To the editor:
When kings ruled most of the land area of the world, they claimed ownership of all the land and the animals on the land. If any of their subjects wished to use the land, they had to obtain permission from the king and any unauthorized use of the animal life was called poaching.Today, this same doctrine is erroneously applied to most of the land area from Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico westward. Instead of making this land available to private ownership, the national government has unconstitutionally retained control - not ownership - of vast areas.
If anyone uses any of the animal life on this property without the government's permission, the bureaucrats call this act poaching. At the same time, these government employees stoutly maintain that this land and animal life belongs to "the people." In fact, the latter claim is right, and therefore no poaching is possible on it because no one can poach, or steal, something he or she already owns.
Because the federal government maintains control of vast areas of the Western states in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the Western states are, in fact, merely colonies of the states east of the Rocky Mountains. Ninety-five percent of Alaska, 87 percent of Nevada and even 50 percent of California, for example, is still controlled by Washington.
Only one state east of the Rocky Mountains has over 10 percent controlled by Washington. In comparison with the Western states, 98.9 percent of Iowa is privately owned.
In view of the above facts, poaching exists only in the minds of the bureaucrats who control most of the Western states in violation of the Constitution.
In fact, this practice of unauthorized control of what should be private property is nothing but a form of socialism that the Constitution emphatically prohibits.
Larry Wilcox
Roy