Whose Stealing Public Lands

I actually wrote my congressman about this issue, and got a response back to the effect of "we don't care what people think, we're going to sell the public land off anyway". Needless to say, I'm not voting for that guy. Teddy Roosevelt is turning in his grave at these jokers...

On the positive side, the DNR recently took possession of a property in Cass county, giving the public real nice access to Lake Cicott. Lake Cicott is allegedly the furthest south, natural glacier made lake?

They put in a real nice boat ramp and parking, cleaned up a bunch of junk, etc.

This subject will tick some off. Some of the land was taken and or not given a fair price for the land over the decades. That land should be given back to the rightful owners. I don't believe there should be any federal land and all should be states owned land. Now it's up to the people of each state to decide on the land. The government does not have the right to own land per the Constitution!

Constitution bars the federal government from exercising legislative jurisdiction over any land, within the States, unless it first obtains permission from the legislature of that State. The States can terminate the permissions if desired.

I politely disagree...the states have NEVER had ownership rights of all the land within their borders. It was given to them by the federal government the ground they do have under their jurisdicition.

If you give the federal lands over to the states you are wiping any chance of our grandchildren having the chance to go explore the vast amount of protected lands we currently ALL own and have the right to. I personally feel any hunter, fisherman, hiker, bird watcher, camper, nature lover should 100% support the protection and preservation of these federal lands.

States have proven when given the chance they cannot financially take on these properties and sell them off and instead of them being available for ALL they are turned over, chopped up and sold off to only the wealthy. A small window financial bandaid for the state to get money but a long term detrimate to the preservation of wildlife and the habitat so many animals rely on and people utilize.

Federal Lands are one of the very very few things I do feel our federal government is the appropriate entity to protect and preserve and operate them. Any one else is in the end destroying public land owned by ALL of us.

Let's get real...it doesn't cost a DIME for government (state or federal) to have public land! It just sits there. It doesn't need fed, watered, mowed, or anything else just to exist. The whole budget excuse is BS

Yup, and that money is pulled unlike other natural disaster things right directly from the wildlife budget...sometimes eating up over 50% of the total budget the department has.

I'm just stating the Constitution of the United States.

When this provision was under consideration, a member of the Constitutional Convention asserted "that this power might be made use of to enslave any particular state by buying up its territory, and that the strongholds proposed would be a means of awing the state into an undue obedience to the general government." In response, a motion was made to "insert, after the word 'purchased,' the words, 'by the consent of the legislature of the state.' This change, as asserted by the delegate who proposed it, "would certainly make the power safe. This provision, with the consent provision added, became Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution for the United States.

Note: This clause 17 and the Property Claus is still in debate as of today. Just a little history of this country, nothing else.

I'm torn on this issue.

I'll agree I don't like the practice of the individual states selling off large swaths of "hunt-able" public land to private individuals. However, my fear is the fact that we are faced with the prospect of an ever-growing federal government who likes to make their own policy in Washington D.C., which sometimes goes against the will of the local people. And I don't think it is a stretch to imagine a future where one day you could wake up and find ALL hunting will be banned on all federally owned properties, regardless of what and where they are; because of the feelings of a select few politicians who don't agree with the sport.

Just remember that with Federally owned land, there are people that live far away from you who may have never set foot in your state that are making the rules for that property within your state. Is this really in your best interest?

In my opinion, if people don't want their state to sell off properties it owns, then they need to make their voices heard and take a more active role in their state's politics. It is much easier for local people to do that on a state level than it is for them to do it on a national level.

Look no further than Williams Dam state property. They couldn't manage to even mow the grass on property they have owned and operated over 50 years. The state government's solution was to tear down and destroy a $100,000 house and close the camp ground. Now it's a weed patch. A weed patch you own but you can't even mow out a spot for yourself and park or camp on it.