Get off my lawn

[bhsup]

So with it being popular for you fine folks to tell us in America what we're doing wrong all the time, I thought I'd turn the tables.

Right to roam. It's dumb. Abolish it wherever it exists. It tears at the very fabric of private ownership. Thankfully it exists -nowhere- in the United States. We're doing it right. The world should emulate us in this regard. Those who don't are just silly.

There, that was mightily compelling if I may say so myself. Almost Churchillian in its gravitas. I await your assuredly to be weak rebuttals.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I used to have to tell the Canada Post carrier to get off my lawn. Literally. Instead of using the sidewalk, he'd stroll from porch to porch across peoples' lawns, and only used the sidewalk if there was a fence or hedge in his way. He seemed to think he was entitled to do this, but I told him that if the paper boy could use the sidewalk, so could he.

 

[IglooDame]

A right to roam? Like, anywhere one wants? How ineffably stupid. I'm so happy to be safe from the roam-culture in other countries.

 

[Lillefix]

There have been some strong debates about it in Norway. The main problem is that some rich people wants the entire southern coast line for themselves even though they live there only a fraction of the year. Not a chance. Not in the socialist paradise of Norway. You can't just fence off this people.

 

[bhsup]

Do they actually own the property right up to the water's edge? In California, for example, it is my understanding that private property cannot extend to the beach. Here in Missouri, the State owns rivers. You can buy property on each side, but you cannot buy the river nor prevent people from using it. You can, however, keep them from pulling ashore and camping on your property.

 

[Farm Boy]

There have been some strong debates about it in Norway. The main problem is that some rich people wants the entire southern coast line for themselves even though they live there only a fraction of the year. Not a chance. Not in the socialist paradise of Norway. You can't just fence off this people.

How does it impact tort liability? Children trespassing on your property in the US is absolutely a menace under the interpretations of attractive nuisance. You're liable for every idiotic thing they decide to do, sometimes even if they scale fences and walk right past "NO TRESPASSING, DANGER BEWARE" signs. It's worse with open farmland. Unless you're super rich in court.

 

[IglooDame]

Do they actually own the property right up to the water's edge? In California, for example, it is my understanding that private property cannot extend to the beach. Here in Missouri, the State owns rivers. You can buy property on each side, but you cannot buy the river nor prevent people from using it. You can, however, keep them from pulling ashore and camping on your property.

Ditto with Hawaii - beach is public property. There's an urban legend that some famous Brit (I want to say Ringo Starr, but, *shrug*) was quite peeved to see folks walking back and forth across the beach of the property he'd just paid some several million dollars for.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I don't have a problem with roaming per se, but I do propose that whatever property someone is responsible for [whether that be through ownership or stewardship, which covers both our bases] should be protected from harm by others who are not responsible for said property. That includes camping on the beach. Let's say, in general, non-transitory usage, barring the transit itself as being harmful to the property (like crossing it with a 4x4, or if the crossing became a main pedestrian thoroughfare such that it wore down the grass into a dirt path), as something that should be prohibited without permission by the owner/steward.

Perhaps a minimum distance to any structures or residences should be included as well, so as to keep these roamers from peeping in any windows or stealing from the barn/shed/warehouse/silo.

 

[Leifmk]

A right to roam? Like, anywhere one wants?

Like, how about anywhere one wants except on cultivated land in growing season or within a certain distance of habitation or production buildings, for example? Especially in a country with a lot of steep and narrow topography you might take a few moments to consider how such a customary right makes sense.

 

[bhsup]

Farm Boy, you would probably hate living in Belarus:

Belarus

Article 13 of Section I of the Constitution of Belarus guarantees that all forest and farm land is publicly owned. Forty percent of the country's territory is covered by forest, and approximately the same amount devoted to agriculture.

According to the Forest Code (Article 13) "citizens have the right to freely stay in the forest and collect wild fruits, berries, nuts, mushrooms, other food, forest resources and medicinal plants to meet their own needs."

So would my uncle, who owns several hundred acres in the Ozarks, all of which is either farmland or forested.

 

[Borachio]

Everybody's got a right to Rome.

"Get orf my farm!" sez Farmer Palmer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramblers

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Farm Boy, you would probably hate living in Belarus:


So would my uncle, who owns several hundred acres in the Ozarks, all of which is either farmland or forested.

All unused land in Scotland is free to use as well, in much the same way. Which I personally think is lovely: why should something go unused, simply because it's owned by someone else, who never intends to use it?

 

[EgonSpengler]

I didn't even what "right to roam" was until I looked it up just now. Weird. I suppose in more rural areas, being able to walk across someone's farm without specifically asking first might be important, since it could a long time to walk around. Of course, I don't know how many people walk very far in rural areas of this country if they're not taking a hike in a park or hunting in a designated hunting area, or whatever; if a neighbor's N-acre farm is between here and the grocery store, most people would just drive. Where I live, in a heavily-populated part of the country, we have plenty of public space for people to sit under a tree or bike to work or whatever. When I was a kid, the neighborhood backyards were considered fair game, but as an adult, just walking through a stranger's yard would never even occur to me.

 

[bhsup]

All unused land in Scotland is free to use as well, in much the same way. Which I personally think is lovely: why should something go unused, simply because it's owned by someone else, who never intends to use it?

Because it's theirs and not some random wanderer's. It's really that simple. They own it, not some random person wanting to traverse it. If I won the lottery tomorrow and bought 1,500 acres of Colorado Wilderness, you can bet your backside I'd not be letting random strangers walk across it just because they had some weird sense of entitlement to "the land" when in fact the entitlement to it would be entirely mine because, well, I bought it.

Thankfully, the laws in America agree with me on this, so it is all good.

 

[Borachio]

Seems to me that the US is far too young to have discovered the notion of Rights of Way. Which is really all that the Right to Roam entails, imo.

Closing off footpaths that have criss-crossed the landscape for thousands of years is one big no-no, to my mind. Even worse than Enclosure Acts, and they were bad enough.

The notion of land ownership is absolute crap (to be more brutally frank than is probably good for me; or I really feel). It's like owning air, or the sea, or something.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Problem with the public beach aspect of property law is that if someone owns a mile wide beachfront estate that beach may be public property but access to it is extremely limited.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Because it's theirs and not some random wanderer's. It's really that simple.

So if on this massive wilderness land of yours there are berry bushes, bushes which you will never eat from, never harvest from, and otherwise do not care exist (or may not even know exist), and someone went to pick berries from them, not damaging or harming anything else in the process, you would have a problem with that? Why? And please, give me something other than "because the law says so" and "because it's mine."

Again, this hurts you and impacts you in absolutely no way at all. This is not your garden they're taking from, not your farm crops which you use for sustenance or income, they are depriving you of nothing at all.

 

[EgonSpengler]

All unused land in Scotland is free to use as well, in much the same way. Which I personally think is lovely: why should something go unused, simply because it's owned by someone else, who never intends to use it?

Are the national parks insufficient? One thing we Yanks sometimes fail to appreciate is just how big and empty our country is, in places. I think Europe totals a similar landmass, but with twice the people, and a lot of areas long since exploited for their resources (I've heard/read that freshwater fish are nearly gone from Europe, for example).

Incidentally, a Scot is among the most important of Americans when it comes to our wild lands. John Muir founded The Sierra Club and helped establish a few of our national parks in California (Yosemite & Sequoia are the two most famous ones, iirc).

 

[Farm Boy]

Thankfully, the laws in America agree with me on this, so it is all good.

Well, then a 17 year old on a snowmobile mangles themselves while trespassing and you get to pay the bills.

 

[Traitorfish]

Right to roam. It's dumb. Abolish it wherever it exists. It tears at the very fabric of private ownership. Thankfully it exists -nowhere- in the United States.

Legally speaking, there's no such thing as private ownership in the United Kingdom, because excepting the Orkneys and Shetlands, ever inch of the land is owned by 'Er Majesty. All land is held on a sort of extended and perhaps indefinite lease, and if the terms of the lease mean permitting the right to roam, there's no real objection that you can raise against it.