Abstract
The Federal Government must retreat from its claim of ownership and pretension to manage the public lands; the Feds must GO!! 1 Nye County presents its vision of a very different America than the one presently known. Nye's America has no national parks, no national wildlife refuges, and no national forests, because Nye maintains that all this property was transferred to the States long ago. 2 Introduction On July 4, 1994, Nye County Commissioner Dick Carver began driving a county-owned bulldozer draped in an American flag to re-open a washed-out road in the Toiyabe National Forest in Nye County, Nevada. 3 The United States Forest Service ("USFS") had denied Carver authorization to operate the machine on federal land, 4 stating that the road could not be reopened until completion of an archaeological survey. Carver defied both this statement and a USFS agent who stood in front of the bulldozer holding a sign ordering Carver to stop. 5 Two days later, Carver requested that criminal charges be filed against the USFS employees who had interfered with his activities. 6 From the USFS perspective, Carver was breaking the law by bulldozing on federal land without prior authorization. However, resolutions passed by Nye County 7 explicitly stated that the County did not accept the federal government's right to own or manage these public lands. 8 From this contrary point of view, Carver's action was a legitimate exercise of county authority over a county road, and he was justified in requesting ...