When the Facts Aren’t There, But You Don’t Care

Yesterday, I wrote this letter, taking a podcast host to the ‘woodshed’ for spreading falsehoods and name-calling for no reason other than he does not understand the federal overreach of our government when it comes to so-called public lands. I decided to share this today after receiving the response, “lol. Good luck,” which shows that many people are not interested in learning.

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to express my disappointment and concern over the disparaging remarks made by Josh, the narrator of your podcast (The Wild West Extravaganza,) regarding United States Senator Mike Lee of Utah. Specifically, his decision to insult Senator Lee over a modest proposal to return a fractional percentage of federal public land to the states is not only misguided—it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the U.S. Constitution, the history of federal land acquisition, and the very principles of representative government.

Senator Lee’s proposal to return between 2.2 and 3.3 million acres—amounting to a mere 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service holdings across the West—is neither radical nor reckless. It is a carefully considered effort to address what many Americans perceive as a long-standing overreach by the federal government.

The U.S. Constitution is clear. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17—the Enclave Clause—grants Congress exclusive legislative authority over land only when purchased with the consent of the state legislature and only for forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings. This clause does not authorize the permanent occupation of vast swaths of Western lands for non-enumerated purposes such as wilderness areas, grazing, or recreational use.

Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2, the Property Clause, has been broadly interpreted by courts to grant authority to the Federal Government authority over State land. But let’s be honest: judicial interpretation is not the same as law.

It is an opinion, not an immutable amendment. The Constitution remains the supreme law of the land—not precedent, not the whims of unelected bureaucracies, and not the comfortable assumptions of podcast hosts.

It is not extremist or ignorant to question a status quo where the federal government owns 640 million acres of land—about 28 percent of the entire nation—and where states like Nevada (80 percent), Utah (65 percent), and Idaho (61 percent) see their destinies shaped by distant agencies with no accountability to local voters. It’s not stewardship but landlordism.

And Senator Lee’s proposal doesn’t ask for a revolution. It requests a fraction of a percent of that land returned to those who live closest to it.

The disrespect shown by Josh—calling names instead of engaging with the facts—is beneath the dignity of any informed civic dialogue. It is not just condescending; it is anti-constitutional Republic. The Constitution was written in plain English so that ordinary citizens could understand it and hold their government accountable—not so it could be endlessly reinterpreted by elites and commentators thousands of miles away from the land in question.

In the American system, consent of the governed matters. In the West, millions of people have witnessed its disregard for generations.

Their voices deserve to be heard, not ridiculed. Senator Lee’s proposal is one way to begin restoring the balance between federal power and local control.

Agree with it or not—but debate it on its merits. Don’t hide behind caricature, character assassination, and name-calling.

I encourage your team to revisit this issue with honesty and constitutional clarity—and to offer Senator Lee and the citizens of the West the respect they are due.

Sincerely, Tom Darby