Niall,
Mine is a mostly philosophical argument, so "should" is what I am going for. And I do understand that our banter is lighthearted.
Re: CL similarities to Dundonald, again, I wasn't addressing the structures of the respective clubs, only that they share more in common from the standpoint of footprint and capital requirements than CL and Trump International. I was unaware that CL was planned as solely a pay and play club.
As to Sean's civic lesson, it is clear that he's been away too long. What I can do with my property is largely dependent on which state the property is in, and within that state, the city or local jurisdiction involved. Then there are issues dealing with water, flood prone areas, wetlands, etc. in which the Feds (CoE, EPA, Fish & Wildlife, etc.) have a lot of sway.
An example is a Dallas course which completed a major renovation recently that was deemed highly successful but for one thing, not enough trees were taken out. The architect was first to acknowledge the shortcoming, noting that for an additional $1 Million payment to the city, it could have removed the offending trees (the city supposedly would use the money to plant an equal # of caliper feet on its many properties).
In contrast, my old club near Arlington, less than 30 miles away, was sold to a warehouse developer who proceeded to clear cut the site. The city involved didn't have a tree ordinance and the site had been zoned nearly 70 years earlier as part of a gigantic industrial park. Ironically, part of the golf property along Johnson Creek was under the auspices of the CoE, but the developers were able to stay away from the affected areas.
Back to civics, the S in USA stands for States, not State. The 13 states came together to form a union only on the condition of each mostly maintaining their sovereign rights. Without getting into negative and positive rights, suffice it to say that the framers had in mind a very limited federal government with much of the responsibilities of governing left with the states and whatever jurisdictions each charters.
As to the voting history here, how many centuries did it take for the UK to allow most of its citizens to vote? And, BTW, how well is it working? It is absolute nonsense that certain people are disenfranchised unjustly in the U.S., unless of course one is talking about conservative voters in any number of large blue cities and states. But that and having skin in the game are whole other discussions.