Disastrous Oil Spill, Fatal Horse Roundup: Blame the Interior Department

As a former employee of the BLM, I can assure you that their actions are not dictated by sound science but by powerful industries that stand to gain financially from these resources, the people's resources. In Nevada, it is of course, the ranchers that stand to gain by the decrease in the horse numbers. In 2010 they get our lands for $1.35 per animal unit month, $16.20 per year. A giveaway, plain and simple. These ranchers leases are "grandfathered in" and it is very difficult to change these grazing leases under current conditions and leadership. I find the decision to hold a round-up at this time of year as irresponsible and an act of cruelty to animals. Shame on BLM! (Otherwise known as the Bureau of Livestock and Mining.)
I'd like to see the decisions these land managers make based on good science and not who has the most powerful lobbyists. Fewer horses just equals more grass for the cows the way it is now.

As it has happened in the past and will continue as long as greed exists, blame the ones who have finally gotten control instead of the ones who have spent 8 years getting us into this predicament. I think that we really need to stop blaming everyone and start FIXING everything HERE before we try to "fix" others.

We didn't decide to expand across this continent because we thought we'd find money growing on trees, we did it because this USED to be a wild, beautiful and natural place. Untouched and unspoiled, as it should be. But we keep looking for those money-growing trees, in open mines like Mr. Cohen mentioned above, or 5000 feet beneath the sea. These greedy pigs couldn't care less about some wild horses that they see tromping all over their prospective business site, or about this pod or that pod of dolphins and whales, endangered turtles and the like. It's time to grow up. Elevate your conscience, elevate your level of thinking. These are things that are bigger than yourself. Your economic interests don't mean anything. It's time to grow up, and put things into perspective. There are more important things in life than putting a little extra lining in your wallet.

The government, unfortunately, has been the culprit of practically every problem in this country. Not to say that they were not some very good political leaders, but you must admit that some of our leaders could have used much better advisors than the ones they had on their staff. Take the Indian tribe population in this country, we came into their land & forcebly removed them off their reservation so that we could increase our own population. We called them savages, when actually they were honorable people with a respectable justice system, unlike ours which protects the criminal more so than the victim. We broke treaties & whatever else had to be done to accomplish our goals. Next take the Chinese, we brought them over to build our railroads, after which we had them cleaning our dirty clothes (i.e. laundries), next take the African slaves which we brought to America to be owned & enslaved like animals. When this will ever stop is unknown and is likely
"never" because the progress of mankind will always be greater than the genuine kindness of those who want to help the less unfortunate - why, because kindness, in this case, is considered a weakness. Actually, financial wealth and power is what most people, in general, strive to succeed. However, once most of them who do succeed begin to feel they have no other goals to achieve and either want to be more famous, more powerful, or more wealthy. Take a moment and look at where
a good many of these people (movie stars, athletes, politicians, CEO's, etc.) eventually wind up - not very good, eh? It makes me wonder just how many of these people are Christians. Anyway, it is what it is and I suppose we all have to live with it and hope that it will get better. We have a lot of problems to overcome, but I do believe the current administration, although not flawless, is honestly trying their best to correct all the problems. It is going to take them time to resolve because it took time to create all these problems. Good luck!

Save those majestic wild horses...they are just magnificient....I love to just watch them...they can run forever.

Mr. Cohen:

Why would you think government regulation would cure problems? And that bigger and badder government regulation would cure problems better?

The problem is government "ownership" of land. (and other means of control, like airways and airwaves) The only way to cure the irresponsibility of poor management is private ownership and strict liability laws which punish and repay what damage you do to others.

Think of the good that all the leftist "environmental" organizations could have done, if instead of spending the billions they wasted on attempts to influence public policy, they had spent it on the purchase of wild lands, then taking the wild lands out of the public sector. Hey guys, its not too late! Turn your resources toward owning what you want to control, not influence in politics, which will disappear like the Global Warming Scare during Climategate.

Think of all the destruction of productivity that is caused by non-productive people in regulatory agencies, that frankly, do little benefit and much harm.

Production = life. Non-production, slowing production, regulating production = death. Put all those non-productive regulators to work. Take them off our backs and off the payrolls. Pass strict liability laws regarding damage caused by your actions. You will see a massive drop in the cost of living, and large drops in the resources needed to function on this planet.

Paul Richards

AOL should not be presenting editorials as news articles. This is OPINION, and leaves out important points, such as the lack of regulations, thanks to the GOP

No government agency does their job in a timely and efficient manner.

That's why it's ridiculous that people call for "more" regulation of all of these things. The current regulation is often more than enough - but the people supposed to be regulating are apparently unable to take the 5 minutes required to check over sundries and permits and get them out in a timely manner.

The delay in permitting and government action alone causes severe economic harm to thousands of companies and in essence the country.

But yes - lets just hire more people (currently there are almost always 2 agencies if not 3 or 4 regulating the same thing) and get even more redundant and have all of these people do a terrible job, so we can pay for 4 salaries and still not get what's needed - instead of managing 1 agency to do its job for once in its existence.

This is why we are bankrupt. Because the government keeps expanding and yet it fails miserably to do the most basic of jobs.