This is stupid. Wide open land doesn’t cost trillions of dollars to provide and the federal government constitutionally is on very thin ground when it comes to annexing so much land that isn’t related to constitutionally authorized purposes. Hunting a deer on federal land isn’t equivalent to welfare. This whole argument is idiotic.
It’s a variant of “positive rights vs negative rights”: the observation that the only real/valid “rights” are ones which do NOT require anyone else to do anything. In this case, Salon is trying to conflate “positive welfare” with “negative welfare”, ignoring the vast difference between “from each according to his means, to each according to his needs” with “Constitutional public welfare clause”.
“It’s there, use it, just don’t screw it up for anyone else” is far different from “I’m going to incarcerate you if you don’t give him money”.