Keep our public lands in public hands

Folks in the West love our public lands, and for many reasons — the ample places to hunt, fish, camp, hike, ride and otherwise enjoy the great outdoors are a significant reason they choose to live, work and raise their families where they do.

That’s just one segment of our cherished way of life that was on the line during the recent election. To folks on the coasts, it may seem insignificant, but to most people in the Rocky Mountain West these are integral parts of our heritage. And it was on our minds in the ballot box.

President-elect Trump signaled openness to keeping the lands great on the campaign trail when asked if he supported plans to transfer nationally owned lands to individual states. Not everyone agrees, however. The leader of the land transfer movement is the American Lands Council (ALC), a group founded in 2012 to force the federal government to turn over public lands to local jurisdictions.

The dreams of Jennifer Fielder and the council (“Moving toward local control,” Nov 13 Review-Journal commentary) is for local counties and states to take over what is currently public land, owned by all U.S. taxpayers, and managed by the federal government. In their scenario, counties and states would become flush with cash thanks to increased development.

However, transferring public lands to local jurisdictions means transferring the management responsibilities — and the significant management costs — as well.

The cost of forest fire suppression by federal agencies alone has ballooned in recent years, surpassing $2 billion in 2015 when agencies battled almost 70,000 fires.

States and counties do not have the capacity to respond to a problem this large.

Let’s hope President-elect Trump holds to his word, and keeps our valued public lands in public hands for us all to enjoy. And we stand ready to work with him to accomplish this.

Chris Saeger

Whitefish, Mont.

The writer is executive director of the Western Values Project.

Fair is fair

So why have “sanctuary cities” just for illegal aliens? Why not have sanctuary cities for all criminals? If you rob a bank, murder someone or steal a car, why not have a safe place where you could go and not worry about being apprehended by law enforcement? Why should illegal aliens be the only people who enjoy this privilege? Why discriminate against other criminals?

What about the families that are torn apart when a family member is sent to prison when he is found guilty of committing a crime? Where is the outrage for these families? Why are we worried only about illegal alien parents who committed a crime when they entered our country illegally?

I thought we were a country that prided itself on our lack of discrimination. Yet we seem to discriminate against all criminals except illegal aliens.

Doug Farmer

Las Vegas

A progressive fable

Recently, a snake oil salesman came to town. He gathered large crowds. The throngs of people loved his pitch and bought up his snake oil by the gallons, rarely reading the label.

Those who did read the label couldn’t believe the ingredients — racism, bigotry, intimidation, misogyny, hate, intolerance, narcissism, homophobia and a heavy dose of outright lies — so they just bought the snake oil anyway. Most of them didn’t care about the ingredients as long as the elixir made them feel good about themselves.

But the salesman didn’t tell them that the elixir was addicting or that the more you drank the less humane you became. Soon, half the town was drunk on snake-oil elixir and they pronounced the salesman a god that they could worship.

What happened next is still a mystery.

Richard W. Munk

Las Vegas

Mayhem looming

It is 1933 Germany. A disgruntled and misguided populace, taken in by inflammatory rhetoric and promises of prosperity, has just elected a dangerous demagogue to govern their country. Madness and mayhem will ensue. Sound familiar?

Jim Hawkes

Henderson