State Of The State? Deranged.

I didn't watch the Gov's state of the state speech last night.  The Redwings were on.  But I read about it in the paper this morning.  It was about what I expected.

The Gov was ranting and raving about state sovereignty, and how oppressive the Federal Government is.  While touting his ability to get millions of dollars in Federal aid because of flooding last spring.

Damn those oppressive Feds!  Where's my check?

Hey, Gary Herbert!  You can't have it both ways.  Either you hate the Federal Government, and all that it stands for, so you can appeal to the nut balls, and teabaggers from Utah County that dominate your party, or want the Feds to give you money to fix stuff you can't afford to fix.  And that would make you, what?  A Democrat, maybe?  God forbid.

All you, Sportsmen out there (yes, I'm talking to YOU, Carter!)?  You are SO lucky that 70% of the land in this state belongs to the Federal Government, you have no idea.  You can hunt and fish it all you like (with the exceptions of the National Parks, and I will assume that no matter WHAT your political persuasion, you are glad we have a National Park System) and you don't need to get someones permission, or buy a huge hunk of land as a club, and pay dues to use it.

I'm from West Virginia.  Very little of that state is owned by the Fed's.  So most of it has been sold to private land owners.  My family's land there was given to us by George Washington, for helping him survey, Patterson's Creek in what was then, Hamilton County, Virginia.  It's now, Mineral County, West Virginia.

But that was about enough land for a homestead.  If we ever owned a whole lot of land there, we don't now.

So what this has done is make it so that you have to belong to a club to hunt or fish.  My dad, when we lived there, belonged to, "The Keyser Rod And Gun Club".  He had to pay dues, and carry a card showing he was up to date on his dues when he wanted to hunt or fish on that land.

The only other alternative, is to go find the guy who owns the land you would like to hunt or fish, and get written permission to do so from them.  And you must keep that paper on you while you're hunting.  Because if you run into a game warden, while hunting private land, and do not have that?  You're going to jail.  The game wardens are there to protect the game, but also to look out for the land owners.

The last time I went hunting with him back there, he still knew some folks in the Burlington area, who let him have permission to hunt their mountain, or we would have been shit out of luck.

Keep in mind, the land owner can say, "no".

So, out here in tyrannically, Federally owned, Utah, you can pretty much hunt and fish where the hell ever you want, with no added fees but your Utah STATE hunting or fishing license, and it's OK.  You don't need to go find out who owns that mountain, and get him to give you permission to hunt on it.

If guys like Gary Herbert get their way?  Good luck getting, Exxon-Mobile to let you hunt on their oil claim.  They paid for it, and they don't have to let you on it, and they don't want the liability or the hassle, so the answer is always, and for ever, "NO!"

You think it hasn't happened in this state?  Try to go to the ghost town of, Mercur, in Tooele County.  For guys my age, that was a great place to go when we were in high school and college to see the old building, shoot, Jack Rabbits, and a lot of other stuff, moving or not.  The old cemetery was real interesting.  It was a great place to see some of Utah's mining history.

Now? Not so much.

Years ago, when the kids were much younger, I took them out to the old Pony Express Trail to give them a little history lesson.  And since Mercur is just a little north of there, I thought I'd go show them a ghost town.  As we're going up the old dirt road, I see a guard shack and a fence!  WTF?  I pull up and a nice man wearing a revolver, and a Security Guard badge, politely informs me that a mining company has, "bought", Mercur.  And no, we can't go in, and even though the old cemetery up the hill is outside the fence, they own that too, and we can't go up there.

Welcome to unrestrained, unchecked, Utah STATE controlled ownership of the land.  And this is what you will get if the Fed's are pushed out, and the Utah Republicans get control.  Try to hunt Elk on THIS side of the mountains, who's name I can never remember how to spell, that Kennecott Copper owns.  Ain't going to happen.

So Utahn's, I'm goning to get all, "Bill Maher" on your ass:  NEW RULE:  You can't have it both ways!  You can't complain about the oppressive Federal Government who won't let you do what you want to do, even if it's unconstitutional and crazy, while still asking for Federal hand outs when you get into trouble!

You have to make a choice.  Succeed from the Union if you think you have enough guns to take on the military, and do what ever you want.  Or give back the check.  Because if you keep the check?  You have to play by the rules.  Even if you don't like them.  They are called, "The Constitution".