Court affirms public's right to beaches (a blast from the past)

I thought this was an interesting case that went to the Supreme Court last year, and it just shows how far some wealthy landowners will go to try to claim rights they don't really have.

People have a right to own property. In the U.S. and A., this right is enshrined in the Constitution. Ultimately, however, this right is governed by certain principles of society and law. (Kentucky law explicitly backs up this notion.) In other words, you can't claim rights that a perfectly valid statute has already said you don't have.

In Michigan, 70% of the shoreline along the Great Lakes is under private ownership. Property lines, however, are fixed boundaries. A person's land doesn't expand on a day-to-day basis unless they actually acquire more land using legitimate methods. Apparently, however, some of the landowners thought it did. Or they knew it didn't, but decided to act like it did.

The law is that private property along a body of water ends at the high water mark. The high water mark is generally the point where any life that is to be found changes from being land-based to water-based. Anything closer to the lake is public. A lakefront property owner can't just claim more land every time the water recedes.

But in a Michigan case, an owner of land along Lake Huron apparently tried to do just that by barring a neighbor from walking along "their" beach. What's more, existing Michigan statutes and legal doctrines already established that the lake is public property - a fact that the owners of the lakefront property surely had to have been aware of when they buyed it. If part of a shoreline that is below the high water mark has the cool agua of Lake Huron crashing over it, I'd say it's clearly open to the public based on these laws.

The case bipped its way up through the court system. One lower court absurdly ruled that the right of a property owner to treat land as their property doesn't always jibe with whether they actually own the land - so they can act like land is theirs even if it isn't. This ruling stated that while the public owned land that was exposed when the waters receded, the adjacent property owner could bar the public from using it. But the Michigan Supreme Court saw clear through this ridiculous malarkey (also called bullshit) and ruled in favor of the neighbor who wanted to stroll the beach.

But then, the property owners went to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming Michigan was unconstitutionally taking their property by ruling that the neighbor could use it. This despite the fact that the owners never really owned the property in question. But the Supremes rejected this argument because it was such a load of roo gas.

Naturally, the Freak Rethuglic clods threw a shitfit when the court ruled in favor of public ownership of the beach, but who cares what the Freepers think unless it's to make fun of them? Which we shall do. One of them - who I'm pretty sure is the same self-righteous oaf who ran the right-wing blog that prompted us to counter with the ConservaFools project - whined, "As far as I'm concerned, the public and 'their rights' can go screw themselves." This statement just goes to show the type of weenieistic arrogance the spittle contingent is capable of.