Anybody who owns property can do what ever they *expletive deleted*ing well please
Agreed. Strong property rights are the bedrock of any free market or republic. I will preach that gospel until the end. I hope you understand the entire issue at hand, though, is usually establishing who owns the property and therefore who can do whatever the * they please.
(consistent with local laws).
Yep. And laws do exist. Including due process requirements for evicting people off "your" property (and what you need to do to prove that it's your property and that people on it aren't there legally despite the fact that you evidently haven't been using it or supposedly didn't even know). It's usually not a problem in most jurisdictions to be an absentee property owner. The law allows it, and it should. But the law can't magically distinguish between an absentee property owner who wants to leave their property empty, and one who is leasing out their property (including potentially sub-leasing etc.) but then suddenly changes their mind and wants to evict the tenants illegally. There is some minimum level of paperwork required of a responsible property owner. There's no automatic winner in property disputes, and if there is a "presumed burden of proof", traditionally it will fall to the one actually occupying or using the property, not the guy who shows up one day waving a title. American history is full of cases where people bought or leased property in good faith, maybe for generations, put in crops, built a cabin, did improvements, then some guy from "back East" shows up with a piece of paper claiming actually HE owns the property and you all have to leave now, including all the improvements you made. Property disputes are disputes for a reason. And possession is 9/10ths of the law, especially in the case of land. There's a reason real estate lawyers, tenant protections, and title insurance exist.
C) the squatters that should be shot are the ones that know damn well they're stealing the property from the rightful owners. Someone who, in good faith, signs a lease that turns out to be fraudulent is not who anyone is saying deserves to be shot.
I might agree with you there (shooting/hanging thieves is sometimes good policy). But how do you know who the thief is, without due process? This is why due process and documentation requirements exist. If you are a responsible property owner who is actually managing his property competently, the situation shouldn't arise, and if it does it should be straightforward to prove ownership and evict any squatters. Those situations don't tend to make the news though. The less straightforward ones are the ones you hear about.
