Rancher Panel
Albuquerque Insight-USA
The Tyranny we face
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
Tyranny is
defined in West’s Legal Dictionary as “Autocratic or despotic government”. In
our neck of federal dominion, the southwestern quadrant of New Mexico, that definition rules our lives.
Let’s pick
this apart. Autocratic is defined as arbitrary, strict, or absolute. Despotic
is tyrannical or oppressive. I’ll submit there is no other way to define the
circumstances we face.
In the
brief time we have, you will hear from New Mexicans who are attached to the land
in one way or another. Each is tied economically to the productivity of the land,
and each possesses an unfulfilled promise to be at the table when the federal
government comes riding into town disrupting local customs and cultures.
The Panelists
Laura
Schneberger is the president of Gila Livestock Growers Association. She and her
husband ranch in the Gila
National Forest.
Together, they represent the truly endangered American … federal land ranchers
of the Gila where cattle numbers measured as animal units months have plunged
87% since Aldo Leopold commandeered the concept of “Wilderness” from my
predecessors, the Shelley family of the Gila, in 1924.
The
campaign Mrs. Schneberger will discuss is the reintroduction of the Mexican
wolf to her front yard, her back pasture, and the lives of every child living
in that field of battle. She will remind the audience that in work done by the
Dr. Julia Martin Luce and presented to Congress 50% of the children interviewed
in the study show symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. Can you only
imagine the outrage the world would hear if a fraction of that number of
children in Harlem or Boulder or Anywhere, USA was
similarly clinically diagnosed from any program sanctioned and capitalized by
tax payer money?
Judy Keeler
is from Luna and Hidalgo
Counties. She and her
husband live and ranch in the Bootheel one of the most beautiful … and
dangerous places on earth. Not too far from their fence line, Rob Krentz was
killed. You will all remember Rancher Rob Krentz who was offering aid to what
he thought was an illegal in trouble. Rob died out in his pasture where he was
shot and left for dead by an unknown illegal intruder.
Mrs. Keeler
is a world authority on the bigger picture behind the expanding environmental
juggernaut … the Rewilding Project. She knows it is a plan engineered by folks
who have had powerful influences within our government. They intend to reduce
civilization to islands within grand transcontinental wildlife corridors … or
completely. Mrs. Keeler also knows a chapter of this grand plan is explicit in
the recent announcement by USFWS to establish an 838,232 acre first phase of a
jaguar introduction scheme. This chapter is about to unfold right in front of
us.
Horsemen
have elected to make their living shoeing or training horses. Mike Skidmore
determined long ago his path in the West was to manage the pasture rotation of
actual horsemen in God’s domain. He is a cowboy pastor with respect beyond his
flock in Sierra County. Pastor Skidmore knows as much
about forest travel management rules as he does about John: 3:16. He quotes statute and
scripture and he can do it with economy of words and common sense and that
everybody understands.
He created the model for the
defense of customs and culture in rallying citizens being put in jeopardy by
Forest Service actions. In his rally in 2011 objecting to agency actions of
closing historic roads, over 600 people showed up to support his effort. The
same tactic was used by New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce in defending
eastern New Mexicans against the unwarranted listing of the dunes sagebrush
lizard which threatened to decimate oil production in the Permian Basin.
Thousands thronged to that effort and they prevailed.
Alex Thal is another Gila National
Forest rancher. He is also a retired college
professor who found himself in a liberal world with little to no common belief
system in the ranks of his colleagues at Western New Mexico
University. That
university, from a historical perspective, will emerge as one of the most
influential facilitators of environmental doctrine in the West. It remains an
institution that has no market feedback to its mission and its doctrine, hence,
its world of uncontested theory has become its world of controvertible standards.
When I was told his economic
analysis done regarding the adverse economic impact to ranching in the Gila by
the Forest Service was a product of that university, I was incredulous. There
was simply no university history of such work done in the manner and in such
stark conclusions of the Thal research. When I was informed that indeed it was true,
but Dr. Thal had subsequently been subjected to attempts of professorship termination
it was not surprising.
Howard Hutchinson began life far
from the sunsets of western ranches. In fact, his early days were immersed in
the ‘other side’. Along the way, he met and became influenced by another
generation of Westerners who viewed their existence as being allowed and
sanctioned by our Constitution. The message from that stance was not just for
those folks, but to all Americans. It was a fundamental reality that spelled
either success or doom for our country.
Mr. Hutchinson emerged as being one
of the most knowledgeable advocates of fundamental rights in the West. He was a
founding member and heads the Coalition of AZ-NM Counties. The group is
dedicated to the adherence of constitutional principles and the battle against
the federal onslaught that threatens our existence.
Howard has long been and remains a
frequent witness to congressional committees. His understanding and insight
into the detail of federal legislation affecting the West is a vital resource.
He has earned the right to wear a rancher’s hat!
Walt Anderson looks and acts like
the New Mexico
pioneer his family, in fact, is. Each morning, he sees the same features his
grandfather saw in 1929 when the Andersons
settled on the banks of the Gila River in Grant County.
In 2011, the Andersons learned their ranch was going to be
impacted by the expansion of an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). Some
2250 acres of their private land along with part of their state and federal
lease land was going to be swept into the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) expansion.
Mr. Anderson knew his status as an
individual may be minimized, but he also knew local government has defined
rights within federal law. Walt is a board member of the Hidalgo Soil and Water
Conservation District, an elected body of local government. That body mobilized,
won the current discussion with facts, and illustrated to the world local government
can prevail in unexpected matters of federal land decisions and actions if the
body is diligent and focused.
Darr Shannon is a ranching steward
from Hidalgo County. She was raised on a ranch with
such water scarcity her father insisted on only weekly baths. Darr remembers
how she and her sister would sneak into the kitchen late at night and wash
their hair during their high school days. Peer pressure outweighed the ongoing
battle to pump enough water on the ranch.
Mrs. Shannon left home soon after
high school thinking there was much more to life than the ranch. She lived and
worked for years in places like Washington,
D.C. It was along the way she
learned the quality of life on the ranch far outweighed the heartaches. Today,
Darr and her husband are the owners of that same multigenerational family
ranch. She has a fuel service business and she is a member of her County Commission.
That commission is immensely dedicated to the preservation of local
governance. It has led an effort to
unite constitutional minded county governing bodies and they have formed the
Southwestern County Commission Alliance.
Joe Delk’s family arrived in Grant
County, New Mexico in 1878. One week ago, he buried his mother, Gertrude Twiss
Delk, on their family ranch under the Kneeling Nun at Santa Rita. Mrs. Delk, 87
at the time of death, had recently and matter-of-factly killed a rattlesnake
just off her porch the same way she would have done it 65 years ago.
Mr. Delk has become one of the new
era constitutionalists of the West. His vision of recognizing conservation
districts as the remaining outpost for direct contact with government to the
land may not be unique, but it is timely, counter current, and inspirational.
Joe’s foundational commitment to
the preservation of the offices of county sheriffs and the boards of natural
resource districts are looked upon by many as the remaining, primary strengths
available to the rural, resource dependent West. No longer can all county
commissions be relied upon to recognize and fulfill the basic leadership roles
for those people who have duties, responsibilities and investments on these
lands.
The Common theme
The West is the continued scene of
the grandest expropriation of constitutional promise in the history of the United States.
There is no way to argue the correctness of the inequality of federal dominion
of land ownership that exists here. Government owns over 60% of the land west
of the 100th Meridian
(excluding Hawaii)
as compared to less than 10% of those lands east of that demarcation. Pick any
measure of logic and attempt to defend the egregious prejudice explicit in the
outcome.
The cattle industry is migrating
eastward to private lands. Shattered local communities lie in the wake. The
timber business is migrating eastward to private lands. Shattered local
communities lie in the wake. The oil business is migrating to private lands,
period.
Farm land attrition in the absence
of residential growth alternatives has been accelerated in the western sea of
federal dominion. Infrastructure has become highest cost because of the
limitation of growth into safer and less cost alternatives of federal holdings
surrounding existing municipalities. Long term extractive industry strategies
are largely stagnant. Personal property tax bases are struggling.
Just to reach par with average
national student expenditures, the State of Utah believes its shortfall in educational
funding is now over $2 billion annually. The harvest of those funds is
predicated on tax sourcing that is strangled as a direct result of the federal
dominion of ownership.
These issues and the people on this
panel are the victims of the fourth Legion … the outgrowth of the land dominion
debacle … the new fourth pillar of government ... the environmental cartels.
That phenomenon is a direct result
of the fact that states don’t have vested representation in Congress. The 17th
Amendment to the Constitution altered the appointment of senatorial representation
from the authority of the state legislatures to the vote of the people. The
people already had their vested representation, and, moral conscience, in the
form of the House of Representatives. Every two years those folks have to dance
for reelection and that factor, as unappealing as it may be to those in
Congress, actually reinforces their accountability to their electorate.
In the Constitutional debate, the
smaller states were scared to death of the power accrued to the big states if a
majority vote across the board determined debate outcome. What they feared is
exactly what western states face today. The compromise was to establish a
branch of government that offered equality amongst the states in at least one
branch. The Senate was the mechanism to assure states rights.
The Constitution set forth the
result of the compromise through legislature appointed representation prior to
1913. With no direct state control since that time, the Senate has become, at
best, an indirect protector of such rights. Senators are not vested in the
welfare of the states they represent. Their allegiance has long been redirected
to the source of their reelection financing.
The best example is New Mexico
Senator Jeff Bingaman. There is no way Senator Bingaman would be espousing the
retirement of future productive returns of half of all federal land in my
county if he had to run the gauntlet of state of New Mexico legislator approval
… that is if the Constitutional promise of conveyance of lands to private and
state control had been followed like it was east of the 100th
Meridian.
If the state enjoyed the full benefits
of private property tax harvests, Jeff Bingaman would have been laughed off the
dais when he stood in front of the combined legislature and told them, in
exchange for his reappointment, he was going to eliminate future earning
streams off 400,000 acres of land he intends to retire in Dona Ana County for
his wilderness legacy!
The reality is New Mexico, like every other state, must
compete for senatorial representation for the purposes of protecting states
rights. The state must play second fiddle to a host of environmental special
interests who have found their champion in Senator Bingaman and his like minded
colleagues.
This condition has nearly brought
the resource dependent West to its knees. The new land rush, the wresting of
federal lands in the West to the environmental growth industries, is the
result.
If you don’t think this is a
lucrative business, think again. An IRS search for ‘conservancy’ organizations
totaled a net worth of $11.6 billion in fiscal year 2010. The big kid on the
block and in New Mexico,
The Nature Conservancy, had listed assets of $5.6 billion or more than two and
a half times the gross annual production of all New Mexico agricultural products.
The progressive interpretation of
the results is that more concern for mother earth begets more lands being
removed from human productive endeavors. The trend spirals further out of
control. More controls mean more individual battles just like those discussed
by this panel today. Change the names but the outcome is always the same. There
are fewer and fewer opportunities of self reliance. Initiative is suppressed.
Fewer quality opportunities exist to keep our children home, and the diabolical
premise of protection of mother earth becomes more entrenched.
Sovereignty is shredded, and … the
Constitution exists in name only.
Stephen
L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New
Mexico. “Look at these people … they are the true
endangered species of our landscape.”
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