Like the Democrats in 1860. Majority rule. If it's right to override it in one case, it's not wrong to override it in another, if you can make an argument that what the majority wants is oppressive. Just trying to follow the foundation principle of this country. The Declaration referred to States, or more accurately individual "colonies" because they had not yet become "states."
But the principle remains, so far as the founders were concerned, parts of "states" didn't work. Actual states could leave.
So if a fort is useful to you it's all right to retain it, but if it's not it has to be surrendered.
The equation is more complex than that. You have to weigh a number of factors against each other and then look at the sum.
In both these cases, the residents have a claim on the land, but in one case the land is absolutely essential to the security of the central government, and in the other case it is absolutely useless.
If your wrong-headed economics didn't lose you all credibility years ago, you've lost it now.
And i'm sure you'll inform me in the future that something else i've said has once again lost me all credibility.
Meh.
In both these cases, the residents have a claim on the land, but in one case the land is absolutely essential to the security of the central government, and in the other case it is absolutely useless.
Who decides what is "essential"? Who says California is essential to the country's defense? Wasn't control of the Mississippi essential to our national security in 1860?
And who says the national interest prevails over the will of a "sovereign state"? You certainly don't believe that was true in 1860. You support the Confederacy in spite of all they were trying to do to hurt the country they were leaving.
If the federal government has legal title it has legal title. If the property passes to the state it passes to the state. If you believe that the federal government has the land by right then it has that right whether the base is "essential" or not. You really don't have a leg to stand on, logically and ethically speaking. Just necessity and force.