Property rights are of relatively recent descent. The Magna Carta, signed by King John of England, "under considerable duress", and from pressure from the dukes, barons, nobles, earls, landowners, and the church in 1215; was the first document to establish "rights" and legal protection from the abuses of the king.

The king was the government in 1215, and the kings had a history of taking what they wanted from the land owners, taking land, taking animals, taking timber, crops - and not paying the landowners for their losses.

In 1215 the landowners united, met with King John at Runnymede Glen, and forced the king to sign a document guaranteeing the church, the landowners, and merchants, certain rights. It wasn't a perfect document, and it didn't establish these right to all men (that would be taken care of by the U.S. Constitution some 550 years later), but it established that landowners and merchants, and the church had rights that the king (the government) must honor.

The further we move from these principles, the more oppressive and abusive government becomes, and the further we drift back to the days prior to the Magna Carta and King John. For example, President Clinton established the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument by executive order in September 1996. "The furor of controversy surrounding the monument's creation was fueled by the fact that the drafting of the proclamation was not disclosed to state and local governing officials and the public at large. No one outside of a secret Department of Interior council, including even the governor of Utah, was informed of the impending action until it was reported in several newspapers just days before the public announcement." (http://www.cpluhna.nau.edu/Places/gsenm4.htm)

Had this just been useless, desert land of little value, this land grab (7 million acres) might have gone over without a ripple. But 9,000 acres was private land, 180,000 acres belonged to the Utah public school fund for future sale and financing of schools and education in Utah. It also deprived Utah and its citizens, not to mention the entire United States, of "one of the great, low sulfur, low pollution coal reserves in the United States." And this was all done in a democratic nation, without due process, without review, without public input or hearings. It was all done in secret, under cover of darkness, without anyone in the state of Utah even knowing it was going on. Do citizens have property rights in this country or not? Do the states have any rights at all?

What was more galling to the citizens of Utah is the president of the United States did not have the courage to even come to Utah to make the announcement, he went to Arizona. But this wasn't about public relations, nor was it about Utah, nor was it about the environment. It was about a small group of environmentalists bent on dictating public policy, though they are not elected by the people, nor appointed by governmental bodies, nor do they operate in a public, democratic way.

The Magna Carta insured that: