Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/06/this-land-is-my-land.html
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It makes me covetous of the Right to Roam.
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Governor Rick Scott, who signed the law, insists that everything will be fine, because rich people are unlikely to abuse their new powers.
Right because the phrase we are all familiar with is “absolute power is absolutely unlikely to corrupt”.
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I hope there’s a provision to adjust the mean high-tide level mark to account for sea level changes, like a 1m rise by the end of the century. (Assuming that the current rate of acceleration remains constant.)
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No biggie. In only a very few years mean high tide will be somewhere around Orlando.
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There are plenty of retirees in that state. Maybe an organized sit on the sand protest with the intent of being arrested so that this law can be challenged in court would be something a bored retiree group might be interested in. I’d wager that the ACLU might be interested in providing the legal support.
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Law locks up the common felon who steals the goose from off the common, but leaves the larger felon loose who steals the common from the goose.
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Don’t forget public highways that are offlimits to anyone without an EZpass. I recently spent 15 minutes circling around near DC trying to find a way home that didn’t use the EZpass-only ICC (GPS being no help, since it has “no tolls” or “tolls” modes but no “untermenschen” mode).
Post-Reagan, we in the USA have adopted many systems that, in my youth, were considered the epitome of ruthless Soviet authoritarianism - national identity papers, for example, and now privatized public roads and beaches.
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This has been a common issue in California as well, but we have the California Coastal Commission that is pretty ferocious about defending the public’s access to the beach, even if it takes years of litigation against rich people.
That being said, I think the Californian public only has access to the beach up to the high tide line.
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Property is theft according to Libertarian principles, themselves.
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“…it is [debateable] whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all…”
Thomas Jefferson
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html
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I love the Orwellian Payment Options signs for that road. The “options” (note plural) are: “EZ Pass”, and “No Cash”.
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Every day something new astounds me. I’m getting a bit tired of being astounded.
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“… because rich people are unlikely to abuse their new powers.”
Then why do you need the law? My bet is some rich asshole didn’t like seeing “common” folk wandering around “his” beach.
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Section 37.1.c provides for sand to be trucked in at taxpayers expense.
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Rick Scott signs bills like this to cleanse the palate after having had to sign the gun bill “those meddling kids from Parkland” made him sign.
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Hey this could get exciting - Florida also has that “stand your ground” law!
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The theory of ‘abuse of power’ relies on the fundamental premise that there are things that you have an obligation not to do even if you possess the capability.
If you take the charmingly kleptocratic position that there is no exercise of power that the rich are unworthy of it’s easy to be optimistic about the level of abuse.
If you want something a trifle more vigorous, bracing, and accessible to the common rabble you can also just go with the more or less fascist theory that those who possess power are justified(even obligated) to exercise it against those who do not by the mere fact of possessing that power.
Much easier and more fun than fretting about ‘abuse’!
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Coulda been Trump. Beachfront, right?
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