The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #159380   Message #3776392
Posted By: Joe Offer
03-Mar-16 - 02:44 AM
Thread Name: BS: ...this land is private property
Subject: RE: BS: ...this land is private property
Donuel says: Did you know that of the 5 Hawaiian Islands, one is TOTALLY private?
Wikipedia says Hawaii has "approximately 152" islands, although the State of Hawaii acknowledges only 137 because the others are tiny or spend a lot of time under the surface of the sea. All but 127 state-owned acres on the seventh-largest island, Niihau, is owned by the Robinson family, who also own other properties in the state.
Lanai, the 6th-largest island, is 98% owned by Larry Ellison, founder and chairman of Oracle Corporation. The rest of Lanai is owned by the State of Hawaii. I can't imagine that any of the five major islands are totally in private ownership. There seems to be a lot of public land on each of them.
Here's (click) an article on the ten largest landowners in Hawaii. The State of Hawaii is the top landowner, and the U.S. Government comes in second.

There are many people in the western U.S. who believe that government land ownership is tyranny...or socialism. I rather like the fact that the people of the U.S. own huge portions of land in the West.

I suppose it's mostly casinos that are responsible for the improvement of the lives of Native Americans because their land is so poor, but I think there's justice in the fact that vast amounts of land in the Western U.S. belong to the tribes, as almost-sovereign nations existing within the territory of the U.S. And now, many of the tribes are doing well. Our local tribe makes generous donations of casino profits to community charities. They sure help us nonprofits out.

-Joe-

Click here for a map of federal lands in the United States.