LMD Oct 2016

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Riding Herd

“The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”

by LEE PITTS

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

In De Fence October 15, 2016 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 58 • No. 10

Trojan Horses BY LEE PITTS

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NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

e laughed 30 years ago when the father/daughter team of Frank Popper and Deborah Popper argued in a widely circulated essay that the cattle business was unsustainable in the dry, dry West and that huge parts of the United States would eventually be turned into a Buffalo Commons where the shaggy bison would replace Angus, Herefords and all the rest. What a joke. We laughed so hard we cried. After a full frontal assault on the West by our slum-lord government and lawsuit-happy green groups, we’ve been outnumbered to the point one can hear the faint but growing eulogy of the West carried on dry Western winds. There are powerful forces at work to depopulate the rural West and the Poppers are looking more and more like prophets. Here lies the American West, charred to a crisp by senseless superfires and mismanaged to the point it would be unrecognizable to Lewis and Clark, Carson, Smith and Walker. We’ve seen this movie before. Only for the loggers the Trojan Horse was a spotted owl. Say what you want about clear cut forests, they served as fire breaks. Fires were not nearly this bad when foresters were allowed to log, thin, and clean up our forests.

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame. Then we started managing public lands according to the whims of whatever group yelled the loudest. The decisions weren’t being made by those who lived out here but by eastern politicians who wouldn’t condone such behavior if it happened in their neck of the woods. This West we love is being managed by lawyers instead of ranchers, D.C. bureaucrats and lobbyists instead of natives, and now the ashes have been spread all over the West. Literally. if this is the death of the rural West then the pall bearers are the wolf, spot-

ted owl, BLM, Forest Service, Endangered Species Act and the so called “wild horse.” History is repeating as we are witness to another “decline of Western civilization”. Only this time the Trojan Horse is, well, it’s a horse.

Ghost Towns When the feds and their brethren greenies target a segment of our society for relocation or removal they don’t do it in a direct, honest, straight forward fashion. They didn’t say loggers had to be eliminat-

ed because they were evil, it was to save an owl few really cared about. Where is the cry now that the spotted owls are being eliminated by another species of owls? The feds and progressives used phony arguments and lovable creatures to silence the chainsaws. Who would want to do away with wise old owls? And it worked! Did it ever? Many former logging towns in the great NorthWest now seem like ghost towns. So when the feds and the greens drew a big bullseye on the public lands rancher they didn’t target the cowboys, the symbol of the West and the personification of America in the minds of many. No, they are using the most lovable creature of all: the horse. Now the horses have multiplied beyond the West’s capacity to carry them. Meanwhile continued on page two

The Re-Empowerment of the States Amendment BY W. DAVID HEMINGWAY / FOR THE DESERET NEWS

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he federal government was created by 13 states joining together and ratifying the newly written Constitution. The framers of the Constitution were concerned that over time the federal government would usurp too much power over the states. For this reason, they included the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which reserves all powers for the states that are not delegated to the federal government. They also structured Congress so that the Senate was controlled by the states. This was accomplished by having two senators from each state elected by the Legislature of each state. In 1913, the 17th Amendment was ratified, which changed the election of senators from each state Legislature to the voters. During the past 103 years, the power and influence of the states have been greatly reduced. In 1787, there were three distinct divisions of government: the legislative, the executive and the judicial. During the past 229 years, Congress and the Supreme Court have allowed the executive branch to assume legislative and judicial powers in addition to its executive powers. These additional powers are used regularly. The executive branch uses legislative power when its departments and agencies issue

orders, regulations and letters of guidance. The executive branch uses judicial power when its departments and agencies issue administrative rulings that impose fines on those that have violated the regulations issued by the department or agency. It can be reasonably argued that the world is more complex than it was in 1787. It can also be argued that the specialized knowledge required to write and enforce regulations on complex issues is best housed in a department or agency that is charged with that responsibility. For the most part, dedicated government employees have carried out these tasks responsibly. Unfortunately, there are occasions on which these unelected government employees have taken great liberties when crafting regulations and guidance. It has become self-evident there should be a process in place that would put a check on the use of legislative and judicial power by the executive branch of the federal government. The three sentences of the Re-Empowerment of the States Amendment would provide that process. Upon ratification of this Amendment, any Presidential Executive Order, regulation, other regulatocontinued on page four

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’ve got the scars to prove that I’ve spent a good chunk of my life fixing and installing fence. Those fences could be sorted one of two ways: they were either defensive or offensive fences. The word “fence” is derived from the word “defense” and an example of a defensive fence is a ninewire electrified barbed wire fence with concertina wire on top. You’ll find such fences around maximum security prisons and in neighborhoods where a neighbor has Trichy bulls. A good example of an offensive fence is like the one I saw that was made out of old cars buried in the ground. It was offensive to the senses because all the neighbors got to see was the bottom of wrecks showing their mufflers and rusted undercarriage, while the owner of the fence got to see nicely painted hoods, fenders and roofs. Such barriers are known as “spite fences” because they were built to offend a neighbor who mistreated you in some fashion. The first fences in this country were of the zigzag split rail fence variety that were so crooked a hog could crawl through the fence and still be on the same side he started out on. We don’t see a plethora of these old fences any more because during the Civil War soldiers were allowed to take the top rail of someone’s split rail fence if they needed it for a fire. The next bunch of freezing soldiers who came along saw the same fence and took the top rail and... well, you get the picture. I wish I’d taken photos of all the funny fences I’ve seen in 40 years of traveling. It would have made a great coffee table book. I’ve seen everything from grow-yourown fences made from hedges, boysenberry bushes and poplar trees to fences made from crates and pallets. The latter won’t last near as long as the living fences when the termites stop holding hands. I remember one fence in west Texas that appeared to have been made from the contents of the house it surcontinued on page four

www.LeePittsbooks.com


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