This article is written by the same Fred Kelly Grant that has endorsed Steve Curtiss for commissioner of Lincoln County Montana here:
Message to Sheriff’s Meeting in Del Norte County
on July 14, 2012
July 14, 2012----------by Fred Kelly Grant
Many weeks ago I gladly accepted Sheriff Dean Wilson’s invitation to appear today at this event. I have the deepest respect for Sheriff Wilson, and for his wife Mary, both of whom work as hard as humanly possible to protect our God-given rights. Beyond price in dollars is their work in spreading the word about how local officials can step up the pace to regain the traditional American way of life that is eluding our children.
I respect just as deeply the Sheriffs appearing today: Mike Poindexter of Modoc, Dave Hencratt of Tehama, Mike Downey of Humboldt, Tom Allman of Mendocino, Jon Lopey of Siskiyou, and of course Gil Gilbertson of Oregon’s Josephine County. The (sic) have taken a giant step forward to defend the rights of their citizens---they have used the “coordination” authority granted them by federal and state laws to take a meaningful role in preventing usurpation of property rights by bureaucratic government agencies.
They recognize and put into practice the traditional constitutional authority of the office of Sheriff, the primary law enforcement officer with the responsibility of providing for the peace of the community. They take a proactive role in working for the economic stability of their communities and the citizens within: without economic health, there is insufficient revenue base to support necessary public safety and health services. So, they urge re-creation of the logging projects that support schools and other services necessary to care for the public health and safety. They take a proactive role in preventing the close (sic) down of the forests through travel management plans, knowing that public health and safety requires open travel. They take a proactive role in developing policy regarding the dams on the Klamath River because they know the adverse impact on the rural economy of destruction.
These Sheriffs have created a new ray of hope for citizens long oppressed by arbitrary agency actions. The agencies are required to respond and work with the Sheriffs by federal and state laws.
I back them fully, and hope that this meeting is a great success in gaining strength of support for them. I pledge to them that I will help them in every way that I can.
I am terribly upset that I had to break my commitment to Dean Wilson to attend this meeting. There is work that I am involved with to defend the coordination concept from a movement to create new legislation in Congress dealing with coordination and “cooperating agency” status. You all know the problems that “cooperating agency” status can get you into---some of our well meaning friends do not “get it”, and their efforts at legislation could afford the extremist environmentalists the opportunity to limit or extinguish the coordination mandate. The urgency of this issue prevents my being there. But, I am there in spirit, and I offer my most sincere apologies to Sheriff Wilson and to you all.
I have now retired from active daily coordination work; I have left in the capable hands of Trademark America the daily work that can help move along the efforts at regaining the rightful power of local governments. I will still be helping the Sheriffs in developing their concepts and implementing them. And, I will be looking for one BIG PROJECT THAT CAN CAUSE DC TO SHAKE. Nominations are open for that Project!
I want to tell you what I predict is going to happen over the next few months, and into the new year after the November elections.
We are in for an overwhelming onslaught of new and more severe regulations. Right now, and until November, you can expect to see concession after concession to extremist environmental groups and causes. The Secretary of Interior withdrew lands from uranium mining exploration in northern Arizona. He did this as concession to Bruce Babbitt and his environmental friends at the Grand Canyon Conservancy, as a long promised blow to uranium mining. The lands withdrawn contain the source for 40 percent of all the domestic uranium we use to support nuclear energy plants in the nation. The action will cause BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in economic losses to eight counties in northern Arizona and southern Utah. This action was take EVEN THOUGH PROOF PROVIDED BY THE SECRETARY’S OWN PERSONNEL SHOW THAT THERE IS (sic) AND NEVER HAS BEEN CONTAMINATION OF THE WATER BY THE URANIUM MINING.
I am convinced that had it not been for the coordination efforts by Siskiyou County, the Secretary would have made his decision to move ahead with destruction of the dams on the Klamath River.
The Forest Service has engaged in close-downs of roads and trails in every forest in the country. Only the actions of sheriffs and county officials through the coordination process have prevented complete shut-downs.
The BLM and Forest Service have combined to begin planning for the protection of the Sage Grouse on a regional basis, to prevent particular counties from using their coordination authority to protect against an end or limitation to livestock grazing.
The owl habitat plans for northern California and the northwest will do away with what logging is left.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers is simply waiting for the appropriate time to release and enforce their “Clean Water” regulation that will implement the failed Clean Water Act Restoration. The regulation will extend federal control to every body of water in the United States, including “dry desert potholes”, and every piece of land that adjoins, is near, or is affected by any body of water----do you get that? The federal government will control every parcel of land in the United States and subject it to Corps of Engineers permitting.
The Environmental Protection Agency is waiting to release its dust control regulation----that will make it impossible for every dry land farmer in the nation to continue in operation. Agricultural experts tell us that there is no possible way to comply with the regulation throughout the great middle western and high plains farming states.
The Environmental Protection Agency is waiting to release its boiler control regulations---that will make it impossible for any steam boiler manufacturer to warrant that its product will meet the regulation. The regulation will kill the manufacturing and production companies that are left. The regulation was slated for release earlier, but President Obama ordered it retracted “for the time being”. Don’t you imagine that the day after the November results are final will end “the time being”, and the regulation will be issued?
Down through the lines we could go-----with each regulatory agency that can harm our western, rural economies-----no, not “harm”, “destroy”.
If President Obama wins the election, the regulations can roll out, free from the worry by the administration of political fall-out (sic); if he loses, the regulations will roll out quickly over the next two months before the new administration takes office.
I believe that the two months between early November and mid-January may be the most crucial two months in our history; personal liberty and private property rights are in dire jeopardy.
Congress can’t stop it, even if there was a will to do so. Congress is broken!!! The grid-lock is pathetic. And some congressmen are even suggesting that the Founders intended for gridlock to occur. How ridiculous to believe that those brave Americans risked their lives and freedom for gridlock!!! I still maintain that every person elected to Congress should have to pass a test showing that they understood every provision of the Constitution, and the history of the Constitutional convention that led to the final document. I believe if that test were given today, we would see a massive exodus from the Capital.
Fortunately for you folks, you have the prospect of a new Congressman in Doug LaMalpha (sic) who does understand, who “gets it”. And you have the incumbent Congressman Tom McClintock who stands firm with your local officials in their efforts to intervene for your property rights.
The real problem with America today is the massive overgrowth of the bureaucracy. Just as an overgrown forest is unhealthy, an overgrowth of bureaucratic regulatory restrictions renders liberty unhealthy. Our Founders did not provide a government to be run by bureaucrats. I have a tee shirt that says “The current government is what our founding fathers tried to prevent”. When I wear it, I get favorable comments no matter where I am. America is hungry for relief from bureaucracy.
Now, you all have heard the problems---you have heard the sad news of ever creeping nationalism. What is the solution? You know what it is. It is to have your local governments stand up to the federal and state bureaucrats, take their rightful place in the development of policy and management of their natural resources, and make the Tenth Amendment’s provisions LIVE AGAIN.
My 76 years, my fifty years in the practice of law----working for, with and against the federal government---have convinced me of several premises: there is no longer any hope that Congress will change course, no matter which party controls---Congress is broken;
There is no longer any hope that the executive administration agencies will change course, no matter which party controls the White House----the change from Clinton to Bush didn’t help, because the bureaucrats protected by civil service are entrenched and their livelihoods depend on continued dominance;
There is no longer any hope that the Supreme Court will change course, no matter whether conservatives have the 5-4 edge----too much precedence has been set for the Court to completely enforce Tenth Amendment authority;
There is no longer any hope that state governments will change course, no matter who controls the statehouses----they have become too dependent on federal money with entangling strings, and they have become too dominated by metropolitan urban areas (an example being the redistricting program in California controlled by southern California cities).
But there is hope at the local government level. There is hope as long as local Sheriffs and Supervisors and small towns and service districts and even non-governmental organizations support agricultural and natural resource economies will step forward and exercise the authority granted them by the Tenth Amendment and by federal and state statutes which provide the “coordination” power.
I urge all of you to follow the words of Sir Winston Churchill to Englanders in the darkest hours of the blitzkrieg in 1941:
“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”.
Support your Sheriffs and supervisors and all local officials who are willing to follow these words----who are willing to stand tall against overwhelming force of a huge federal and state regulatory onslaught.
The only way we can lose our God-given, constitution re-enforced, rights is by giving in, by giving up!! The Sheriffs who are here today have not given in, they have no intention of giving in. Stand with them. Support them. Your children and grandchildren depend on you to preserve for them the American way of life that you knew as children. Don’t let them down.
Say to the bureaucrats, again, what President Kennedy said just three years prior to assassination:
“We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”
As you move forward with the Sheriffs, through your tea party organizations, your central committee activities, your service clubs, your school and church organizations, and as individuals keep in mind the admonition to us all by John Fitzgerald Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Do this for your country: Step up as Americans with your Sheriffs to say to the bureaucratic powers: “We will not be intimidated, we will take back the America that we knew and loved.”
God Bless all of you. God Bless these proactive Sheriffs. God Bess America.
