No Trespassing!

I realize that I may have succumbed to extravagant enthusiasm as a result of last Tuesday’s victory for equal rights in Michigan, but I can’t help feeling that the MCRI victory was so dramatic and so significant that it demands to be discussed almost more as allegory than simple politics.

Antidote To Invasion Of The Rights-Snatchers

A pervasive theme of my discussions here for the past several years has been a lament that the civil rights movement turned its back on the “without regard” principle of colorblind equality on which its success was based. But this abandonment of principle was so perverse that “turning its back” doesn’t quite capture the depressing magnitude of the reversal. Rather than simply changing strategy or tactics, what happened was closer to what happened in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a 1956 film, remade several times, in which the bodies of residents of a small town were invaded by alien beings who replaced them while maintaining their external appearance.

With luck and more hard work, perhaps the rejection of this invasion in Michigan will lead to an exorcism in other states as well.

No Trespassing!

It is often said that “two wrongs don’t make a right,” but one interesting exception to that rule is adverse possession, which provides that trespassers can in some circumstances gain title to property if they are allowed to trespass long enough.

The common law rules for adverse possession have been codified under both federal and state statutes. A typical statute allows a person to get title to land from the actual owner simply by using the land, out in the open for all to see. For example, your neighbor built a fence on your land with the intention of taking the property, paid property taxes, and you knew about it but did nothing. If this continued for a period of time set by state law, your neighbor may be able to claim this property as his/her own. The theory is that, by not disputing your neighbor’s use of your property through a lawsuit, you, as the actual owner have abandoned your rights to the property….

If you own land, it is important that you do not “sleep on your rights” since you could lose ownership of the land.

I have warned about the rights-snatchers taking adverse possession of civil rights a number of times (here, here, here, here, here, and here, among others).

Again, with luck and more hard work, Michigan could prove to be our wake-up call. Its voters posted a clear “No Trespassing!” sign putting the rights-snatching invaders on notice that we intend to defend the “without regard” principle from those who have been trampling on it.

Say What?