The Providence Journal (R.I.), Jan. 15:
Out west in Oregon, ranchers and activists are playing out a grievance that’s been a century in the making.
In remote Harney County, Oregon, a jurisdiction larger than the state of Maryland, a group of out-of-state, self-styled constitutionalists have taken occupation of a federally owned wildlife refuge. They say they want to call attention to the heavy hand of the federal government, whose many regulations and cumbersome bureaucracy have made it challenging for ranchers to graze their cattle on federal land.
They have done so despite the lack of support from the people who live in Oregon, including the ranchers whose arson sentence they ostensibly came to protest. Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward, who said he shares the activists’ concerns about the direction of the country, said the interlopers should “go home, be with your own families and end this peacefully.”
Even sympathizers say they have been betrayed. They responded to a call for a rally of support, but were surprised and dismayed when a handful of activists splintered from the rally and headed for the refuge headquarters, 30 miles outside of the county seat of Burns.
On the eastern seaboard, it’s easy to forget how much land the federal government controls in the West. Federal agencies oversee more than half of Oregon’s territory and a higher percentage in the nearby states of Nevada, Idaho and Utah.
Those who run cattle in these states must pay fees for access to federal lands. It was Cliven Bundy’s refusal to pay overdue fees to the Bureau of Land Management that led to last year’s standoff at his Bunkerville, Nevada, ranch. The Feds backed down from a confrontation with Mr. Bundy and his supporters, emboldening those who now occupy the refuge in Oregon. Those occupiers include two of Mr. Bundy’s sons, Ammon and Ryan.
The ranchers have a legitimate beef with the government. Federal regulations are burdensome and the bureaucratic machinery grinds more slowly than it does on state or private lands. But ranchers do benefit from below-market grazing fees and expansive access to public land.
The occupation that has shut down the wildlife refuge, created in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect threatened birds and other species, is illegal and short-sighted. When activists on Monday cut a barbed wire fence that kept cattle off protected lands, they turned an armed but peaceful act of civil disobedience into a criminal attack on the public good.
Sheriff Ward was right: The activists should go home. By their posturing and lawbreaking, they have undermined their own cause, cost themselves support and made themselves ridiculous. It’s time to end this standoff before someone gets hurt.
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