I’ve seen quite a few friends flipping out over this news:
Now that Republicans have quietly drawn a path to give away much of Americans’ public land, US representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah has introduced what the Wilderness Society is calling “step two” in the GOP’s plan to offload federal property.
The new piece of legislation would direct the interior secretary to immediately sell off an area of public land the size of Connecticut. In a press release for House Bill 621, Chaffetz, a Tea Party Republican, claimed that the 3.3m acres of national land, maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), served “no purpose for taxpayers”.
What amuses me isn’t the face that I have friends flipping out over this, it’s that they believe the government has any right to the land in the first place.
The State, being an illegitimate organization, cannot legitimately own anything. Yet it claims ownership over a great deal of land in the Western United States. Now it believes it has the right to sell that unowned land. And for some reason people are not only happy to play along with this charade but they’re upset that the State is planning to sell the land because they want it to remain in the State’s hands!
This is why I don’t give a shit about politics. Politics isn’t an act of legitimate parties trying to resolve disputes. It’s an act of two sides arguing over things neither of them have any right to involve themselves with in the first place. This issue is a prime example. Two sides are arguing over whether or not the State should sell a particular chunk of land. One side says it should sell the land and the other side says it should keep the land. But neither side has any right to decide what should be done with the land because they don’t own it.
In order to involve yourself in the political process you must first accept falsities. Why waste time arguing over falsities?
You’re right: the government never should have claimed ownership of this parcel of land, or any other.
On the other hand, given that title DOES reside with the government, unless past rightful owners or their descendants can be found (in which case the land should be returned to them), SOMEONE has to accept payment for sale. It might as well be the State, I think, as long as the proceeds are required to pay off part of the obscenely huge national debt.