# Who has the license Black Lab???



## g/o (Jul 13, 2004)

In response to Tony Dean's column in the March 26 Forum: You can't say you support farmers and steal their land.

This is not about hunting, it is about public policy. Any farmer who defends his property rights gets lamblasted as anti-hunting. I love sportsmanship.

I disdain sportsman-lite. Like the hunter who called me every four-letter word in the book because I would not let him hunt in my backyard; or the group of hunters who relieved themselves with zero modesty on our public road while I took my teenage daughters to church; or the hunter with the license plate "Black Lab" who drove right past my fluorescent no hunting poster to hunt on my land without permission, saying he didn't see the poster. Or the hunter who drove past our mailbox while looking through binoculars; or the myriad who rut up our section line roads leaving them impassible until I fix them at my own expense; or the hunters who sneak onto my farmstead to hunt deer while I am at church, or those who call at 5:30 a.m. to ask to hunt, or call at 1:30 a.m. to ask to hunt in the same place his cousin did; or those who play hide and seek in the cattails when I look for them to move their locked vehicle from the middle of the road; or the hunter who argued that his biodegradable contributions to my land were good for me; or the hunter who said he deserved to hunt on my land because I receive government payments.

This is about public policy and the historical and present farm program. My father told me a story about the Depression. His father, my grandfather, shipped a load of fat cattle to West Fargo for slaughter via the railroad. The cattle market was so poor that the sale of the livestock didn't cover the cost of shipping. The railroad kept the whole amount from the sale of the cattle and sent my grandfather a bill for the remainder of the cost of transport. As a result, my dad and uncles butchered the rest of the fat cattle and distributed the meat door-to-door, free of cost, to city people.

The farm economy was in shambles. The New Deal administration stepped in and called for a referendum. Farmers were asked to vote to give Uncle Sam authority to control production in return for a promise from the federal government to provide producers with a living wage. In desperation, farmers sold their soul to Uncle Sam.

By and large, this philosophy drives our farm policy today, even though it has changed in name and scope. The federal government subsidizes producers so they can provide food security to the United States and remain competitive in an unfair world economy.

The 1985 Food Security Act, as it was called, added red tape to the collection of government subsidies. Farmers couldn't drain wetlands and be eligible for subsidies. The farm economy still required subsidization to be profitable, but now our wetlands were confiscated.

Dean is in error when he says the Swampbuster provision of the farm bill pays for wetlands. Land that has numerous historical wetlands will receive less of a subsidy. Our subsidy payments are based mostly on acreage history. Wetlands prior to 1985 are not qualified to receive payments. In other words, the higher the wetland acreage prior to 1985, the lower the current payment.

The Agriculture Adjustment Act started in the Depression to offer farmers a living wage as promised from the federal government. Environmentalists, hunters and the tourist industry are s few of the many groups that are taking advantage of that original promise.

Thank God for politicians like Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., who stand up for farmers in these wetland issues.

I wonder if Dean will love ducks when they start spreading bird flu around the United States? In light of massive federal budget deficits, I wonder if the toiling taxpayer feels good about the billions of dollars wasted each year regulating confiscated wetlands?

Miller is a Lawton, N.D., farmer and is on the board of directors of LAND, the Landowners Association of North Dakota.


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## Cinder (Sep 2, 2003)

If you go to the EWG website it shows a Dennis Jay Miller that has received over $460,000 in subsidies from 1995-2004. His land value has probably doubled or tripled in the same time period mainly due to government farm programs too.

No excuse for the behavior he describes but I do get a little nauseous when I hear how about how family farmers are being abused by the government.

Looks to me like the government has treated him pretty good.


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

Saw Millers editorial about how he is prohibited from draining more wetlands. The same section of the Forum ran a long article about the flood in the Valley, (downstream from Miller's land). Bet those flooded-out towns and farmers would just love more water! Sweet guy.


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## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

I heard Collin Peterson speak once. He wants the entire western 1/3 of Minnesota in drain tile. What doesn't make sense is they just don't understand that pushing that water faster than normal only increases the flooding.

As far as the rising deficit, it wasn't us who cut 141 programs (including USDA) to aid in manufacturing bullets to Iraq or is listed as the most spending President we have ever seen.


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## fireball (Oct 3, 2003)

Come on you guys, give the guy a break, you can't make money off water. If we dry up all the sloughs, we can put more acreage into subsidies. That is what it is all about isn't. Making more babies to make more welfare money. :sniper: Nothing worse than someone whining about not making enough money, when they get handed more money in 4 years than most people work for in 15 years. Handed....let me say that again, handed. Before someone says, we feed the world, without us you would starve, I say, hang up the plow, get a job and lets see who survives.


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## oatsboy (Mar 29, 2005)

on the other hand,lets all quite our jobs buy a farm ,put a plow in one hand and a government check in the other and start living the easy life.


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## adokken (Jan 28, 2003)

That EWG website has done wonders in informing people about who gets what. The same ones that complain about some working stiff getting unemploymnt checks are getting a taste of their own medicine. :lol:


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