No Tears for the End of the Antiquities Act (Opinion)

I don’t believe the urban hipsters and suburban media writers can ever understand the attachment westerners have to the land.

Many of the coastal bubble dwellers see our part of the country as a playground and the rest of us as stick figures who are supposed to serve them as they drive past the mountains.  We’re background.  Like the actors at some colonial park, we’re supposed to amuse.  I don’t think anyone today can understand the hardships endured by the people who struggled to earn a living in isolated and often desolate country.  If you’re a descendant of those early pioneers, the real monuments of the west are to their spirit and you honor it by maintaining a unique lifestyle.

It’s why the Antiquities Act and other government attempts to ruin your livelihood and wipe away your heritage are so incredibly offensive.  When it’s done by Presidential fiat, people have sometimes taken up firearms and occupied wildlife refuges.  Now, President Trump is striking a blow for liberty.  The Heritage Foundation has more on the end of an act that eventually became a good idea that transformed into an abuse-of-power.