Author: LEE PITTS

Darol Dickinson is the cattle industry’s Renaissance Man. As you’re probably aware, The Renaissance was a period in European civilization that was marked by a revival of Classical learning and wisdom. To refer to someone as a “Renaissance Man” or “Renaissance Woman” means that individual is extremely intelligent and a highly skilled person in many areas.

I don’t know of a better definition of Darol Dickinson than that.

Head To Tail

I first became aware of Darol when a friend gave me Darol’s classic book called ‘The Color of Horses’ in which he’d illustrated all 36 of the paintings in it. To this day I haven’t seen anyone who can paint a horse better than Darol did. When the Cowboy Artists of America (CAA) opened at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1966, Darol had artwork in the show as a member of the prestigious CAA. My friend Heather Thomas Smith wrote the best biographical sketch I’ve read yet about the colorful Dickinson and quoted him as saying, “I did paintings and portraits and sold drawings when I was a teenager, selling them from $2 to $5. By the time I went to college I’d sold enough paintings that I was able to just go in and sign up. I asked how much it cost, and wrote them a check.” He was painting portraits of people’s horses and herd bulls all during his college years.

Every time Darol sold a painting he used the money to buy Texas Longhorns or land. By 1979 he quit the painting, constant traveling and taking livestock photographs, (in which he also excelled), to concentrate on his Longhorn business in Colorado. It didn’t take him long to become the leading Longhorn breeder in this, or any other country.

In 1993, Darol relocated his operation to the grasslands of eastern Ohio. He registers more than 500 Longhorns, African Watusi’s and Dutch BueLingo cattle every year and the ranch sells 500 cattle per year, two-thirds of which are registered breeding stock. The rest are sold as processed beef through the Dickinson Ranch store called Head to Tail.

To give you an idea of what an entrepreneur Darol is, consider that when some horns of his beloved Longhorns got broken Darol developed a squeeze chute with open horizontal bars and has never had any cattle get hurt in it. To this day Darol’s ‘Bry Squeeze’ is one of the leading cattle squeeze chutes of any kind.

Says Darol. “We had to create some different markets, and do things different. It worked with a breed of cattle that nobody else wanted, and it became great. It was the trail less traveled.

Land Grabs

Darol has also written several books including Horn Stew, Fillet of Horn and his latest, Larapin Horn, but it is his most recent essay, Land Wars of the World, that should be read by every one in America.
https://downsize-government.org/government-overreach/land-wars-of-the-world-then-and-now/

Land Wars Of The World deals with many of the biggest land grabs in history. Wrote Darol, “Since Adam and Eve, land wars seem to have been part of history. From the earliest battles in ancient Mesopotamia to today’s wars in the Middle East, conflicts over land have continually shaped our world.” According to Darol, “Most wars have been about taking tribute from conquered subjects and land grabs for the powerful. These land grabs are usually paid for by the losers.”

“Alexander the Great lived more than 2,000 years ago,” wrote Darol. “By age 30, he had amassed one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. Widely considered one of world’s most successful military commanders, he was undefeated in his battles for land and tribute.”

“The Roman Empire was one of the largest land grabs in history,” wrote Darol, “with contiguous territories throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The Latin phrase “imperium sine fine” (empire without end) signaled! That neither time nor space limited the Roman Empire’s expansion. The basis of Rome’s strength, like Alexander’s, was land capture and tribute.”

More recently we’ve seen the downfall of the Commonwealth of Great Britain which was arguably, the most powerful nation in the world at the time before losing its conquered lands one by one. More recently we’ve witnessed Putin’s attempted land grab in Ukraine.

He’s No Abe Lincoln

In reading Darol’s essay I realized there was another reason Abraham Lincoln is my favorite president. Darol writes, “The 16th President of the USA, believed that private ownership and management of land is more productive than government control. He understood that the Federal government couldn’t possibly manage the whole western USA. Private property was the answer, land surveyed, titled, used, improved, maintained, and loved by non-government owners. At the peak of the American Civil War, Lincoln developed a strategy to increase the US’s citizen-owned land. He signed the 1862 Homestead Act into law. It was intended to open western lands to settlers on what the government considered to be ‘idle’ tracts of land captured from Native Americans or purchased like Alaska and the Louisiana Purchase. Pioneer homesteaders were required to improve the land and produce goods, food, or a service. If they lived on their 160-acre homesteads for seven years, the land was theirs at no cost.”

Compare that attitude with President Joe Biden who on January 4, 2024, in Coconino County, Arizona, “Proudly announced,” wrote Darol, “his administration had so far wrested a whopping 24 million acres from private enterprise for the Federal government — a new record for land takeovers, paid for with public tax dollars, and now eliminated from private management and production. Why this enormous acquisition? Ostensible reasons include ‘preservation,’ ‘conservation,’ ‘protection,’ and so forth. To encourage citizens to believe that these and other millions of acres are still theirs, the government often renames formerly private property as ‘public’ land.

The question bounces back, however: “Who is all this land being protected from?”

An Out of Control Monster

Darol rounded up some numbers that should concern everyone. Darol found that the US government owns 664,000,000 acres — almost 30 percent of the nation’s total continental land mass of 2,271,343,000 acres. Darol also found that the national debt is $34,000,000,000,000. That’s 34 Trillion! Darol then calculated the US debt per acre of US owned collateral and found it to be $51,203 PER ACRE! Good luck trying to find a banker who’d give you a loan on that basis!

In other words, “The feds own more ground than the entire acreage of the Roman Empire, give or take a few coliseums.” Writes Darol, “Most Americans don’t realize that our government’s undeclared war for land is a covert, out-of-control monster.”

“How did the federales remove so much land from private tax rolls? Well, they funded it with public tax dollars. The takeover is orchestrated not by Congressional legislation but by executive orders from the Oval Office and rulings from the administrative bureaucracy — without a vote of the citizens or their representatives. The unstated process of this unacknowledged land grab typically bypasses public scrutiny.” Agencies in the Executive branch in Washington, D.C., issue rulings, levy fees and fines, collect “tribute,” then buy private property and remove it from production. That bureaucratic removal is a political conquest that marks the end of private management. The process has historically happened in war but continues today under political cover.

“As recently as January 2024, President Biden also announced that he was expanding the Green movement in Alaska by closing 10,600,000 acres to oil and gas leasing. The federales already own 95.8 percent of Alaska, leaving only 4.2 percent of a resource-rich state for private enterprise to manage and harvest. This administrative action now ‘protects’ the nation’s western Arctic area from the alleged detriment of oil and gas exploration.”

“That’s not the only conquest of private property orchestrated from D.C.,” wrote Darol. “On his inauguration day, Biden mentioned his 30×30 Plan — a strategy ( or plot or scheme) to transfer 30 percent of US land from private ownership to the government by the year 2030. He later released his 50×50 Plan for the government to transform 50 percent of the US to ‘public lands’ by 2050. And believe it or not, Biden has even proposed a 70×70 plan, that would put 70 percent of America under direct government ownership in less than 70 years.

In an Epoch Times interview, Aurelia Skipworth (President Trump’s Secretary of Fish and Wildlife) said, “No one knows how much land the Federal government thinks is enough.” Margaret Byfield, Executive Director of American Stewards of Liberty said, “This is their end game. The reason for the 30×30 land grab. The purpose for the climate crisis hysteria. We will own nothing. The US government will own everything.”

“The Federal government, (not including State lands) already owns 87.8 percent of Nevada, 75.2 percent of Utah, 70.4 percent of Idaho, 60.4 percent of Oregon, etc. As noted above, it already owns nearly 30 percent of continental US land, so it has almost achieved the full 30×30 goal of Federal ownership. As the 50×50 proposal clearly shows, more acquisitions of private land are being planned for the ‘public good,”’ wrote Darol.

Closer To Home

“You may not be concerned with yesterday’s land-grabs by Attila the Hun, or perhaps today’s by Vladimir Putin in Crimea and Ukraine, or maybe not even current marginal US lands a thousand miles away. But what about tomorrow, on your own doorstep?” asks Darol rhetorically. “What if a property is right across the road from your home? What if some State or Federal agency claims it is fallow ground better used for conservation or wetlands or biodiversity or ‘the greater good’? You could become the victim of peacetime ‘tribute.”’

On Our Watch

‘Why this dereliction?” asks Darol. “Broken promises are the reason that the Egypt Valley Wildlife Refuge has degenerated from its idealistic origins to its present wretched condition.

Over two dozen years ago, the ODNR rationalized its take-over of 28,000-acres. It promised to help the local economy by developing tourism through lakes, pavilions, trails, hunting, fishing, etc. To date, however, the 100-acre lake has not materialized — nor have any of the other improvements. As with so much government fallow land, the EVWR is now an impenetrable jungle spotted with litter and heaps of trash. Why the unfulfilled promises? This public land is suffering from a lack of routine, responsible management.”

In the meantime …

“To repeat, due to negligent and non-existent government management, none of the above has been accomplished in Belmont County, Ohio. This pathetic record, “ says Darol, “is typical of most Federal lands. The government simply does not exercise the care and concern of private enterprise.”

What can an individual do at this late date to save America from the Socialists? Darol has a short list of answers. “Elect representatives who pledge to never expand government land or who will vote to preserve land under only the most compelling conditions; Support representatives who pledge to sell government properties back to private owners in a systematic, orderly process for profitable use; Demand taxation of all government properties and vehicles; Be alert to well-meaning bureaucrats who are actually scrambling to earn Biden’s approval by confiscating millions of acres of private property.

“Quit this taxpayer-torture!” says Darol. “The bleeding must stop. Just say no to all new government land acquisitions and start an orderly liquidation of the government wasteland ownership.”

As a student of history Darol says, “All great nations eventually die out, some more slowly than others.”

It is not hyperbole to suggest that this upcoming election will decide if your grandchildren grow up in a capitalistic Democracy and enjoy the same freedoms and liberties we have. We should NEVER let it be said that America the Beautiful died on our watch.

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Original Article can be found here:
https://issuu.com/nmstockman/docs/lmd_april_24