by Barry Denton
View From the Backside
The Commies Are Coming
by Barry Denton
My neighbors just finished tripping some wild steers and tying them down Arizona cowboy style. Yes, they will go back and get the steers after they cool off.
Unlike the government cowboys who slaughtered the Bundy cattle in Nevada they will go back and take their steers home instead of burying them. The government must have hired some “REAL” cowboys to pull off that stunt.
Were you not impressed that the government tore up the livestock waters on the Bundy Ranch? What bravery they demonstrated. How does that help the wildlife that is still there when the cattle leave? Why don’t we hear from People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals in regard to Cliven Bundy’s slaughtered cattle?
Perhaps slaughtering Bundy’s cattle was the government’s way of saving the ozone from cattle emissions? We truly have a bunch of miseducated nuts running this country.
Have you noticed that the people that preach tolerance are often the most intolerant? Time and again the American cattle rancher gets attacked by its own government. The United States government resorts to gunships, armored cars, and highly armed officers to deal with a handful of cowboys who never hurt anyone?
Maybe it was caused by a senator’s greed? It was just a few years ago that ranchers worked with the government to advance conservation. The United States Forest Ranger was your friend and helper. However, things have changed and the government has declared war on cattle ranchers. Whoever thought that Americans would have to fear their own government?
It started about ten years ago around here. Our ranger of thirty years retired and was replaced with an arrogant twenty-five-year-old city slicker that knew nothing about grazing or cattle. One day he shows up and introduces himself as the new ranger. The first thing he informed us of were his suggestions on how we should manage our allotment. He wanted to switch our winter country with our summer country. I asked him if he was the stupidest person on earth and he actually thought he was pretty smart. We had only managed this allotment successfully for over sixty years.
Just to be clear the winter country has canyons, trees, and lots of oak brush so the cattle have shelter and feed in the winter. Our summer country was a big wide open grassy plain which responded well to spring rains with abundant forage. Since your ranger can only suggest crazy ideas and cannot force you to implement them we didn’t change. However, he came by about once a week with some new crazy scheme.
We had a natural spring that we maintained and it always had water when other places did not. Our ranger determined that the cattle were ruining the “riparian area”. I asked how he had determined that? He pointed to a cottonwood sapling near the spring and began his diatribe explaining that they count the broken branches on a sapling. If there were more than ten breaks then there were too many cattle in the riparian area.
He also pointed to all the tracks at the base of the sapling. First I asked him if he actually believed that counting branches on a sapling was an accurate way to determine there were too many cattle at the spring. He swore he really believed it.
I then asked him if he knew what a deer track looked like. He said he did and I called him a liar. With a puzzled look he asked me why I called him that. I explained that his riparian area was covered with deer tracks and that cattle had not been there in over four months. Needless to say, that did shut him up for awhile.
To make a long story short we did have a chance to sell the forest allotment so we did. We had other places to run our cattle without government interference. However, many others do not have that choice.
The other thing that always baffled me about running cattle on the forest service was their fake concern for the land and wildlife. They would try and control the rancher’s every move, but when ATV folks tore up your pasture it was of no concern to them. Vandalism of water tanks and wells was never taken seriously either. It’s funny how the government would forget that they had a lease agreement with you and thought you had no rights as well. They certainly convinced me that they are truly evil.
What can we do to fight this oppression of the rancher? I think voting in the right folks would be a start in turning it around, but what do we do in the meantime? I’ve never seen America in such a rut of government takeover of everything. Our freedom guaranteed by the United States Constitution is being eroded on a daily basis. Political correctness does nothing but impede free speech. Where are we going to end up? Let’s stand up for ourselves before it is too late. How did cattle ranchers, military veterans, and independent thinking citizens become enemies of the country they would die to support?