My passing interest in what is going on at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch is fueled mostly by the fact that, like Old Clive and thousands of other ranchers, the economic health of my ranching operation depends to a large extent on inexpensive federal government land leases. For better and for worse Old Clive and I have some similarities. In light of Old Clive’s new-found fame, I am interested in what my evil twin is projecting to the world.
So far it has been embarrassing – a gaggle of troubled, insecure clowns clamoring for attention. In a nut shell (and do mean NUT shell): Clive runs a lonely Nevada cattle ranch that depends on letting his livestock graze on government land leases much like the ones we depend upon. The difference is that he has refused to pay about a million dollars’ worth of lease money to the federal government. He has basically stolen that million dollars from people like me and you. It’s a great business plan, a good way to keep business expenses low, and a sure-fire way to gather likeminded, anti-social misanthropes to your ranch. It takes a village of those types to keep a good old boy from thinking about the fact that every other American ends up paying his bills and that every other rancher ends up competing against a guy who is gaming the system.
I am also kind of a history buff and when I saw, via Google, that Old Clive had invited a guy dressed up like George Washington to speak at the gathering of “patriots” at the ranch, I tried my best to find out what this guy had to say. I searched all over the internet and all I found was a clunky, dysfunctional website for a small Texas newspaper. The guy’s name was Mark Collins. He was pictured shaking hands with Old Clive and he was, indeed, dressed up like George Washington – which made me wonder if the other “patriots” at Old Clive’s ranch were dressed up too. The teaser for the article told me that he had arrived after the action was over – not very Washington-like. The website asked me to click on ‘read more’ but that link did not work, so I didn’t get to read what Mark Collins said about Washington’s views on the Whiskey Rebellion where he personally lead federal troops to chastise a group that refused to pay a federal tax on whiskey. I hoped that the Rambo groupies that showed up to support poor Old Clive knew more about how to operate their weapons than the newspaper knew about setting up a website that worked.
In the Whiskey Rebellion the rebels suffered some casualties. People actually got shot and, in the end, the rebels were made to pay the money they owed to the government. They were a little better organized and informed that the Cabellas-clad rebels that showed up at Old Clive’s ranch. The Whiskey Rebellion rebels had actually been soldiers in the American Revolution. They had likely read the constitution and had, in fact, served under Washington. I’ll bet they knew the jig was up when Washington sent the real army out to make them follow the law of the land. The keystone cop rebels that rushed to Clive’s aide did something similar when they held a news conference where they revealed that they had “good intelligence” (Yea, right) that the attorney general and the President had plans to attack them with drones. That turned out to be a fanatic’s wet dream and the whole thing dissolved into factional accusations of cowardice and desertion when one of the factions left the field of battle in the dead of night. There was also the disruptive problem that we should have suspected by the lack of mention of Native American claims to Nevada ranchland and the ethnic homogeneity of the gathered legions: The insurrection’s leader, Old Clive, revealed to the world that he harbored racist tendencies that led some to wonder if he had gotten his revolutions mixed up.
This could all be viewed as sheer comedy except that some of the people who are paying for Old Clive’s fifteen minutes of fame might get the idea that all federal-land ranchers are like Clive. We are not. Some of us take the trust placed in us very seriously. Some of us understand that we are operating this land for the people of the United States. Most of us are not outspoken constitutional scholars, like the nit wits in the sagebrush claim to be. Most of us follow an even more basic roadmap. We understand that even with its warts, our government is unequaled in its efforts to serve ALL its citizens, that leasing government land at a discount is a privilege, and that you can’t steal from your fellow American citizens.
Comments 17
May 10,
Dan,
See if you can get this published in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times or Washington Post. For sure you have publishing credentials beyond the Cliven Clowns, and your ranching experience matches his.
Good luck with further placement on this.
If you were a professor and taught at a school somewhere, I’d take every class they offered. You, like our infamous Rush Limbaugh, make folks THINK and reason. Howcum you can’t write more often??
Dan you are right on. Clive is being a stinker. He hurts the rest of our agricultural community with his negativity. The farmers I know try to meet all the standards and do what is right by the land . Then one insident causes a media frenzy and the rest of us pay in new regulations and public support.
Well put Dan anything all of us can do to keep our ranches healthy and sustainable by using either bison, cattle or sheep to harvest the product of sun’s energy is good. Their hoof effect and nature deposition will act to keep the ground covered and the water, mineral and energy cycles flowing.
Your description of the situation is well put – you sound Charles Krauthammer, a good thing! Why this guy thought he did not have to pay for his leases is the real mystery.
Well said Dan; this particular issue and this particular guy has really gotten under my skin. Not only has Bundy refused to pay his meager fees for over 20 years, he put more than 10x the number of cattle on the land than he was legally allowed, so he’s drastically overgrazing it to boot. And his actions encourage other ranchers in Nevada and elsewhere to do as he does–why shouldn’t they, since the feds backed off? As they seem so wont to do in states like Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, to name just three, the local sheriff is on the wrong side as well–on the side of the law breakers. In Idaho, a group of sheriffs, after the school children were massacred in Connecticut, held town hall meetings and publicly announced that IF any type of federal gun control laws were enacted, they would refuse to enforce them. Utah sheriffs have led lawbreakers on off-road vehicles tramping through desert streams that are specifically closed to such vehicles, just to protest federal jurisdiction over “their” land. In all these cases, when people won’t listen to reason and the feds won’t arrest people, you either have to hit people in their pocketbook, or get public opinion to rise so loud that they slink away. In the Utah case, I called all the sponsors of the off-road event and asked if they were aware that the participants were breaking the law by traversing that particular riparian area. They were not. The companies (big public companies, some of them) did not want to be involved with an event that was breaking the law, and you better believe they let the off-roaders know, and threatened to immediately withdraw their sponsorships. Next thing I got a phone call with a death threat. At least I knew I got to them, and the following year, that event was moved to a legal location. In the Bundy case, it so happens that I am a travel writer and was getting ready to write an article about visiting a beautiful desert valley not far away. I scrapped the idea and decided to focus on a New Mexico area instead. And then I wrote the editor of every Nevada newspaper I could find, and told them that I refuse to write articles that will send tourist dollars to Nevada until Bundy pays up and his militias leave. Yes, as in boycott. Boycott Nevada. And that those newspapers ought to begin voicing their displeasure with Bundy and his cohorts in their opinion pages. Nevada gets a lot more money from tourist dollars than from cattle ranching. I seem to recall reading that only 2% of beef cattle are raised on western public lands; if that’s true then it’s a drop in the bucket, for all the ruckus the irresponsible ranchers cause and damage their cattle do on drought-stressed land. Anyway, I hope the newspapers in Nevada get after Bundy, and I hope someone in the BLM or Attorney General’s office can grow a pair and arrest Bundy, confiscate the cattle, and get our money back. This is not the 1880s.
Dan —
I’m with Bill Earl (and others) asking that you find a way to publish this in the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, or the Washington Post! Or send it to Sy Safransky at The Sun magazine. Excellent. You are a terrific writer and, like the others, I plead for you to keep writing! /Beth
Bravo! I’d like to include my voice with the others here, I wish you could publish this on a larger scale. Thanks for speaking up.
Julie
Agree with all comments re: scumbag and crook, Cliven Bundy. However, where was the government during the time Bundy grazed without paying?Bundy appears to be a right wing Republican, and as with the mostly Republican business owners who continue to break the law by hiring elegals, it’s hands off. And check out the mess and cost of that to we law abiding citizens!
Well said, Dan. Wish you could get a email list of Clive’s group and send this thoughtful essay to all of them. It might cause them to consider what they’re doing (or did), and what their knee jerk, anti Fed protest really means. As you point out, it’s just a poor rationalization for public thievery.
Well said, Dan. And thanks for being a good steward of our public grazing lands.
Well said, Dan. Love your writings—-always laid out in plain language. I agree you should get this published on a large scale. Thank you for all you do to sustain the prairies—–public and private and speaking up for our country.
Dan,
Well stated, thank you! Write on! Your ranch is a model for the rest. Ole’ Clive and that entire collection of jerks need to pay up and wise up. Appreciate your voice of wisdom and clarity. Gina
I would second the idea that you publish in the Times. There has already been an op-ed suggesting that this is only one of many abuses (true), that there should be NO grazing on public land at all, and that this incident could serve as a wedge to achieve that goal. They could use a reasoned, informed voice.
Dan, as I read your comments I kept thinking of another who manages to put current events that border on the absurd in proper perspective and also also inject a great deal of humor. John Stewart (the Daily Show) and you would have great fun together. Thank you for keeping the facts forward but brushed with humor.
Thanks Dan,
I believe most of here thank you for your correct and responsible ranching techniques. As a tax payer and guy who pays his bills I appreciate you paying yours for land use but most of all for your stewardship of this fine American land…
Dan,
I never laughed so hard for so long, nor have I ever stopped laughing so hard so fast. Your writing is great. Don’t stop.