Constitutional – Survive with Will – Thoughtful Analysis & Perceptions

Land Rights – Freedom and Constitutional Rights in USA

Will Hemingway — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 18:58:05 +0000

Executive Summary:

USA Citizen’s rights to Real Property – Mineral, Gas, and Oil

If you live in a city or even one of the major metropolitan suburbs you probably never thought about your real property rights. Okay, so you own your home, or the bank does until you pay it off or sell it.
If you hold (own) mineral rights, you own an estate in real property. That property is referred to as a mineral estate, commonly referred to as mineral rights. Executive Summary:
The citizens of the United States of America are having their cherished property rights stripped covertly by their own government.

US Government (BLM) Land Holdings:

(percentage of all state lands owned by the US heavily weighted in the west)

Nevada - 84.5 %
Alaska - 69.1 %
Utah - 57.4 %
Oregon - 53.1 %
Idaho - 50.2 %
Arizona - 48.1 %
California - 45.3 %
Wyoming - 42.4 %
New Mexico - 41.8 %
Colorado - 36.6 %
Washington - 30.3 %
Montana - 29.9 %

Federal numbers report that the BLM has over 700 million acres of sub-surface rights (define mineral rights) of both Federal and non-Federal lands across the entire nation. Let us put that into perspective. The total number of acres in the US and Washington DC is 1,875.714 million acres. The US BLM holds mineral rights to over 700 million acres. (See the actual numbers.)

The latest incursion by the government into private land ownership is that every time a property is sold in foreclosure the government slices the real property mineral rights off the surface land deed. The state or federal government takes ownership of the mineral rights. According to two of my sources in the oil and gas industry, the State of Pennsylvania is the single largest recipient of mineral rights royalties in the state. The numbers have been growing every year. It is similar to other nations where the government “seized” the mineral rights of their entire nations for the government.

Supporting Material:

Judge Andrew Napolitano warns, “"I'm going to make a statement that the government will consider outrageous. The Constitution simply does not authorize the federal government to own any of this land. All of it is being held unconstitutionally and all of it should be returned to the private property owners from which it was taken or to the states in which it exists, period." The fact is, the judge as much as I like him, is unfortunately incorrect.

“ The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States....
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2”

His comments are based upon the “originalist” view of the Constitution. While many of us would celebrate the day that such views prevailed. Sadly, that is currently not the case. Supreme Court rulings have undermined those original rules. There is a hot debate on that “fact”. The Property Clause in the US Constitution give the government broad rights over the ownership, holding, sale, use, etc. of land that it owns.

This ownership, on its face, is sold as benign and altruistic. History shows what happens with the property after the government takes ownership via fiat, seizure, or imminent domain. Shielded in claims of preservation and environmental issues that actual outcome is a political patronage driven contradiction. In Nevada a lot of the land that was “taken” into the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) was taken to save it from unbridled grazing. Shortly after it surfaced that Harry Reid (Senator NV) had championed a deal with a Chinese company to lease the land in order to build a giant solar electric power farm on the land. Also, Uranium One was granted a lease for mineral rights to mine uranium on the same land. The list goes on and on.

The United States of America is unique, thanks to our Founding Fathers, they crafted a nation whose laws and constitution recognized, not granted, “God given” rights to own property and much more. Over two hundred fifty years later, there are still few nations in the world that even allow private ownership of real property, period. The United States of America is still one of the only nations in the world where private citizens own mineral rights, let alone the real property (land). People have no idea of the concept, or the ramifications of the undermining of this priceless right. Well, except for people who live west of the Rocky Mountains.

There is a quite incursion against one of the most sacred rights of United States of America’s citizens. The federal and state governments with the help of “sweet hearted” private companies, many international, have been pulling the proverbial rug, of mineral and land owner rights, out from under us.

There are so many people, highly professional, very intelligent, who trade disparate pieces of information with me every day. It is exhilarating. I am an analyst. I gather data, verify it, cull it, run it up the flagpole and see if it flies, throw it against the wall and see what sticks. It may lay in mess in my mind, on the floor in my office, or even in disparate files on my offline computer. Then, THEN, one day, one moment, and CLICK! It fits! It means something! This day, this moment was one of them.

My contacts and I have chewed over disparate points about the BLM, the Bundy situation, and thousands of other

One of the rights so sacred to USA citizens is the right to own property, unmolested.

Since the 1990’s the federal and state governments have systematically and covertly been stealing the property rights from us. The theft is very discrete. Few even realize what is happening.

Unless you lived under a rock for the last 10 years, maybe you lived in a cave because you lost your home, you know that millions of properties went into foreclosure. The banks taking the properties from people when the market went upside down. The other day I overhead someone saying, matter-of-factly, “my husband works for the banks, they don’t want to sell the houses, they want to foreclose.” I sat, annoyed by her ignorant attitude about it, thinking to myself why? Amassing these properties, a glut of homes, deteriorating and sapping funds to upkeep them, why? It really annoyed me. So, Will, the investigator / analyst, started cogitating on the point. Why? Why? It is bad business. Do everything that you can to minimize long term losses, minimize overhead, that’s what you do.

The US citizens are being raped of their rights and property. Thanks to ignorance, they don’t even know it is happening. As usual ignorance is no defense, and if you think that claiming ignorance will get you back what you lost, you are sadly mistaken.

Supreme Court ruling in Brandt v. United States

The case involved the General Railroad Right-of-Way Act of 1875, under which thousands of miles of rights-of-way were established across the United States. The act allowed railroads to acquire easements all over the country in order to lay tracks. These easements were written so that they would revert to the property owner in the event the railroads ever abandoned the easements. But in 1988, Congress passed a “railbanking” statute which holds that upon abandonment, these easements could be morphed into a public recreational trail, with the landowner receiving no compensation.

In this case Marvin Brandt acquired land in Wyoming that came with a pre-existing railroad easement. In 2001, the railroad, which had long owned the easement, abandoned all claims to the easement. The Brandt family therein obtained complete ownership of the land in question. However, in 2006 the United States government sued for title to the land on the theory that the federal government retained a residual claim to it after the railroad abandoned the easement. Brandt argued that the federal government had no legitimate claim to the abandoned easement and could not take that land without conflicting with the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. The Tenth Circuit ruled in favor of the federal government, holding that the upon abandonment the land reverted to the United States. Today, the Supreme Court reversed that decision—making clear that the Brandt’s acquired all rights in the subject land once the railroad abandoned its easement, and affirming the principle that government cannot redefine previously recognized property rights out of existence.

Combat Arms Survey US Government

Will Hemingway — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 06:36:49 +0000

Combat Arms Survey
Administered to 300 Active Duty Marines at 29 Palms, CA
May 10, 1994

Article from the NEW AMERICAN Vol 11 No. 20 October 2, 1995

Twenty-Nine Palms Survey:

What Really Motivated Its Author?

by John F. McManus

Veteran readers of THE NEW AMERICAN are vibrantly aware of the May 10, 1994 “Combat Arms Survey” administered to 300 active-duty Marines at the USMC’s Air-Ground Combat Center, Twenty-Nine Palms, California.

Among its 46 questions, the Marines were asked if they would be willing to swear to a United Nations code of conduct and if they would fire on Americans who refused to turn over their privately owned weapons to the government. Other questions sought their approval or disapproval about their involvement in an assortment of operations far removed from proper military assignments, some of which would even place them under formal UN command.

One of the Marines who participated in this exercise became so disturbed by the questions that he obtained an extra copy and sent it to THE NEW AMERICAN. No sooner had our published report about this survey reached readers than several congressmen fired off inquiries to the Marine Corps and Navy. Spokesmen for both branches of the service issued statements claiming there was really nothing to be concerned about, that the survey was merely part of its author’s research for a master’s degree thesis.

But that explanation neatly sidesteps a far more important consideration: The aura of official acceptance of these subversive attitudes would certainly lead some of the Marines toward believing that they should hold them as well. It is our contention that no one wearing a uniform of the U.S. Armed Forces should ever allow troops under his command to be subjected to such totally unconstitutional thinking.

Author’s Defense

We have talked at length with the author of this survey, Navy Lieutenant Commander Ernest Guy Cunningham, and about his motivation in creating it. He provided us with a copy of the 197-page thesis he wrote after analyzing the responses given by the Marines. His thesis helped him to earn a master of science degree in the area of manpower, personnel, and training analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Anxious to defend himself from charges he is pro-UN, Cunningham repeatedly contended in his interview with THE NEW AMERICAN that he is no enemy of America and no participant in any plan to demoralize U.S. troops. He maintained emphatically that he wanted only to confirm and then pass on to higher authorities his fears about “the lack of knowledge among the soldiers about the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and their heritage as Americans.” He added: “I’m a life member of the National Rifle Association, an ardent constitutionalist, and I’m even disappointed with the NRA spokesmen who don’t do a very good job defending their position.”

To each of the questions or scenarios presented in the Cunningham survey, the Marines were asked if they strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree, or have no opinion. The first part of the survey dealt with non-traditional missions (termed “operations other than war” by Cunningham) under the command and control of U.S. military personnel, first inside the United States, and then outside the United States. Additional questions dealt with those same type missions conducted outside the U.S. under United Nations command and control.

The Marines indicated overwhelming acquiescence to being assigned under U.S. control within the U.S. for such non-traditional missions as drug enforcement, disaster relief, environmental clean-up, substitute teaching in public schools, guarding prisons, national emergency policing, or assisting federal law enforcement officials. For example, one of the questions asked the Marines if they would be willing to be assigned to a “national emergency police force” within the U.S. under U.S. command. The survey showed that 6.0 percent strongly disagreed, 6.3 percent disagreed, 42.3 percent agreed, 43.0 percent strongly agreed, and 2.3 percent had no opinion.

“Do you realize,” Cunningham stated during our telephone interview, “that 85.3 percent agreed with assigning troops to a mission that violates the Posse Comitatus Act?” This Act states that “it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus [power of the county], or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except [when] authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress.”

Additional results published in Cunningham’s thesis demonstrate a high degree of willingness on the part of these U.S. troops to carry out non-traditional missions under U.S. command: 48 percent agreement for drug enforcement; 39 percent for disaster relief; 67 percent for peacekeeping; and 52 percent for humanitarian relief. However, when questions were asked about similar missions involving U.S. troops under UN command, the approval rate dropped off markedly: 17 percent for drug enforcement; 13 percent for disaster relief; 25 percent for peacekeeping; 21 percent for humanitarian relief; and only 11 percent for Korean or Vietnam police action.

Firing on U.S. Citizens?

While all of the questions in this survey should have stimulated concern, the survey’s final question has generated an enormous amount of attention:

The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale, transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty (30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be turned over to the local authorities. At the end of this period, a number of citizen groups refuse to turn over their firearms. Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government.

The survey results: 42.3 percent strongly disagreed with this statement; 19.3 percent disagreed; 18.6 percent agreed; 7.6 percent strongly agreed; and 12.0 percent had no opinion. In one of the footnotes appearing in his thesis, Cunningham quotes comments placed by some of the Marines next to their answers to this question: “What about the damn Second Amendment? …. I feel this is a first in communism! …. Read the book None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen.” “I would not even consider it. The reason we have guns is so that the people can overthrow the gov’t when or if the people think the gov’t is too powerful.” “Freedom to bear arms is our Second Amendment. If you take our Amendments away then you can take this job and stick it where the sun don’t shine! …. It is a right to own firearms for defense (2nd Amendment); I would fight for that right!”

Based on the disagreement expressed by 61 percent of the Marines, Cunningham concluded that “a complete unit breakdown would occur in a unit tasked to execute this mission.”

Cunningham’s Deficiencies

In his interview with THE NEW AMERICAN, Cunningham claimed to be appalled that so many Marines would be willing to serve in non-traditional roles that conflict with the purpose of our military or to serve under UN command. He even volunteered that he “didn’t agree personally with any portion of the survey” even though he is “its sole author, originator, and creator.” Yet the thesis he submitted gave no indication of any such sentiments. Just the opposite, in fact.

In his thesis, Cunningham states that “The legitimacy of operations other than war is rooted in the constitutional powers of the Executive,” and that such operations and the placement of “U.S. forces under operational control of United Nations personnel are legitimate.” [Emphasis added.] Not so, according to our reading of the Constitution and the thinking of those who wrote it. The military is not the President’s to use as he wishes; his designation as “Commander in Chief” is an occasional assignment of responsibility, not a wholesale grant of power.

Betraying a poor understanding of the proper role of the military, Cunningham claims: “But the Framers also granted the Executive the latitude to use the Federal troops under his command as a tool of diplomacy when he deemed it appropriate. This was the case in both Korea and Vietnam.” That kind of thinking has gotten this nation into undeclared wars, led to casualties in the hundreds of thousands, and entangled our nation ever more deeply in the United Nations and its subsidiary organizations.

Cunningham’s claims that he is a defender of the U.S. Constitution have to be questioned when he writes: “Future U.S. missions may require the inclusion of international soldiers in U.S. units and, in some cases, when national security interests dictate, the President of the United States may appoint a competent United Nations officer to exercise operational control over U.S. contingents.”

But what about the fact that most U.S. military personnel apparently don’t want to serve in “peacekeeping” missions? “Some may argue that the military need only incorporate the necessary indoctrination and training,” Cunningham notes in his thesis. “But doing so would require establishing formal training and indoctrination programs … thus, in effect, building a completely new program from the ground up. Another possibility may be more realistic. Realizing the conflict and incongruity peacekeeping represents in a combat organizational model, it may be necessary to bifurcate the military. Such a change could promote specialization and provide an opportunity to those who desire peacekeeping duty. Perhaps it is time to designate separate fighting forces and peacekeeping forces.”

Cunningham’s own survey results demonstrate that there is solid opposition to converting the U.S. military into an adjunct of a New World Army. Yet his outrageous suggestion provides the globalists with an opportunity for circumventing that opposition. If implemented, it would undoubtedly be, not an end in itself, but another ominous step toward the abandonment of the traditional role of the U.S. military. Yet there is good reason to believe that these subversive plans will never be accomplished — as the heroic stand of Army Specialist Michael New amply demonstrates.

Here’s the questionnare, as posted on FreeRepublic — some posters said they took it, a few pooh-poohed it. I put in bold italics a point I was not familiar with, and see now why they asked the marines.

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a441714.htm

“Editorial Note The enclosed Combat Arms Survey is a true and accurate reproduction of the contents of the questionnaire. We altered the format to accommodate the SurviveWithWill.com’s formating.

COMBAT ARMS SURVEY

This questionnaire is to gather data concerning the attitudes of combat trained personnel with regard to nontraditional missions. All of your responses are confidential. Write your answers directly on the questionnaire form. In Part II, place an “X” in the space provided for your response.

Part I.

Demographics

1.What Service are you in?

2.What is your pay grade? (e.g. E-?, 0-?)

3.What is your MOS code and description?

4.What is your highest level of education in years?

5.How many months did you serve in Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield?

6. How many months did you serve in Somalia?

7.What state or country did you primarily reside in during childhood?

Part ll. Attitudes

Do you feel that U.S. combat troops should be used within the United States for any of the following missions?

8. Drug enforcement

(_____) (____) (_____) (______) (____)