Okay.
My first question would be with regards to the BLM and their control of much of the West.
264,000,000 acres are under their control (across the country) yet it seems that not many are even aware that states are not sovereign with regards to land within their territory. What is your opinion of the Tenth Amendment Center and other like groups who are working towards a common resolve that people understand that within this federalist system as was designed to be, the federal government is unneeded in things such as land management, highway maintenance, etc.? And what is your opinion on states who use nullification to combat the overreach of illegal, warrantless spying apparatuses and to deny the use of their resources to maintain these massive bureaucratic failures? (one that comes to mind specifically is Bluffdale, Utah)
On the first question, on western lands, I think this answers that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg57Arz8vXk
Bottom line, the western lands claimed by the federal government were stolen from the western states and people. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 spells out the only way the Federal government can ever own land in the states, saying that Congress has the power to:
Published on Apr 30, 2014
"
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings..." ~ Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the United States Constitution
When did the state of Nevada consent to sell the federal government any land "for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings"? When did the Federal government ever pay for it? Never. They made it a "condition" of statehood, which is itself unconstitutional, and unconscionable. It violates the constitutional principle that new states enter the union on an equal footing with the other states. Looking at a map of "federal" land, you can see that out west, over half the land in each state is claimed by the feds, but that is not the case back east. You don't see that in CT, VA, PA, OH, etc. That shows you how absurd and illegitimate it was from the start, out west.
So, no, I don't think the federal government owns any of that land, regardless of what some lawyer in a black dress says from the bench, and I think the proper solution is indeed nullification. The whole Bundy stand, all that was being done there, is nullification, and it really is the answer, as Jefferson and Madison told us long ago, in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. And that is why I have spoken in support of nullification at numerous Tenth Amendment Center events. You bet it is the answer.
And what is needed now is a rising up of the entire West, to nullify by reclaiming their land, and using their land. One stand up like this is like a slave uprising on one plantation. If just one plantation rises up, they can be crushed, but if all rise up, there is no way the "slave owners" can stop it. This is where we are at. The single best way to protect the Bundy family now is for there to be a thousand "Bundy Ranches" all across the West. But, it is best done by the locals, as a community, united together, and standing together. And I think we have a lot of work to do in our local communities to build that kind of unity so it is not just one or two families standing up, but whole towns, counties, and states. The more it is a whole community, the better.
Look at the events in Michoacan Mexico.
https://www.google.com/search?q=mic...5KITwoAT58oLYDQ&ved=0CCcQsAQ&biw=1406&bih=733
The people were being lorded over and terrorized by drug cartels, and if any one person, or one family stood up to them, they were killed. But, when the people finally united and stood up together,
they kicked the drug cartel's ass. Before they rose up together, 100 cartel goons enslaved a town of ten thousand. But after just 300 of the local men stood up, they realized they vastly outnumbered the cartel and that was the tipping point. Then THOUSANDS more joined the "Community Police" units, and they hunted the cartel members down like feral dogs. The cartel ran and hid, with anyone caught with cartel tattoos being killed. And they were led by a doctor, who finally had enough when he saw young girls being taken from families who could not afford to pay "protection" money, and forced into prostitution. When they came for their children, the people finally realized they had nothing to lose and they rose up, together.
Turns out Hillary was right, it does take a village ... to kill the cartel or to kill the secret police.
Whether it is private bad guys like a drug cartel, or public bad guys, like the BLM/DHS and their hired mercenary thugs, us good guys will ALWAYS outnumber them, but that only helps us if we stand up together. The bad guys count on you not organizing in your local community. They want you to be afraid to publicly organize and form community defense groups, so they can have an artificial superiority of force over you when they come for you one at a time. We saw that all through history. The secret police NEVER outnumber the people and can only tyrannize them when they hide in their homes, in fear, and hope the knock does not come to their door.
That was the lesson Solzhenitsyn was trying to tell us:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
A SWAT team, a "snatch team," a goon squad of any kind, can only be effective against isolated individuals and families. They CANNOT beat a united community. Just can't do it. The people of Michoacan, to their eternal honor, have showed us the way. And now the Bundy family just gave us a good precedent for the same on this side of the border.
BUT, it should not take volunteers from across the country to get it done. It should have been handled by the locals, standing together. So, we have lots of work to do in our own communities. Which is precisely why I started the Oath Keepers CPT program (Community Preparedness Teams) to help get our communities organized.
Stewart
