Summary
The 41-day armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge has underscored fears that a new rebellion against federal authority is brewing in the West.
Veterans of public land fights in the 1970s see signs of a new Sagebrush -Rebellion, the name given to an at-times violent movement aimed at prying land away from the federal government and giving it to states and private owners.
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“That’s a completely baseless accusation,” said David Hayes, a Stanford Law School lecturer and deputy secretary of the Interior from 2009 to 2013.
“Everywhere you look, you see an administration that absolutely respects the culture of the West and the important role of public lands in the communities and has worked through issues with those values in mind.”
Hayes said anger from the rural West at Washington is a decades-old issue.
“What’s different this time is that a fringe group has literally taken up arms and acted in the most non-democratic and un-American way possible.”
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