Yes I do. It's a distinction without a difference. How do you adequately address the matter of the early states, and not just the original 13 ( most of which are east of the Mississippi) having federal land ownership within their borders that is single digit percentage-wise, when all the states in the West that joined later having, in many cases, the Fed Gov owning at least half of the land and in many cases upwards of 90%? It flys in the face of the Constitution which set up the states as the supreme entities, with the FedGov relegated to the few matters that are/were considered to be of national importance ( like defense and immigration. which the bastards seem to be determined to ignore, and Education, etc. which they are steadfastly determined to commandeer) land ownership being also nowhere defined in the Constitution. Either you are a States Rights Advocate or you are a Federal Government Sycophant. There isn't any middle ground. You seemingly are fine with Federal supremacy and I am not. For years on end, the Fed Gov has intruded in the States business of managing their own land area. The further control of non-private land gets from the people who live on or near it, the worse it is for those people. I don't buy all this crap about “the feds preserving anything.” And added to all this you have the EPA intruding on private property rights. All of it should undergo a massive overhaul, with the end game to transfer, over time any and all land for which the Federal Goverment has no immediate legitimate use. Furthermore, Federally owned land that has ceased to be of use for it's original purpose, should also be returned to the people. To be sure, states will need to manage their "newly acquired" land, but that management will be done a whole lot closer to the people than it is now. Plus, all these rogue federal agencies will go out of business.
This isn't at all complicated. Have you ever traveled across America?
The eastern and mid-western states have a lot of arable land that people wanted to homestead. Exactly the same opportunity that settlers in the western states had. As it turns out, there's lots of land in the West that isn't really productive and no one living within the territories wanted to claim.
That's the fact.
Either you are a States Rights Advocate or you are a Federal Government Sycophant.
Sure, of course I am.
Under what legal concept do you assert that the states now own this land that they never claimed or wanted at the time of statehood?
Federally owned land that has ceased to be of use for it's original purpose, should also be returned to the people.
What? It's already owned by the people.
To be sure, states will need to manage their "newly acquired" land, but that management will be done a whole lot closer to the people than it is now.
Again, which people?