RE: "Everything's Like, Okay, Bro..." THE HIPPIE BULLSHIT INVASION OF STEEMIT
Everyone seemed to be getting along with sharing all these cabins that did not really belong to anyone. Nothing was ever destroyed or stolen aside from the occasional group of kids (which might happen even if they were owned). Eventually, the government found out that all these cabins were out there and burned them all to the ground because no one was paying taxes on them. Yay, the government came to the rescue again.
Lol. Typical government bullshit, right? Find a perfectly happy situation and shit on it. Have you read about the destruction of the orange crops in California when thousands were dying of starvation during the dust bowl era? In an attempt to regulate prices, the US government sprayed napalm on entire, massive crops of oranges that people could have eaten. I swear if there is a hell these fuckheads' feet are already warm...
Anyway, in the case of the cabins, if all parties including the owner who built it were cool with the situation, that's great. If the cabin was actually unowned, great. If not, what you were doing was breaking and entering (theft) albeit in a pretty polite fashion. If they were government cabins then, fuck yeah, get your tax money back by living it up!
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Contrary to how I may come off on here, I actually enjoy the hippie side of life--I just recognize the objective need for well-defined property norms and boundaries if violent conflict among humans is to be minimized. This is the essence of anarcho-capitalism.
Haha, I guess it was violating what I also believe should be property rights the first time we stayed there - since at that time we still believed it was owned. It may be a gray area because it was pretty obvious it was abandoned. Once we found out it was for sure not really owned by anyone and there were other cabins, I think fixing it up and taking care of it would be considered rent - at least in Canada.
I'm not sure about breaking and entering, though, since everything was open (broken window, other damage, and open door already) and the place was in pretty rough shape and appeared abandoned. I'd say trespassing if the land was owned by someone, at most. And even then, I think there still needs to be some sort of interference of some kind. Like being allowed to walk up to someone's front door to knock on it. It's not trespassing until they tell you to leave as long as you didn't damage or take anything. But if there was a sign and you chose to enter the property anyway; trespassing. I guess if they were going for the abandoned look and we made it look more like a nice cabin in the woods, that would be considered interference.
That actually makes me think of how long something has to go unused before it can no longer be considered owned? Of course, if you have a car sitting in a garage and you just don't use it, it's still yours. You're taking care of it by sheltering it and it shows that by it being in a garage. But, if you leave that car out in the middle of the woods and it begins to decompose, at what point can someone else go and take it to fix it up or to even dispose of it without it being theft?
All excellent questions which I think the free market and individuals/local property owners/homesteaders could figure out non-violently.