From shore to shore

ALL DAY Wednesday, there was BREAKING NEWS over the wire out of Nevada. As in the state out west, not the county in Arkansas. All was confusion. Accusations. Protests. Arrests. Or at least detentions.

The story had something to do with a rancher, back fees, maybe back taxes, and certainly grazing rights for his cattle.

Reports say the rancher’s dispute with the U.S. government over land use has been going on for decades, and the matter came to a head Wednesday. Here’s hoping cooler heads will come to the fore and calm things down soonest. The country has seen these kinds of disputes before, and some of them haven’t ended well.

Deep in several of the stories came this strange bit of information: Somebody at the Bureau of Land Management, it was said, had set up “First Amendment Areas” for protesters who don’t agree with the government in this fight. The governor of Nevada called that development “disturbing” in his comments Wednesday afternoon.

A zone, a place, a protected section where folks can gather safely to shake their fists is sometimes a good idea. Think of the Occupy Little Rock types who camped out at the downtown post office all those months. Protesters shouldn’t be camping out on downtown streets. They need a place where they’ll be safe and secure. Much like protesters at a national convention who are guaranteed a safe zone where they can find refuge-without interfering with the convention’s proceedings or with the normal, busy lives of people who just want to go about their business without even more of the headaches that accompany urban life.

But setting up a First Amendment Area? Some of us thought it already existed. It’s called the United States of America.

Let’s hope the wires have good news out of Nevada today. And the suits at the Bureau of Land Management drop this officious language about First Amendment Areas. The bureaucrats may have meant well, but sensitivity to words, especially important ones like First Amendment, is clearly not their field of expertise.

Editorial, Pages 14 on 04/10/2014

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