TJ, I disagree with your statement "....the general government mindset is that anything on public lands should belong to everyone because everyone pays taxes....."
1) Not everyone pays taxes, yet everyone is allowed on public lands with few exceptions, and providing the current laws are obeyed. Even foreigners are permitted on our public lands, and they never pay a dime in US taxes.
2) Not all things are prevented from being removed for the good of all, as you imply. Rocks, minerals, fossils, game & fish, and trash can currently be removed from many federally administered public lands without paying a federal fee and often without need of a federal permit. (Hunting and fishing permits/licenses are sold by the states.) Why are those things legally removed and not treasure?
I personally know two people who run small rock shops. One lives in California and one is in Oregon. Those people collect rocks, minerals, fossils from OUR lands and sell them for a profit in their shops. No permits and no fees. I'm not advocating THEY should have to buy permits, I am advocating that since they can do it, why can't we?
If I were to have a mechanized piece of heavy equipment come into a national forest and move tons of earth with it in order to look for treasure, I can see where a set of restrictions and a permitting system would be necessary. But for the average treasure hunter or metal detectorist or artifact collector or bottle digger, I don't see why our hobby is any different from the rockhounds - and I am a rockhound, too. In fact, the rock shop owners that I mentioned are not your average rockhound. They collect hundreds of pounds of material and sell it for profits - with no permits or fees necessary. They pay taxes on the profits they make on the sales of the material. I'm advocating equal treatment under the law. I'm saying we are being discriminated against and it has little to do with anything except the elitist attitude of the professional archaeologists who are trying to preserve their own incomes. We are threatening their jobs - and many of them don't care about the material they dig up. They care about the books they can write and the new discovery they can name after themselves. We are being brainwashed into thinking we need them. BULL. They need us.
Do you realize that some of the best discoveries made in the field sciences were made by those who were not the scientists themselves? Mary Leakey found more old skull parts than her scientist husband did in Africa. There are many ametuer rockhounds who have minerals named after them because they first discovered them. Why do we allow ourselves to be treated as stepchildren? Only through standing our ground as equal citizens will be make progress. Submission makes us less than equals. No thanks. I'll not settle for half a loaf.
3) Equal justice under the law should refer to us treasure hunters as much as backpackers and rockclimbers. If rockclimbers can pound their pitons into the face of Half Dome in Yosemite in the name of "sport," why can't I put a shovel into the desert soil and retrieve a cache of old bottles? It is the same thing. In fact, my shovel is less harmful to the environment. The government at all levels has more historical material now in its possession than can be thoroughly "studied" in a thousand years. They are not telling us the truth when they outlaw our activities. Think about that.
My quarrel here is not with any individual. I'm on your side because we are on the same side. My quarrel is in the thinking that says we need to pay more or give up more or kiss more butts because of our hobby. Never! We need fewer hoops to jump through, not more. It was individual discoveries that made America rich. To dampen that discovery mentality is to dampen our own future.
