Letters

From the October 1995 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Mr. Hess's observation that the economics of the "urban West" does not share common values with the rural West is true. But these urbanites are new migrants from cities and rarely step outside the metropolitan areas. They reflect the views of the areas from which they come, and do not know the issues involved.
Richard V. Wyman, Ph.D., P.E.
Boulder City, NV

Karl Hess Jr. responds: It never fails to amaze me the lengths that people will go to justify state power and, in particular, state power that benefits them. Many stockmen are proud men and women of unshakable integrity whose ethic is one of self-help and self-rule. To them I say hurrah and more power to youall power over your own lives, in fact. Unfortunately, not all ranchers are so noble.

The posse from Esmeralda accuses me of inconsistency and suggests that I have a dark and sinister agenda. They say there is a contradiction in my logichow could ranchers be taking subsi dies and resisting the federal government at the same time? Easy. The West has been doing it for years. The line is this: Send the check but get out of my way. Maybe the Esmeralda desperadoes are the biggest fools of all to think that Nevada ranchers can be the biggest recipients of emergency feed relief in the West and still escape the long arm of Uncle Sam.

Wayne Hage's argument is a bit more sophisticated. I am pleased that he agrees on the misdi rection of the Sagebrush Rebellion, and I wholeheartedly concur in his displeasure with Congress. But a conspiracy flowing from bankers, international creditors, and the Federal Reserve? Wayne, one doesn't need a conspiracy theory to debunk government. One just needs common sense. The truth is that the West's undoing has nothing to do with collateralized debt. Its downfall is that it sold its soul for a handful of greenbacks and a promise of federal protection. The fact is that the American tax payer has bankrolled the grazing rights you claim as private property over and over again through billions of dollars of range improvement investments. Taxpayers, not ranchers, are the real victims of government.

Now for a quick breath of fresh air. Yes, Mr. Bradley, you are right. Injustice is the middle name of the public-land West. I couldn't be in further agreement. I recently wrote and will write a second book soon on the National Park Serviceand the fact that it is one of the cherry subsidies of the upper-middle class in America. Also, I never hold back on my green friends. Subsidies are subsidies, and even the very best of causes is no excuse for government. What gets me mad is that ranchers should know this.

Back to the battle. Marvin Chastain suggests that I am painting a false picture of the county government movement and the people involved with it. Although smaller is better in my book, there is no evidence that county government is superior to federal government. The best one can say is that it is easier to changeand easier to escape from. My gripe with the Western county movement is that its entire agenda is about making government more important in people's lives. Instead of looking to free markets and free minds for social order and political liberty, it hides under the skirt of the miniaturized leviathan of county managers and county commissioners.

Mr. Reading of my home state and Mr. Wyman of Nevada raise an interesting question: Who are the true Westerners? They cavalierly dismiss the urbanites and refugees from California and the
East, though each and every one of those refugees paid fair market value for the land and homes they own. Messrs. Reading and Wyman also imply that environmentalists who pay hard cash for ranches and then use them for preservation are non-Westernersinvaders that rank with desert millipedes and scorpions. Well, what does this say about real Westerners among whom Messrs. Reading and Wyman count themselves? Real Westerners, of course, took their land by force from Native Ameri cans, they taxed the rest of the nation for dams and highways, and then they fattened themselves on a cornucopia of federal cost-subsidies. Lest we forget, most real Westerners also came out West as refugees from the Eastand some as refugees from the gold fields in California. I guess a real Westerner is someone who takes what he or she damn well pleases, and leaves the bill for the rest of us to pay. Yes, Mr. Reading and Mr. Wyman, the West you speak of is indeed doomed, but not for the reasons that destroyed the American Indian. Native Americans and their culture died proudly on the battlefield fighting federal intrusion; real Westerners, I fear, will simply perish in their mad stampede to see which one of them can get the most from the Great White Father in Washington.

This brings me to my final comment. Mr. Ludlow is absolutely correct. Twelve hundred miles puts Nye County smack in the ocean. I guess it was just wishful thinkingor maybe it was doing Nye County a favor. That far out in the Pacific, the county and its ranching rebels might be able to both establish their sovereignty and still get their entitlement checksthough this time through the U.S. State Department. And yes, distances I suppose are not so important to those in the great be yond. But as my father died and I looked out his hospital window to the dot that was Jefferson's Monticello on the hill above I could not help but think of the great distance that lay between Charlottesville and the West and the even greater distance that now separated the sage's dreams and sagebrush nightmare of a federalized West. I suppose I got confused by the latter.

Comments

nfl jerseys|11.17.10 @ 12:08AM|#

ntrhd

دردشة زين العراق|1.26.12 @ 5:42AM|#

http://www.zain1.com/vb
http://www.iraq-7b.com