Maggie's Farm

"TRUMP'S PARDONING OF TWO OREGON RANCHERS"

I live less than 100 miles from them. I am actually happy he pardoned them but would have preferred he commuted their sentence. They were in fact guilt as charged. But I wish them well and hope they change their ways and live a long happy life with their family.

They were involved in numerous illegal acts before being brought to trail. Their crime? They poached deer on BLM land. They were caught in that crime by a citizen and other witnesses. They set fire to the BLM land in an attempt to destroy the crimes scene. The BLM had to go in and put out the fire and the ranchers swore that they were only burning to clear their own land and that the fire inadvertently crossed over into BLM land. At their trail one of their own family admitted that the Hammonds told them to burn the land with intent to coverup their crime. There is zero doubt that they committed arson on federal land.

What is missing from this argument and most in the East would probably not know is that the ranchers all believe that the federal lands are their lands and that since they graze their cattle there that the land rightly belongs to them and not the government. Underlying all of the disruption you have seen with the Bundys and the Hammonds and others is about their belief that the government lands are rightfully their lands. What is going on is a land grab. If those BLM and other public lands are placed into the hands of the states then the states will when you aren't looking give these lands to millionaire ranchers and they will be lost from the public trust forever. All of the hype around this event is designed to move public support to the ranchers.

You haven't refuted anything I said. You did skirt around the fact that they intentionally set a fire on BLM land to cover up the crime of poaching and then lied about it. I personally disliked the ruling that a mandatory 5 year sentence would be applied. But judges have a tendency to insist that laws be followed and that was the law under which they were found guilty. You left out that this was not their first intentional fire on BLM land.

IMHO the Hammonds should have served their original sentence and then given the opportunity to live their life having paid their debt. I cannot control what the 9th circuit decides.

Yes, I know ranchers and have friends who are ranchers and everyone of them is a millionaire. I don't care that they are millionaires and hell I'm trying to be one myself. But someone who owns 7000 acres of ranchland and 1000 head of cattle is a millionaire. Good for them, I'm a capitalist and like capitalism. My point about that statement is simply that if and when the government gives away your land it won't be to you or me it will be to millionaires. I don't think any public lands should be given away and if the federal government ever decides to sell off the land they should sell small plots only 5-10 acres with restrictions such that they can never be bought up by millionaires or the Chinese or something like that. But of course as I said the federal government will give the states the authority over that land and some millionaire/billionaire like George Soros will buy it for pennies on the dollar.

We do agree on one thing; That the Hammonds were justly sentenced the first time.

They were not charged with poaching because the fire they set to cover up the poaching did indeed cover up the poaching. But if you read the trial transcript the witness did indeed say that the reason the Hammonds told him to "burn it all down" was to cover up the poaching that they were caught doing.

Yes most of the states in the West have a lot of land that is public. PUBLIC= owned by you and I and all of us. I do in fact camp in Nevada and enjoy it. I can camp on almost any BLM land. I cannot camp on any private land. If it were all private how would that make it better??? Have you ever actually been to Nevada? Almost all of the land is sage brush desert, dry, hot in the summer and frozen solid in the winter. It isn't as though someone could buy 10,000 acres of sage brush and do anything with it. On the other hand Nevada is a mineral rich land and a lot of the government land is leased out to companies that produce every imaginable mineral we use today. Again how is that bad? If it were all owned by the Sierra club would we be able to mine for those minerals? if it were owned by a couple dozen billionaires would we be able to enjoy it? The public land is a huge gift to Americans. Don't give it away.