There's Gold in the Hills
5 comments
·June 19, 2025JKCalhoun
jandrewrogers
Maybe, but if so only in a misleading way.
Selling public lands has no bearing on the ability to prospect for and extract minerals like gold. You’ve always been able to do this on public lands. It is in law and has priority over most other land use rights.
There are other private land use rights which are adversely affected by adjacency to Federal land, which may motivate the legislation, it is a real problem. It doesn’t make any sense to sell off most public lands; the regions where this is an issue are relatively small and the legislation isn’t targeted in the slightest.
As an avid enjoyer of these wilderness areas, I find the legislation highly suspect. The given reason is obvious bullshit, and it isn’t narrowly targeted at regions with legitimate land use problems created by the current state.
Also, I know some of the areas covered very well. There seems to be some selectivity for public lands that would make a killer private resort. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. People would absolutely lose their minds if they realized some of the land opened up by the legislation. It doesn’t seem random.
sQL_inject
The rote narrative that somehow all the Native Americans were some peace-loving Earth shamans is factually incorrect.
>"stolen from the hands of the Native Americans who had stewarded them for millennia before colonialism in different forms devastated their tribes."
The Comanches, the most powerful tribe in the country, were brutal, vindictive, plundering murderers who took slaves and delighted in killing as a rite. They "stewarded" only by murderous foray 250,000 square miles. Read "Empire of the Summer Moon"
They had no concept of private property because their territory ended right where their massacres couldn't reach, not because of some transcendent and noble ideals.
anyonecancode
That's a bit of a catch-22 argument, isn't it? If a history of violence and conquest invalidates land claims, then the white settlers who violently settled North America have no legitimate right to this land, right? But if that history doesn't invalidate their land claims, then you can't really turn around and say that somehow Comanche land claims are illegitimate.
Or maybe you're arguing that there is no such thing as morality in land claims, and it's simply a matter of who is better able to kill and steal, and white settlers just were better at this?
sQL_inject
Does anyone have a right to land, except for that which is enforceable by the threat of violence? Why are they called Native Americans? Is all land simply owned by the first foot put there anywhere in the planet?
I'm not defending "white" settlers, or any settlers. My goal is to dispel the intellectually lazy myth this article leads with.
Is it not merely a coincidence this is on the front page at the same time that the U.S. is proposing to sell off its public lands to those with the deepest pockets?