By KrisAnne Hall - www.KrisAnneHall.com
On August 22, 2011 I wrote about the current collaboration of our state governments with the USDA, DOI, and UN to take private land ownership from the citizens of these states and turn it over to UN management. I specifically referenced a current effort in Florida where farmers and ranchers are “asked” to participate in a USDA program to increase the conservation easements that surround the Florida Everglades. Let me be abundantly clear, I am not opposed to the preservation of our natural resources. I am not opposed to the protection of Florida’s Everglades. What I am opposed to is handing over this land management to the UN. Let Florida protect the Everglades. Let Florida protect its natural resources. Then if there are trespasses on Liberty, Floridians then have recourse with their own representatives. Today, we have such little voice in DC, how less a voice will we have with the UN? Why is Adam Putnam, in his own email response, so eager to turn over the management of Florida to the UN through the USDA?
Informed Floridians, in an effort to protect private land ownership and prevent UN management of Florida property, contacted Adam Putnam’s office. (Bravo to these Floridians on becoming the engaged citizens our founders demanded.) Adam Putnam’s office has issued a statement to justify their non-involvement in this land grab. Since I am convinced that Mr. Putnam didn’t write this statement himself, I want to go through this statement so everyone can learn from this.
We should be so thankful to our anti-federalist founders for their insistence on greater state sovereignty. It is this very sovereignty, unique to the United States, which prevents a global takeover of the US by the UN, as it has done in every nation in Europe. These incremental land grabs are a global effort to remove state sovereignty, and join us with the rest of the world to be owned, managed, and operated by the UN. Unfortunately, Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Adam Putnam, is completely ignorant of the intentions of our founders, the value of state sovereignty, and his role in protecting this vital principle. Looking at the list of UN managed properties in the United States, I fear this is not an isolated occurrence, but an epidemic of ignorance of the people tasked with the very obligation to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and their respective States.
I say ignorance, because I still maintain a bit of hope that these efforts are not willfully collaborative. I do not want to believe that the very people that we trust to protect our property interests are knowingly giving it to the UN. You can call me naive if you like, I just understand how long we have failed to teach the truth and how miseducated our society truly is. As the engaged citizen government we are tasked to be educated on history and the truth. We must educate ourselves and educate our elected persons to maintain Liberty. James Madison warned us, “Only a well-instructed people can be a permanently free people.” My friends, we are far from free because we are far from being well-instructed.
Let’s get instructed. Mr. Putnam states in his response to the peoples’ attempt to instruct him that:
“This effort is part of the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP), a federal program administered by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) that requires no state approval or acceptance. (emphasis added)”
This admission of the complete surrender of state sovereignty puzzles me. Mr. Putnam appears to believe this is a justification for his office to be uninvolved in these matters. How can any action between the federal government and farmers or ranchers of the state of Florida be conducted outside the oversight of the state? Where is the shield that our founder’s established to protect the people from federal abuse? James Madison, in a speech to Congress on June 8, 1789, pointed out that “the greatest opponents to Federal Government admit the State Legislatures to be sure guardians of the people’s Liberty.” If our “sure guardian” can just “check out” of the process, who will stand between the people’s Liberty and the Federal Government?
Mr. Putnam then continues and states:
“The NRCS negotiates directly with willing landowners that express an interest in participating in the program.”
This statement ignores the fact these lands will become conservation easements regardless of the “willingness of the participant”. The willingness revolves around the landowner’s desire to keep and maintain the easement or sell the easement to the Federal Government. It also ignores the fact that these easements will not be maintained by the State of Florida or the Federal Government, but by UNESCO based upon the UN committee’s assessment of the proper management of those lands.
Continuing with his justification of UN management of our land, Mr. Putnam all but admits that he and those tasked with the protection of Florida land are incapable of doing so. Therefore, in the words of Mr. Putnam, we must hand over these easements to the UN for management.
“Conservation easements yield significant economic benefits. Unlike past programs that took land off the tax rolls, out of production and were poorly managed by government, conservation easements help keep agriculture on the landscape and contributing to the economy by providing an incentive for families to keep land in production.”
It escapes me this idea that these farmers and ranchers will maintain some semblance of autonomy in the management of their lands. It is absolutely clear on the UNESCO World Heritiage Center website that when Florida allowed the Federal Government to declare the Everglades a World Heritage site we established that Florida, and the land owners, must submit to the monitoring of these sites by the UNESCO. It also established that UNESCO then has the power and authority to seize control of these sites if the World Heritage Committee determines intervention is necessary to properly maintain the sites. That mutable definition of “properly maintain” is now left solely to those who have proven to have no respect for state sovereignty, no respect for private land ownership, and an overwhelming goal to eliminate productivity in the name of global preservation. Why else would we need an organization whose entire objective is to protect geographical areas that have a global environmental or cultural significance? Let there be one endangered lizard or owl, one perceived danger in the use of fertilizers, one farmer growing a crop that is not environmentally symbiotic, or one rancher with too many cows per acre and we will see how much autonomy these ranchers and farmers really have. Mr. Putnam admits this very argument in his explanation of benefits for this program.
“These benefits include the protection of our valuable ground and surface water resources, critical habitat for endangered and threatened species and wildlife corridors that connect migration and foraging pathways; all while supporting jobs, communities and feeding our nation without depending on other nations.”
Never, in the history of UNESCO environmental management have these two clauses been compatible not only with each other, much less with the autonomy of private land owners. History and experience have PROVEN these ideas to be incompatible in the eyes of the UN and the environmentalists that serve on the World Heritage Committee. Alexander Hamilton is quoted to have said, “Experience is the oracle of truth, where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be held to be sacred.” How is it that our founders knew and understood these principles and yet we are doomed to not only repeat their history but even our own?
I am not trying to single out Mr. Putnam. I believe that he could very well want what is best for Florida’s farmers and ranchers. But because he has allowed Florida to relinquish its obligated oversight, he has removed the ability to properly intervene on behalf of Floridians, without a significant legal battle and significant cost to the people of Florida. I believe he is misinformed, miseducated, and falsely persuaded. It is the absolute duty of those who have the truth to educate our members of the Legislature. Samuel Adams so aptly stated, “If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our Liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.”
My sincere desire is that Mr. Putnam and others tasked with the protection of Liberty will learn from the warnings of our founders and heed to experience as the “oracle of truth”. Please, dear Legislatures, listen to the warning of John Adams, given in his inaugural address, and hear the voice of your people.
If our Government is negligent of its limitations, inattentive to its people’s recommendation, disobedient to its authority…if corruption is to overcome our Government and can be influenced by foreign nations..the Government may not be the choice of the American People, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations that govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves.
Since I received a few unjustified or misplaced “criticisms” for my original post and this position, I will leave the critics with a quote from James Otis, Jr. Mr. Otis made this statement during his passionate argument before the State House against Writs of Assistance.
“But I think I can sincerely declare that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for conscience’ sake; and from my soul I despise all those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes. Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentlemen or a man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.”
