Governor Perry: "Not A Dare, It's A Promise" Texas Will Defy BLM Land Grab

by JASmius

I don't know if this means that Governor Perry is ordering the Texas National Guard to the southern bank of the Red River, but he's definitely backing up Attorney-General and his gubernatorial successor Greg Abbott to the hilt on Texas's showdown with the BLM:

Texas Governor Rick Perry says his state's Attorney General Greg Abbott wasn't making a dare against the federal government over a land rights dispute; it was a promise.

"He is on the right side of this issue, not just for the people of the State of Texas, he's on the right side of this issue from the private property rights standpoint," Perry said Wednesday on Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto."

"I don't think Americans want to see another one of these exhibitions from the federal government of them coming in with armed troops over an issue that ought to be taken care of with a little common sense," Perry told guest host Stuart Varney.

The fact of the matter is that the feds have no claim to this 90,000 acre parcel of territory, but are opportunistically attempting to exploit a Texas-Oklahoma dispute while (they think) nobody is looking:

The action stems from a dispute between Texas and Oklahoma over the two states' common border. According to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Red River is the border between them, but as the river's course changes so does the border.

Numerous lawsuits between the states and the federal government have arisen over the years, and the BLM wants to solve the issue by federalizing the land, Texas officials say.

"We don't have a clue why their trying to claim it, what basis they have to claim it on," Abbott told Fox News.

But the BLM issued a statement saying it "is categorically not expanding federal holdings along the Red River," Fox News reported.

Abbott said if that is true he's happy, but he added that it contradicts other statements the BLM has made.

Of course it does.  I don't know why the BLM is denying that it's trying to steal those 90,000 acres, other than that pathetic prevarication is both Regime policy and written into its collectivist DNA.  The curious part is why they're presuming to just illegally take it by force.  Couldn't they (1) seek Texas's permission and (2) make generous offers for the land in question?  It's not like these people don't like to spend other people's money or give a tinker's damn about fiscal responsibility or debt incursion.  Simply make ranchers like Ken Aderholt offers they can't refuse without the mafia overtones.

And then you remember - ranchers like Clive Bundy don't necessarily "have a price," as some believe every man does, and won't sell all or a portion of their land for any price.  And the feds want the land.  So....they simply take it, law and Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 be damned.  But in this case Greg Abbott has sounded the alarm, so the BLM has beat a hasty, and temporary, retreat into dishonest denial, the same way that they called off the dogs at Casa Bundy when their Gestapo tactics there attracted too much attention.

But there, as on the Texas-Oklahoma border, they'll be back as soon as they think the coast is clear.  Which means it's the duty of Us, The People, to vigilantly make sure it never is.

Extending that vigilance to the voting booth would be nice, too, but there are only so many miracles to go around.