Archived Utah ranchers renounce federal control of their lands at gathering with ties to Oregon occupation (sltrib.com)
submitted ago by go1dfish
Posted by: go1dfish
Posting time: 4.9 years ago on
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Archived on: 2/12/2017 1:51:00 AM
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Archived Utah ranchers renounce federal control of their lands at gathering with ties to Oregon occupation (sltrib.com)
submitted ago by go1dfish
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[–] 4086379? ago
Cattle have been on that land for at least a century so it is the natural state of the land now.. and before cattle there were millions of buffalo before they were hunted to near extinction. Probably not a whole hell of a lot of difference between what a buffalo grazes on or a cow.
Google says the average rancher makes 70k a year I'm sure the Hammond's are on the higher end of that seeing how they have been there so long its hard not to make a lot of money on 15,000 acres of land that has been in your family for 150+ years. Now you take that 70k average and split that between a man and his wife and kids working 8-12 hour days it doesn't seem like a ton of money. To these people it's more about the lifestyle people don't retire from farming to work in a bank it's the other way around.
To my knowledge the only issue that has been brought to court is the "terrorist arson" charge which the Hammond's served 1 year for the son and 6 months for the old man. They served their time and were released then the feds seen a way they could make it harder on these people and make it more likely that they will give up their land if they toss them back in jail for 5 years. And that's where the problem started with the militia. As for their grazing rights that was never in question they always had the right and they have been taking advantage of it much to the dismay of the BLM who can't do shit about it because they are following the rules 100%.
So in conclusion the Hammond's and most ranchers are 100% by the book but, when they make 1 little mistake like a fire break gone bad that burned 100 yards of federal land that was no danger to people or property. They go after them with the maximum force of the us government in an effort to force them to sell their land to the super china corp mega farm.
Just look at what has been happening to the small farms all across the US for the last 30 years or so they have been consolidating them into big corporations. You may like the little guy being squeezed out for "Walmart" but, I do not.