The Point on Bundy v. BLM

Well, I said that the controversy of Clive Bundy versus the Bureau of Land Management was a left-right Rorschach test.  Thus we get commenter Russ noting to a previous post on the topic that Nevada’s state constitution:

… the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States…

And Ric Santurri commenting on Facebook:

The federal government steps in all the time in matters not enumerated in the constitution. Why is this one special? Because of the right wing drumbeat? How about the RI couple just charged by the feds for allegedly marketing cancer fighting supplements? Should we rally around them? Don’t they have a right to pursue their business interests without federal government interference, according to your 10th amendment argument?

These arguments miss the point in a practical way and in a profound way.  The practical way is the tautology of legality when somebody has a disagreement with the government.  If the government wants to go into the gambling business, it makes gambling legal.  If it wants to go into the recreational drug business, it makes drugs legal.  The fact that it has a paper trail of popular votes, legislation, and regulatory hearings doesn’t change the nature of the argument over whether government should be doing what it’s doing.

This brings us to the profound argument.  I responded to Ric by suggesting that specific actions are more a matter of feel than of hard rule.  The Bundy case is emblematic because it indicates that we’re crossing the line (or have crossed it) between the view that the government has to take certain steps in the national interest and the view that we only have whatever rights the government deigns to leave us.

As the government goes about the business of securing the legal justification for such actions as it has taken in Nevada, what do you suppose would be the effect of an ability to see the future?  In other words, at each step, from the Nevada constitution through to the BLM’s regulatory changes in the early ’90s, how would the result have differed if the people had been told that, “this change will ultimately provide for the government to use the pretense of a desert reptile to end your way of life”?  When it can take away your rights, the government will do so; when it can’t, it waits.

The difference between Bundy and the RI couple that Ric describes is instructive.  (I’m taking the RI couple as rhetorical, without opining on the actual details.)  In Bundy’s case, what he was doing was allowed, right up until the time that it wasn’t.  He, his neighbors, and his ancestors ultimately assented to this or that government policy with the understanding that there was no conflict with their livelihoods.  To resume the metaphor, they strolled out into the pastures of their rights only to turn around and discover that the government had been building fences behind them.

This is why the public must guard its rights jealously.  It is the wrath of the people that guarantees that the assurances with which laws are passed (“this only means that…” or “this is not intended to…”) will hold in the long run.

It is also why the public should be extremely wary of the expansion of government.  We’ve reached the point that our local, state, and federal governments have such massive resources and strength that there is no way for people to evaluate what it is they’re assenting to.  Too many laws and regulations are passing, and the government can spend too much time and money to obscure what new laws and regulations will actually do.  Rather than doing what it ought to be doing, by way of society and commerce, the private sector winds up having to invest in a parallel structure to follow the activities of government on an equally massive scale.

 

Beyond simply being impractical for the health of society, that necessity is simply impossible.  The end result is that the people on constant and disadvantaged defense against the government… which is the point.

Of course, this is the method of operation of progressives.  They lie about what their policies will do (and are intended to do), and then when the lie can no longer be denied, they claim that we’re better off for it and count on having enough boughten support from people who’ve come to rely on this or that program.

To wit: If you like your country, you can keep it.

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