Oh man, this is gonna be big! Saw it on Wingnut friend's FB page

[sofa king]

57. I feel the need to point out...

...That the main reason why that land is still federal is because when the U.S. tried to give it to the states in 1932, the states complained that the land was overgrazed and would be a financial burden to them.

Therefore we the people paid to keep that grazing land available and free to the ranchers, who in turn environmentally wrecked it through continued overgrazing.

That effectively selected out state and local entities from owning or being permitted to manage the land--because they fucked it up in the first place, refused to pay for fucking it up, and pinned the bill for it on you and me.

Therefore in 1976, the US declared that all public land is kept in perpetual trust for the people by the US federal government. Because nobody else took care of that land, ever, from the moment the US stole it from the Indians.

Well now it's our fucking land. We paid for it multiple times over, paid to refurbish it more than once, and will pay again once these yahoos have wrecked it again and moved on to some other place where they can parasitically milk the government. They can wave their rifles and shout about "freedom," but what this is really about is their right to rip the rest of us off by fucking up our public land.