Armed Militia Takes Over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge HQ

Oh yes, better yet let's just finish the job and take away any and all private landowner rights. Eh, Comrade?

If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to remove a man's mind, will, and personality, is the power of life and death, and that it makes a man a slave. It is murder. Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery!, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?

Hyperbole much?

Well, shoot, maybe if I humped enough supplies back up into in Black Velvet Canyon and camped out long enough I could eventually own the place. And who knows, maybe this is the true intent behind PTPP's epic wall occupations.

I wonder what the price tag(the whole shebang, law enforcement, legal, subsidies, etc. etc) of this whole cowpoke venture is going to be to the taxpayers and locals at all levels? I haven't seen a tally yet.

Like all legal doctrines, there are exceptions to the general rules regarding adverse possession, as well as several defenses. For example, public land can never be adversely possessed. Open, continuous, exclusive and non-permissive use of land, where the land is owned by the city, county or state, cannot form the basis of an adverse possession claim

“Ammon Bundy and his father basically handed their heads on the platter to the federal government,” said Stewart Rhodes, 51, the founder of a militia group called the Oath Keepers that claims to have 35,000 members across the country. The Oath Keepers were active in Nevada, he said, but he instructed members to stick to the sidelines in Oregon. “It was an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ viewpoint: ‘This land is ours, now that we occupy it.’”


The Oregon occupation has also complicated the political landscape for state leaders who have attempted to use legitimate means to acquire federal land.

The so-called land transfer movement has gained traction among some conservatives because federal acres contain rich troves of timber, ore and grazing grass, and certain state officials believe they should be able to decide what happens to those resources.


“What the Bundys did was draw attention to that,” said Jennifer Fielder, a Republican state senator from Montana who heads a pro-transfer group called the American Lands Council. “But in some ways, it was very negative attention, unfortunately. The majority of us are committed to a civil process that is going to be peaceful and isn’t going to get anybody killed.”


The Republican Party platform calls on Congress to “convey certain federally controlled public lands to states.” But neither major presidential nominee has shown interest in such a transfer. Critics say the idea would be prohibitively expensive, saddling states with the responsibility of hiring hundreds of rangers to care for mountainsides and fire-prone forests. And they worry that legislatures would simply start auctioning off the country’s most striking landscapes.


A new legal analysis written by a group of Western attorneys general also places major doubts on arguments Utah lawmakers have made for the transfer of lands to state control. The report was produced by seven Republicans, three Democrats and one independent.

In a twist, the Oregon occupation seems to have encouraged a revolt the Bundy brothers never expected: In recent months, counties around the West have begun passing resolutions specifically affirming their support for keeping federal lands from being turned over to the state. Some of them have been helped by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a group that supports the rights of hunters and fishermen.

“It was backlash against this notion that all Westerners don’t like the federal government owning public land,” said Whit Fosburgh, the organization’s president. “The whole Bundy invasion probably set back the transfer movement significantly. Because it displayed this movement as a bunch of kooks.”

Commissioners in at least 21 places from New Mexico to Wyoming have signed pro-public lands resolutions. In interviews, several said they had become concerned that their state leaders, if given control of federal lands, would start selling the ski slopes, river rapids and trekking trails that drive their communities’ economies and souls.

“We all utilize those public lands for hiking and biking and motorcycle riding, floating the rivers,” said Bill Leake, a commissioner in Teton County, Idaho, who sign a pro-public lands resolution in July. “I don’t see myself as a rebel — I just see myself as an informed county commissioner.”

"Since the beginning of trial Mr. Bundy has regularly been deprived of meals and adequate sustenance, resulting in physical and mental fatigue beyond what is normal or allowable under basic principles of fairness and decency,'' Philpot wrote.