The citizens of Connecticut, or New York, or
even Las Vegas itself don't know about it. They don't know, and would not believe, that an
obsequious bureaucrat acting in their name would sneer in disrespect for some remote
Western legislator, and put rebellion in his heart.
To them, the rebellion in the West is defined by
their finely-tuned media describing irrationally armed men and women dressed up like kids
playing at war. Dangerous, unpredictable people limited by their own ignorance and their
fantasies about what freedom should be.
But at least as much as people from Connecticut,
Westerners have served and sacrificed for their country, fought in the wars, campaigned
for civil rights, paid their taxes and taught their children with the same pride they
themselves feel in liberty.
America's problems with crime and drugs and the
economy and the environment are their problems too. The aspiration for peace and equal
opportunity has been as much a part of their dreams as of any American's. Far better than
most, they understand the heritage of public lands in the West.
Yet what sets them apart is a form of social
prejudice and bigotry that makes assumptions about their place in new age society and
presumes to tell them that their time has passed.
It's not just in rules and regulations like
those introduced by the BLM this year that seem to taunt and dare a
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confrontation. It's not just the arrogance with which
they are ignored by politicians who declare their lands and their livelihoods to be
expendable [insert graphic of Harry Reid].
It's an attitude, a contempt for even their
quiet objections. It's the federal government that has erected the 'Keep Out' sign on the
West, knowing and not caring what that will mean.
Gardner, the third-generation Ruby Valley
rancher whose personal dispute on grazing rights may reach the U.S. Supreme Court,
following a negative 9th Circuit Appeals Court ruling early this week, equates it to the
mid-century struggle for racial equality.
"People marched in the streets then, they
demonstrated in Washington," he reminds a Nevada legislative workshop meeting on
public lands. "This, too, is a civil rights question."
Aaron Russo, a noted Hollywood producer now
living in Nevada, declares, "I don't believe in cooperating with the federal
government. Come the year 2000, I have no idea what will be happening in this country. I'm
frightened."
Indelicately, he draws a comparison between
federal law enforcement attitudes and a heavily accented film cliché: "show me your
paperzz."
Constitutionalists like T. David Horton cite the
stances taken on behalf of private property and state's rights by such romantic historical
figures as |