The issue of the federal government owning too much land in the western United States was a big issue among conservatives in the ‘80s and ‘90s. With the government owning 80% of Nevada, 64% of Utah, plus huge portions of other states, the “Sagebrush Rebellion” advocated, unsuccessfully, for the government to sell off excess land, or transfer it to state control to administer.
I was firmly aligned with that objective.
It was almost surprising to me in the past year or so to learn that the modern Sagebrush Rebellion is about keeping those lands under the control of the federal government. Outdoorsmen whom I read and greatly respect such as Braxton McCoy successfully fought plans by Senator Mike Lee to sell off a few million acres of federal lands, and their reasoning did cause me to re-consider my prior position. Most admirably, the new sagebrush guys want to preserve as much undeveloped American soil as possible, not only for use by those who love the outdoors, but also to keep it closer to how God created it.
But reading about what is going on in Canada with the government exercising emergency powers to prohibit its citizens from accessing “Crown land” (e.g. government owned land) has me re-re-thinking the issue.
The Nova Scotia government has announced it's banning hiking, camping, fishing and use of vehicles such as ATVs in the woods due to an elevated wildfire risk.
Casting a worm into a lake doesn’t cause a forest fire, but it really doesn’t matter to the Canadian ruling class, which has such a hatred of personal freedom that it will use any excuse to oppress its citizens. There was some backlash to the ban, of course, so the ruling left-wing party then stated that it’s necessary to ban Canadian citizens from woods and parkland because they might hurt themselves walking their dogs in nature.
The American left looks on in envy at how Canada represses its people. I can’t help but note that the demographic makeup of the American outdoorsmen fighting to preserve federally owned land are the same demographic for whom the left professes their hatred and seeks to punish.
The left will likely gain power again in Washington someday, and I do not trust them to administer federal land holdings in the manner outdoorsmen desire. Glenn Beck wrote a piece last month that made some good counterpoints in this intra-conservative debate. In this piece titled “The Real Land Grab Isn’t Mike Lee’s – It’s Biden’s ’30 by 30’” he wrote:
According to the latest online frenzy, [Senator] Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.
His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration. In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.
Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?
Mr. Beck then discussed how the Biden / UN agenda would subsequently push for a “50 by 50” agenda, whereby the government would own 50% of all US lands by 2050. Beck also pointed out something perhaps even more pernicious:
That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act. Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.
The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”
I realize now that my 1990s support of that Sagebrush Rebellion was in line with my “principled” anti-government / libertarian attitude of that era. I’ve matured and abandoned my libertarian idealism, in part because of complicated issues like this one. I don’t want the entire West carved into ranchettes and strip malls, but neither do I want the land to all be “nature preserves” controlled by “philanthropaths” who would ban the rest of us from those lands.
Pondering the issue, there are so many political factors to consider:
• The left considers all U.S. land stolen land. Their “land acknowledgements” are clearly paving the way for a retrocession of federal lands to “indigenous peoples.”
• Outdoors was the healthiest place to be during the Covid era. Yet the Covid communists took the opportunity at that time to deny access to parks and beaches. That was a test run for bigger freedom lockdowns, but they’ve already proven they will lock us indoors.
• President AOC (or equivalent) would be thrilled to deny the hated “outdoorsmen demographic” the right to hunt and fish on federal lands.
• The left has already surrendered city parks to their criminal constituencies. Why do we think they won’t also forfeit federally owned lands to criminals, aliens, or an American caliphate.
• Caught up in the religious fervor of the Church of Climate, the left quickly transitioned from protecting the environment to despoiling it. Covering undeveloped land with solar panels and wind farms has become a form of evangelical mission work for them. They have embraced the slaughter of raptors and whales as a sacrifice to their angry climate God, and their religious fervor has compelled them to transition from “Save the Whales” 40 years ago to “Kill the Whales” now. They would gladly sacrifice wilderness areas in service to their cult.
I don’t have a principled position to advocate here, nor even a “take.” Common sense and a realistic understanding of the world we live in versus the ideal we’d desire should help guide conservatives in this debate. Obviously, the national parks are untouchable, but returning a great deal of federal lands to the states would ensure that the radical left can’t ever get its hands on all of America’s wilderness.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]