By Garth Bricker, Museum Curator
Back
up two years.You have the opportunity
to tell the Congress again what you think of H.R. 701 or the taking of
money from off shore oil drilling royalties to bypass the Congress and
buy private land to make more government land and force people off their
land through condemnation.Many in
government don't like hunting and fishing so these lands will be targets.Can
you imagine the government owning more of Nevada?It
already owns nearly- 90 percent of it now and 70 percent of other western
states and half of California.It
can't keep up with what it has already and they want to get more land,
which will make the problem of upkeep of the national parks and monuments
even more difficult.
Money
will have to be siphoned off from the parks and monuments to pay for all
the new employees to run the new land.The
more land the government gets the bigger it gets and the more land it gets
the more it can tell the people where to go.This
is happening now in
Oct. 2001. If you want to read more just e-mail me and ask.
There
are listed about 21 ways this will impact the freedoms we enjoy like getting
to where you want to go when the government blocks off the new government
land and denies access to the new roadless lands.The
last president established this roadless policy just as he left office
and the government already has established rules to some of its new lands
that exclude people.
Buying
up private land is now a policy for local, state and federal jurisdictions
as you probably have noticed in the papers, to save the land for this and
that habitat.You will be hearing
more about condemnation of private land.All
this land goes off the tax rolls.I
have the feeling that private owners have a stronger feeling about keeping
their land in good shape than a person paid to oversee the land but has
no ownership incentive, making a big difference in how you treat something.
This country
was and is built on private ownership of land and to change it to public
ownership is a distortion of why our country was founded and has done so
well.Hey, I'm not just sounding
off for nothing.My love of mineral
collecting is at stake here.All
the government bodies are closing off land at a tremendous rate.Read
about it and then call someone in charge in Washington. gbricker@sd.znet.com.
The
latest thing that came to my attention on Oct. 17th is the New Fossil Bill
being sent to Congress next week.This
might be too late for anyone to do any thing.I
read the Bill and it has a long and lengthy section on how the government
is going to do things to you if it catches you with a fossil from government
land.They will fine you, jail you,
confiscate your whole collection and give it to the proper government t
repository.It goes into great detail
about how this is to be done.These
are the conservationists and ecologist writing this.This
is their usual language, "We'll fix you guys, we'll keep everyone off our
land." I have the Bill on my computer and it can be passed to your computer.
THE
BONES ARE GOING TO ROT IN A FEW YEARS IF NO BODY GOES OUT AND PICKS
THEM UP.There isn't enough money
for the universities to do the job.Rot,
decay, fall apart is the sensible answer?Where
has all the intelligence gone?You
are the only ones that can stop this.Go
back and re-read John Frey's article on the same sort of subject.See
1f there isn't a pattern here.
Lithosphere,
Vol. IX, Num. 9
November
2001
Fallbrook
Gem and Mineral Society
Garth Bricker on Land
Rights.
Museum Curator
The people of the United States will lose if the extreme environmentalists and their numerous like minded friends in Congress and animal rights activists keep on succeeding in getting land removed from general use and multi-purpose use, and having it put into special categories such as; wilderness, no roads, only for turtles, no fishing, no hunting, only for owls, only for goverrunent and university paleontologists to dig fossils, kangaroo rats, and special toads in Southern California. It was originally no picking up rocks, minerals, or fossils of any kind.
These enthusiasts back up their Bills with very specific language about what will happen to you or your kids if you do pick up anything off the ground on federal land – heavy handed punishment. All of the above and more are on the books as laws, or are being pushed to be passed or have been defeated by people that will lose the most. People like you if the environmentalists keep winning.
A self proclaimed conservative Republican Senator from Idaho, Mike Crapo, with his liberal Democrats, has introduced a Bill in the Senate, S 990, to give the government three (3) billion dollars over five years. This is to buy up PRIVATE land for the government, and give conservationists millions to go to court against landowners whose land they want to go to the government. This Bill is called the CONDEMNATION AND RELOCATION ACT by some people. There is much recorded history on this over the Internet.
The S 990 Bill gives the government the right to CONDEMN any property they feel they NEED. From your own experience, can you imagine the power the government will have to make people do what they want them to do or else. The money will come from off shore oil drilling. Instead of going to education, the courts, the military, to roads, parks, and the thousands of things the government does from the general fund of the United States. The money will go to the government to buy up private land to make parks even bigger (which they can't afford to keep up now), and kick people off their land. The backcountry then dies for lack of tax flmds to keep the school, courts, and stores running.
Another great hazard to people is the shutting off of the new government land to roads. Keeping people from getting to where they have to go, and do all the important things people have to do to survive.
This is not a political article but
a statement about freedom,
and the direction of our future proposed
by a set of very determined people to get their way into law. The
down side of these proposed laws is that have a very direct effect on those
of us who corect rocks, minerals and fossils on public lands.
You have a say and you are the only people who can make a difference.
Check these ideas out on the Internet; ask for government publications from the Forestry and the Bureau of Land Management, etc.
Listen to John Frey, our California Gems and Minerals Organization representative, or your own state representative for those that get this from other states.
Contact Senator Crapo, 304 North Eighth St., Room 338, ID 83702. Fax 208-334-1776, tel. 208-334-9044. American Land Rights Association, P.O. Box 400, Battle Ground, WA 98604, mailto:alra@landrights.org http://www.landrights.org There more land rights organizations on the Internet because tiftis is Freedom in Action and you make the action happen.
Fallbrook Gem and Mineral Society
Lithosphere – Vol. X, Number
2, February 2002, Page 5