[peteey]

Coming into your house isn't even almost the same thing as walking through someone's yard.

Walking through someone's yard isn't a good comparison wither because a medium plot of land is maybe 4 thousand square feet and his property is 4 million square feet.

[vidarh]

Coming from Norway, where this is a concept that is being taught from primary school, because we have extensively legally protected rights to access private land ("freedom to roam"), it always surprises me how difficult this distinction is to get for people.

We had it hammered into us from childhood, and it boiled down to getting us to think about what would affect us if people wanted to access our land, and what would have only minor effect, and what kind of access we might want to have that would have at most minor affect on the owner. It takes minimal prompting to get kids to come up with trade-offs that deals with the distinction of "walking through someone's yard" vs. "grant access to larger areas of land".

[solotronics]

It was a founding priciple of America that we have the fundamental right to private property. We have no king/monarchy so private citizens can have complete ownership of the land as if they were a king.

[adrr]

Better comparison would be easements. Utility companies can dig up your hard because the city has granted them an easement. Some properties are land locked by other private properties so there is easement for access. Go anywhere in rural America and these easements are quite common. Granting easements for passage to a public resource follows the same principles.