My wife Sara is packing our car to head for Alabama as I scribble this article. Since I started writing about federal and environmental private property takings in 1996, the battlefield for our property rights has exploded from the Western U.S. to every state in America. In Alabama, I will be speaking with local farmers who are under full attack from the greens and the usual alphabet soup mix of agencies trying to grab their water and land by a mishmash of regulatory takings.

The attacks on rural America have become so commonplace that we know the green triad formula well. Government agencies like the EPA and foundations such as Turner and Pew, provide green groups with bottomless pools of funds. The attack arm of the greens (1) file lawsuits based on impossible federal regulations and trespass about looking for new species to add to the endangered list. Meanwhile, the warm and fuzzy enviros (2) form lobbies to coerce politicos to their cause and show local governmental agencies how much taxpayer money they can rake in by cooperating in the land grab scams. The function of 1 and 2 is to create "willing" sellers.

Working quietly behind the more apparent conspirators, are land trust groups (3). Their role is to contact landowners that are under attack from problems created by groups 1 and 2. They offer to "help" the harried property owners with their problems by placing a conservation easement on the beleaguered property or by buying it outright with cleverly laundered money that can be traced back to federal agencies and the mega-foundations.

It is the classic "bad cop, good cop" con, and because landowners are not aware of the squeeze tactics and how to fight back, the greens generally get the land or whatever else they want.

The Bush administration has recently aided yet another mammoth assault by the green triad on private property by yielding to the environmentalist industry and their special interest groups. Interior Secretary, Gale Norton and three national environmental groups have agreed to speed up the endangered listing of 29 plants and animals. This clandestine move has greenos crowing and property rights advocates gritting their teeth in quiet fury.

Certainly these rushed listings will lead to increased restrictions on public lands in the West, but a monstrous impact will occur on private lands in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama.

A map from the Center for Biological Diversity indicates that well over one-half of the landmass in Mississippi and Louisiana will be designated as critical habitat for the Mississippi gopher frog. About 10 percent of Alabama will be so designated including, all that state's land on the Gulf of Mexico. Major portions of the Mississippi River watershed in several Midwestern and northern states will become a sanctuary for the Scaleshell mussel.

The entire Southern half of Florida will be encumbered as habitat for the Miami Blue butterfly and the Big Cypress fox squirrel. Most all of the watershed in Western Utah, falls to the Bonneville cutthroat trout and California will lose even more ground to a yellow-legged frog. Large portions of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho will fall under the green triad jackboot of endangered plants, rabbits, and fish--likewise, in New Mexico, Arizona and West Texas. Least impacted is the Eastern U.S. with one plant listing in Virginia.

Not only has the Bush administration ignored its rural constituency and their desperate plight, but even the bastion of American freedom, the National Rifle Association, has joined the greens in their feeding frenzy on rural America by supporting U.S. House Resolution 701--the so called Conservation and Reinvestment Act. (Popularly known in rural America as the Condemnation and Relocation Act.)

H.R. 701 will provide tens of billion of dollars to take private land and water rights from unwilling sellers and fuel the furnace to reintroduce even more wolves, grizzly bears, and other predators.

So, what is going on here? An endless stream of Klamath Falls-like land grabs today faces rural America. The green triad, aided and abetted by the current administration, is now set to force even more landowners from their properties. The federal government, supported by the largest and most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill--the NRA, is demanding a bill to condemn and take untold amounts of private properties.

In short, agrarian America is being cleansed. If our citizens do not rise up and flood their elected officials with strong and endless demands that these incorrigible actions, the backroom ESA listings, and H.R. 701 be blocked now-- and I do mean now--the loss to our country, to our culture, and to our independence will be irreparable.

This article made possible by a grant from the Paragon Foundation. For more information on land grabs and how to defend your property call Paragon at 1-877-847-3443 or visit the Paragon website at