curmugeon | Moochers

Ranchers, you know, like that lovable old curmudgeon Cliven Bundy and his boys. They are down to earth god fearing men. They raise their cattle on public land. They profit from the taxpayer by paying a pittance for grazing rights. Their cows ruin water holes by walking into them turning them to mud holes. Wildlife die of thirst as a result. The cows eat the good plants and allow invasive species like tamarisk to take over. No, the ranchers lay waste to the land then bitch and moan when the BLM tells them they can't. Then there are the miners. They extract the minerals and leave the slag heaps and open shafts behind after they profit. Yeah, the state sometimes regulates them. Occasionally one of their abandoned shafts fills with water that becomes a toxic cocktail that then breaks free to pollute a river. That you Colorado. You have thousands of abandoned mines to clean up, oh, I forgot, that's the federal governments job. Not the miners who created this mess. Hey lumberman. I love you dirt roads eroding scares across the landscape. I love the clear cuts. Yeah, destroy a forest and sell the trees. You don't have to clean up or replant, there are other forests to plunder. And the USDA and forest service will lease those forests to you. You profit on the taxpayer support of fire suppression. You profit from foresters work to grow a healthy stand of trees.

Yeah the west is full of moochers. The ranchers, the miners, the loggers. If it wasn't for federal lands they would not profit.