The guy was having his ranch that his family homesteaded in the 1800's taken away because environmental groups sued the government to remove his cattle from the land, and he objected by non-compliance.
Except that that's not what happened.
The facts are that this is land that his family never owned. Ever. They didn't own it.
Instead, it was land that they used. Somebody else's land that they had been using since the 1800's.
In no sense of any law does that make it his land.
The new land owners, which now happen to be the Federal Government, are saying "Get off my lawn!"
It's not his property, he needs to butt out. Unless of course, you don't actually believe in property rights...
Yes, and no. Nevada is an Open Range state. It recognizes Open Range and said range is free for anyone to graze. This guy's family had been grazing said range before there even was a state of Nevada and it continued with everyone doing. The actual "ranches" that were homesteaded were relatively small because everyone could utilize the commonly held range to graze their herds. Look it up, it is still the state law.
Then, the federal government comes in and says, "This is our land you have to pay us a fee to graze here." So, the ranchers started paying the fees. Maybe they would have preferred to actually own the land, but guess what, by then the feds weren't selling any of it, so they didn't have that option anymore. So they paid the fees which were nominal and continued on living as they always had in grazing the commonly held range with other families.
Fast forward to modern times and now the environmentalists take over the government and the government says, "You can't graze that land because you are harming the tortoise." This guy is refusing to comply.
I sort of get the guy's point. The cattle industry in that entire part of the world was built on the scheme of open range that was commonly held by all for the benefit of all. Then the government moved in and put conditions on it. Now, they claim the right to tell people they can't do what they've always done.
