Hacker News Reader

Comment by sverige | Hacker News Reader

So, no more input than someone living 1500 miles away, when the rancher lives right next to it and have longstanding usage rights there, in many cases? Maybe they should get to have a say in how Central Park or Golden Gate Park are managed. Maybe wolves should be reintroduced to those habitats, for example.

View on HN

I never advocated for reintroduction, but I don't think ranchers should be able to do what they please. Why does it matter how long someone has been using a public good? I don't think it should.

Seniority and precedent are legal concepts from English common law. None of us alive had a say in that, but it is the way things work. Private property is a cherished concept in the US (and, especially, the western US).

Indeed, even the right to walk across private property on an established path is an ancient concept in common law. Plus, the American idea was always that the people owned all rights unless explicitly given to the government, which is quite different than the old monarchical idea that rights belonged to the king unless explicitly granted to the people. That idea has been eroded considerably in the last 100 years.

This isn't an argument over private property, though. Bringing that up clouds your argument.

Lands are either public or private. The definition of the two and the basis of the attendant rights matters, since inability to agree on those things means no agreement on derivative matters can be reached and therefore further discussion is pointless. Not a popular position on internet forums, I readily concede.

Ranchers are free to buy their own grazing land have their own rules there. On the federal land, the fed makes the rules.

Right. The current rules of the BLM are that they are to lease these lands for grazing and/or energy exploration.

Actually, they are open lands. Even if someone has grazing rights, anyone can go and camp on them, etc.

The point stands. If ranchers feel they are being treated unfairly, they can buy their own land.

They cannot buy their own land if the government has already seized all the suitable land in their area and declared it to be public.

It was public before anyone ever moved there. It wasn't "seized." (Seized from whom, btw? Native Americans?)

Ranchers get amazing subsidies from the federal government. If the government auctioned grazing rights like they did other public resources, there would be a lot less complaints. Someone who didn't mind the rules would just outbid the ones that did.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com