NDAA - The Case of Private Rights Massacre

NDAA

The Case of Private Rights Massacre

Absurd and Suicidal Leadership

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            My friend Myles Culbertson remains a disgusted democrat.

            In discussions over the past several years, I must admit I have given him a tough time regarding his political affiliation. The basis for our friendship, however, is not predicated on absolutes. Rather, the allegiance to our families and our industry, Agriculture, gives us ample common ground. More often than not, we agree on the fundamentals of that bond. The sanctity of family and private property rights allows us to emerge from any debate to stand united. On that basis, our friendship endures.

            The matter of the idiocy of the pending National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), though, draws attention to the vacuum between Myles and the Republican Party. It came to light in a spontaneous remark.

“Every time I think about changing affiliation I am reminded of why I don’t,” he once said. “I look at a republican and ask myself why I would want to be one of those!”

More than a few of us have been asking ourselves … the same question.

NDAA

To the political skeptic yet the unbending Constitutional devotee, the measure to fund this nation’s defense should be limited to military operations. That would necessarily include a package of tanks, a submarine or two, a number of equipped combat teams, the allocation of corrupt gratuity for clandestine operatives, worldwide catastrophe reparations, electronic camouflaging technology, a new front sign for Ft. Bliss (in Spanish), paper for congressional committee presentations, the recruitment of superior coaching talent at the military academies, 7.62 brass, NightForce scopes, rules of engagement critics, a unit train of purple hearts, billet machined actions, F-18 biofuel overhaul kits, unisex caps, meager wages, cadavers without thumb prints, portable mosques, a warehouse of Starbucks coffee, 8,232,001 miscellaneous items, and toilet paper.

What actually came out of the Armed Services panels of both chambers was a package negotiated by those bastions of military nemeses, the leadership of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources and House Natural Resources committees. NDAA has been morphed into an omnibus bill that includes the noted .308 brass along with an environmental dream of immense proportions.

In a hypocritical announcement of bipartisanship, even Doc Hastings (R-WA) is proclaiming victory. “The agreement offers a balanced approach to public land management, providing opportunities for new job creation and energy and mineral production, while simultaneously protecting special areas”, he said.

 He said nothing, though, about whether the United States would be prepared to fight the next dozen world conflicts. Combine that with what others have divulged and this matter must worry us all.

To the hinterlands

We didn’t expect to face this fight on this front. We thought we could trust Representative Hastings and Senator Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member of Senate Armed Services Committee.

The problem is those of us in the hinterlands have come to know what the terms “balanced approach” and “protecting special places” actually imply. Those are code words signifying members within our ranks are going to get hosed.

We view overlaying this omnibus approach into a defense spending package as a cowardice leadership facade. To exploit the funding of military needs with a concession toward more wilderness, more agency regulations, and more restrictions on private property rights in the West is unconscionable.

There is no balance.

Tax payers are in line for 11 more national parks!

The nation is going to get gored with another 250,000 acres of wilderness for the meager offset to release 26,000 acres of wilderness study areas.

Arizona is going to be ceded the right to create jobs in the Resolution copper project on 2,000 acres of federal land by giving up 5,000 acres of private land in a state that needs more government land ownership like Washington needs more politicians.

Section 3023 of the bill is actually rewriting parts of the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), the act that promised the West certain usage rights of federal lands in a vacuum of private land ownership. In a first read through this monster bill, there is a suggestion that ‘looks’ will be overlaid into grazing permit renewal and transfer process. Does that mean that if somebody sells a permit it might wind up with zero value because the ‘look’ determines cattle numbers may be reduced or eliminated?

Martin Heinrich (D-NM) is one senator who seeks such federal grazing elimination. Moreover, he and Tom Udall (D-NM) are going to be rewarded in NDAA with the inclusion of another 45,000 acres of wilderness in northern New Mexico to go along with their 575,000 acres of federal, state, and private land national monument debacle in southern New Mexico that couldn’t pass legislatively on its own merit.

In fact, none of the 250,000 acres of wilderness involved has demonstrated worthiness or it would already be law. The more you read, the more you realize this is a continuing model of self-serving political exploitation on the backs of our military and the West.

That point is particularly illuminated when Paul Spitler of the Wilderness Society labels this whole package as a wilderness …“blockbuster”.

November results

Do Republicans understand the consequences of November?

Do they comprehend they were sanctioned to put their money where their mouth is with the demand to lead this nation out of an absurd and suicidal glide path toward destruction or do they think they got elected on their looks and tedious chatter?

The signs of sincerity and capability of doing what they promised in their campaign slogans and democratic lambasting are starting to appear curiously and hesitatingly tentative. What many of us have feared … the propensity for republicans to avoid conflict by annulling political advantages when actually placed in the leadership spotlight is already starting to be manifested.

When the news of NDAA hit the airwaves, our anger was immediate!

How dare this congress horse trade into another 1,648 page entanglement suggesting that it is a law of fairness and bipartisanship. The reality is we are embarking on another example of leadership tomfoolery that must be passed before we figure out what is in it and what the consequences will be to our freedoms.

In short, what the hell does a defense appropriation measure have to do with creating wilderness, rewriting the FLPMA, ostensibly streamlining oil and gas permitting, and nominating at least 67 additional provisions in a natural resources title of measures that should begin and end with munitions to kill our enemies?

This nation is in the throes of a systemic private rights massacre.

If NDAA is indeed a bipartisan victory, we can expect nothing new from this incoming republican congress. What we are witnessing is a continuation of citizenry sacrifice for a subversive environmental policy that has become an existential threat to the West, specifically, and to America’s economic base, in general.

If republicans waver and continue on this imbecilic path… their fate will be sealed in a similar November ambush.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “America has committed to a unilateral effort to create wilderness. This country is now feeling the affects of a policy that can only exist on the expansion of itself.”

First, I don't like the precedent of the House agreeing to land use legislation that hasn't even had a hearing in the House.

Second, I question the timing of this agreement.  Why not include the NDAA in the short-term CR and then negotiate these provisions when the Senate is controlled by the R's?

And third, this shows the R's are as guilty of package log-rolling on non-related legislation as the D's.  

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) released the following statement on the House passage of the NDAA:

“Voting against the NDAA today was a difficult decision for me,” said Congressman Steve Pearce.  “As a Vietnam veteran, I always look to support the military and their families. However, the NDAA does not fully meet the needs of our troops and grossly expands the federal footprint in the West.”  “As well as being a veteran, I am the co-chair of the Congressional Western Caucus. In this capacity I have a responsibility to protect and fight for the West.  Included within this NDAA is a massive lands package, added at the last minute of negotiations.  Creating nearly 250,000 new acres of wilderness that will greatly restrict multiple use on the lands, is simply unacceptable.  Already extremely disadvantaged by massive amounts of public lands, the West continues to be under attack by environmental and special interest groups that degrade the Western way of life.  In the past year, New Mexico has seen this first hand with the President designating a nearly 500,000-acre monument, the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. While the bill does include a small allocation for local governments through a payment system called Payments In Lieu Of Taxes (PILT), this does little to offset the dramatic damages this package will have to access and ranching in the West.”...