My cousin Justin is not a fan of James Cox Kennedy, or people like him.

Kennedy is the kind of guy who thinks he can own a river, and he thinks his fat wallet should allow him to keep people away from his river. He thinks he can own the mountains and all the animals in them, too.

There are a lot of super-rich guys like that, but Kennedy has been one of the most open about his plans.

Justin is as Montana as they come. That is probably why guys like Kennedy despise him. No matter how hard he tries, guys like Justin will just not go away like Kennedy and his ilk would like.

The feelings, though, are more than mutual.

Justin is an avid hunter. He can’t shoot straight, but he likes to take aim at the elk in the mountains of his home state. He likes to wear KUIU gear to keep him warm and dry when he does it.

At least he did until he saw that Kennedy recently bought KUIU.

“They just lost a customer,” Justin said upon hearing the news. He means it, too. Justin would shop Victoria’s Secret for his hunting attire before he would shop KUIU again.

He is one of many. No self-respecting Montana hunter or fisherman would ever get caught wearing any clothing from a company owned by the Georgia billionaire who tried take the Ruby River and go home.

Montana public lands are under attack. They have been for a long time, and there is no disputing that fact. The difference is we used to have politicians who protected us from the greedy multi-millionaires who try to grab up all the land.

They served as guardrails for the Mr. Burns types like Kennedy.

Now, all our major political offices are held by multi-millionaires who are looking to grab up all their land and turn the state into a playground for millionaires and billionaires. The inmates are running the asylum. The fox is in the hen house.

Whether it is the Yellowstone Club, the Crazy Mountains or what they are now trying to do in Virginia City, it is not hard to see the playbook. The ultra rich are getting a major assist in raping the land from the government that is supposed to protect it.

In 2014, Kennedy lost a case in the Montana Supreme Court as he tried to overturn Montana’s stream access law, and I wrote an open letter to him to try to comfort him in his difficult time.

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I think the tide is turning. I firmly believe the people of the state are finally opening their eyes to what is going on, and we are all going to come together to fight back.

We must do this if we want to keep the Montana we have known and loved. We must fight back before it is too late.

Otherwise, we will all have a bunch of guns — thanks the Second Amendment — but with nothing to shoot at and nowhere to shoot them. The mountains and streams will be reserved for those who can afford them.

That is why we all must be like Justin and speak out. We must be like Justin and boycott the companies owned by the kind of people who will try to steal our land.

Together, we have the power with our voices, our pocketbooks and our ballots.

If we use those to fight back, someday I will be able to write a similar letter to these rich guys who think they can own all our mountains and all the animals in them. It will be directed at the millionaires and billionaires who try to steal the public’s precious resources and the politicians who put their rich friends over the people of Montana.

Following is the letter I wrote to Kennedy on Jan. 21, 2014.

A letter to James Cox Kennedy

Mr. James Cox Kennedy,

If you will, I would like to speak on behalf of the non-gluttonous majority in light of the major decision rendered by the Montana Supreme Court last week.

The 1985 stream access law was upheld, ending your decade-long attack on humanity with you coming out as the clear loser in the case.

Even though Forbes Magazine calls you one of the top 50 richest people in the United States, you no longer have the power keep us poor folks from floating, fishing or wading past your mansion on the Ruby River.

As a preschooler might tell you, na-na na-na boo-boo. Ha-ha, you lose. The good guys won, and we hope your loss stings like an infected cut from the barbed wire fence you put up because you think you can actually own the Ruby River.

We hope you received the bad news from Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman because that’s what happens when a sorry billionaire tries to steal Montana.

Those fences, by the way, weren’t that tough to get over. Those warning signs you posted weren’t nearly enough to intimidate a true Montanan. We scoffed at your electrified fences.

It was bad enough to be so delusional to think you can own river. Trying to keep people off that river qualifies you as movie villain evil.

It is mildly surprising that you let the fish swim through your precious property.

It would not be shocking to hear that you tried to have the river stocked with sharks with lasers shooting from their foreheads.

Actually, Dr. Evil wouldn’t have been mean enough to try to keep people from using a river. The bad guys in the Die Hard movies would be shocked at your behavior.

Mr. Grinch wouldn’t touch you with a 39-and-a-half-foot poll.

You make the self-indulgent clown who paid $350,000 to shoot an endangered black rhino look like a guy in touch with reality.

You are like the “get off my lawn” old man, only a billion times worse. Just like the kids playing ball won’t ruin your grass, the sportsmen using the water of Mother Earth will not tarnish your view in the beautiful Ruby Valley.

At least the curmudgeon who doesn’t want kids on his grass actually had something to do with making the grass looking nice.

Who are we kidding? You probably think you are responsible for the beauty of the river meandering through the valley.

The only thing you are responsible for, though, is wasting a lot of time and ruining Sunday afternoons for sportsmen who truly value the river more than you could possibly ever pretend.

Thanks to the Montana Supreme Court, those days are over.

Now may you go to bed each night with thoughts of freedom warriors like Pat Ryan and Tom Malloy — shirtless and casting a line in plain view from your picture window — dancing through your head.

Money might be able to rent you happiness, but that is a thought that will surely haunt your dreams like Clark Griswold watching cousin Eddie emptying his septic tank.

When the Supreme Court justices rightly agreed with the rest of the right-thinking people of the world last week and ruled that you are in the wrong, we couldn’t help but giggle uncontrollably.

Now you have to take down the barbed wire, and the flood gates will be open. With any luck the summer of 2014 will see the Ruby River turn into the swimming pool when the caddies took over in Caddyshack.

Take a good look at us through your picture window as we go by because we’ll be easy to spot.

We’ll be the ones with our thumbs on our ears and our fingers waving as we yell “na-na na-na boo-boo.”

Sincerely,

Everybody

— Bill Foley, was doesn’t hunt or fish, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.