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His argument is that land is not someone's property if they do nothing with it. He is making a lateral run around property rights by claiming it's not your property unless you use it.

Wow, that's right out of the governor's official talking points--that the change in the law was one word so... big deal, right? Absolutely incredible to see people who apparently call themselves "objectivists" defending this blatantly socialist move. Incredible.

The thing is, if you had all that evidence, it would probably be quite straightforward to establish a motive. If you had all that and can't establish a motive, well, it'd probably not be as clearcut as you'd make it out to be in your hypothetical. We may know that the person did the action, but we wouldn't know exactly how to attribute their level of guilt. If in legal terms I am wrong about this, I'd like some examples of convictions where motive was never determined. Maybe accident isn't the best word choice. Rather, no established motive would indicate that the case is not as obvious as it appears.

A person should only take pride (or shame) in their own actions, not those of other people, including ancestors. In my view, knowledge of ancestral background only has one benefit: Appreciation of good things and hard work done by your ancestors that put you in a better starting place in your own life. Note, that's appreciation, not pride. You cannot take pride from other people's actions. That's stealing pride, and false pride. (Perhaps a second benefit is learning from the mistakes and successes of other people, but that's not confined to your ancestors. You can learn from anybody's mistakes or successes.)