This time, we have a pointless, yet instructive, difference of legal standards. On the one hand, we have the territorial claim of Columbia. On the other hand, we have homesteaded property on the part of Panama residents. There has been successful conflation of these two irreconcilable legal standards on the part of both parties. Thus, neither side understands the other's precise meaning, and each does not understand their own position.

Territory is a legal fiction. Territorial claims are exclusively a feature of sovereign legal fictions. Legal fictions are incapable of acting, because they are only ideas. Thus people claim an arbitrary region on behalf of the legal fiction. This territory is treated as "property" of the sovereign legal fiction, yet legal fictions cannot own; only real persons can own. This is why legal fictions are just that: they have no material substance, but are an idea and nothing more. Thus, all territorial claims are nothing but a shallow argument for something that cannot be proven; Columbia, as a legal fiction, cannot own whatsoever, thus the territory claimed on behalf of Columbia is a claim without merit and without substance.

Property is a legal fact, so to speak, that results from more-or-less obvious improvement of unowned materials. Thus, property is not claimed; when you improve unowned materials you necessarily own it, until you decide otherwise. Such improvement consists in altering the unowned material such that it becomes more useful than before. The list of possible means of such improvement are endless; the material itself is what is being changed to greater usefulness. Thus, you cannot own more than is improved; geographical areas are not ownable, because an area is an idea and not material. The only other way to come to own something is through transfer material that has been sometime improved from its unowned state; someone can give you his property either as a gift or in exchange for something of yours.

Territorial claim is fiction; property ownership is fact.

The two have been successfully conflated. The Columbians treat their territorial claim as property, thus they repell all who do not use the territory as the Columbians allow. The Panamanians have treated the Columbian claim as an illegitimate property claim. Both have demonstrated a woeful misunderstanding of both the concept of property and the concept of territory. Nevertheless, the Columbians would be the aggressors if they were to forcibly repell the Panamanians off the property that the Panamanians necessarily own.

Last time there was major drama, it was over the harm that bitcoin usage might cause to the game; at least that was a legitimate concern. This time, the drama is over two legal standards that neither side understood and neither side could articulate to any understandable degree.

I'm calling this phenomena drama sine comprehensio: People will cause drama when they don't understand the situation sufficiently.

sigh