Land Grab

Archive [July 2000]

 

IT ALL BELONGS TO ME!

 

President Clinton has been going around confiscating huge chunks of the United States. (His theme song: “This land is my land, this land is my land, from California, to the New York island…”). He claims he is “protecting” these confiscated acres by declaring them “national monuments.” Well, they are monuments, all right — to himself. Make no mistake, my friends, this is a major Clinton legacy push.

So far, the President has “set aside” over 3.1 million acres of wilderness under the 1906 Antiquities Act. That’s more than any other President — even more than Theodore Roosevelt himself, who established the national park system. And it’s all by Executive Order. Your representatives have had no say in the matter. Zip, zero, nada.

The land grab legacy pace has quickened in the last six months. Since January, Clinton has designated eight parcels of land as national monuments. He has banned mining, logging and certain recreational activities there, and he has also closed many roads into national forests. Word is, Clinton plans to grab Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before the November election, putting the vast stores of oil there off limits.

Clinton’s thirst for control over geography hasn’t stopped at the water’s edge, either. He has now issued an Executive Order to “protect the significant natural and cultural resources within the marine environment … by strengthening and expanding the nation’s system of marine protected areas.” This benevolent federal control means: no fishing or onshore drilling, among other restrictions, throughout a designated national network of protected marine areas — to be known as “New Ocean Conservation Zones.” Oh, goody.

At this rate, it won’t be long before Bill Clinton declares the entire country a national monument, outlawing private property altogether … by Executive Order.