,
executive director, Stewards of the Range, P.O. Box 1189, Boise, Idaho
83701; voice phone 208-336-5922.

  Grazing permits are not "government subsidized," Susan. Just the
opposite. The rancher is made to pay money to graze cattle on land to which
he already has grazing rights ... rights which were either legally CLAIMED
by his great-grandparents, or else for which he PAID when he bought his
ranch. This is a subsidy OF the unnecessary government, BY the rancher.
This can be determined by the simple expedient of standing by the rancher's
mailbox for a few days. Does the rancher receive checks from the government
for grazing his cattle? He does not. Does he mail checks TO the government
for the "privilege" of grazing his cattle? Yes, he does. If this is a
government subsidy, then I submit you accept a "government subsidy" every
time you pay your income tax.

  Meantime, if cattle aren't wanted, please proceed (by all means) to
convince Americans to stop eating them (as I assume you yourself already
have.) Once folks stop buying beef, I can practically guarantee you the
ranchers will stop raising it.

  And if you believe the current methods of cattle raising are "absurd,"
feel free to raise some of your own. I presume you'll get rich in a hurry,
and without even stirring from your couch (since you contend ranching isn't
"a job," at all.)

  In truth, I submit your ideas about these issues come from no first hand
experience, but rather from regurgitated collectivist bromides doled out to
you in the (subsidized, welfare) government youth propaganda camps (called
"public schools"), and by the collectivist courtesan press.

  So finally, if you really want to put an end to the "myth of the west,"
feel free to pick up your guns and come out here looking for us. But if you
insist on sitting home and paying federal flunkies to do your oppression
for you, I submit you are a coward, and that the overweening federal
government you support will eventually turn on you, and deprive you of
whatever rights YOU cherish.

  At which point, on whom will you call for help? Not the ranchers, the
hunters, the gun-owners, the "federalists," the Libertarians, the
militiamen, the testosterone-poisoned "rugged individualists," I hope. For
if you have your way, they'll all be in jail by then, won't they?

  Have a Nice Day,


Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com. The web
sites for the Suprynowicz column are at
http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The column is syndicated in the United
States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas
Nev. 89127.

***


Vin Suprynowicz,   vin@lvrj.com

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John
Hay, 1872

The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not
get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases
to discriminate between good and evil.  He becomes a slave in body and
soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt
against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943

* * *


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