Posted on 06/23/2005 8:06:55 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants
Everybody knows about the shot that was heard around the world as the birthing pains of this once great nation. Today, sadly, we may have heard it's death knell.
It did not come with violence or shots fired. It came with the virtual elimination of personal property rights.
Our founding fathers knew how important the ownership of property was and sought to protect the right to be secure in the ownership of property to the extent that they enshrined the guarantee that property would not be taken for public use without due process and just compensation.
For over 200 years it was understood that "public use" meant that the ownership would transfer from the private owner to the local, state, or federal government for things such as military bases, roads, schools, prisons, etc. Now, the meaning of "public use" has been altered by 5 people who were never elected to office and in all reality, are completely unaccountable to anyone, to mean privately owned condos, shopping centers, and business parks under the thin guise that those enterprises would contribute more tax money to the coffers, thus increasing the "public good"
Justice Stevens, writing for the majority said that judges should give city councils and state legislatures "broad latitude in determining what public needs justify the use of the takings power," he added. To make sure that he wasn't misunderstood he added, "The city has carefully formulated a development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue," and just destroyed any pretence that you have any recourse whatsoever if the government or county decides that they want your property for any reason at all.
Sandra Day O'Connor writing a scathing dissent correctly said that now rich and politically land developers and businesses could basically take your land away from you with the help from the local government. Yes, you could fight it in court, but it is now fruitless as you are guaranteed to lose in a fixed fight.
For years the people have for the most party sat quietly as the government stole more and more freedoms from us. Prior to 1914 and fool could take any drug he or she wanted and kill themselves, thus increasing the quality of the gene pool for the rest of us. Before 1918, the government had no claim to your wages and could not tax them. Prior to 1934, Sears sold machine guns from their catalog and nobody thought anything about it. Prior to the 1950's preachers could freely endorse or denigrate any political candidate they wanted, just as had been done since the very first town government was formed in this country almost 350 years prior. Since 1986 it has been illegal to manufacture and sell a machine gun to a civilian despite the fact that in the past several decades the number of people int he US murdered by a person with a machine gun has been exactly one, and the person doing the shooting was a police officer using a gun issued to the police department.
But hope is not lost however, ownership of real property does a funny thing to people. It is a spot that a person can say, "This land is MINE!" with a dedication and a fierceness that is somewhat scary. Religion and politics and abortion and the WOT all take a back seat when two neighbors are faced with having their property stolen by the government.
Maybe that bell sounding isn't the death knell but the alarm.
Maybe this will awake the sheeple to realize that the socialist have gone too far.
Maybe the bell is just signalling round two of the Revolutionary War.
Will this war be fought with bullets or ballots?
We shall see.
elected governments enact zoning laws and building codes. this SCOTUS issue is about eminent domain and the specific constitutional protection that applies to that. there is nothing in the constitution giving you the right to install substandard wiring in your home, government can regulate that, the same way they can regulate where porno theaters are built.
This is also the first day i've heard right- and left-wing radio commentators vehemently agreeing on an issue. At first I was surprised that the left would react to this - haven't they always believed that property belomngs to the government?
The key to energizing the public is that when you talk to the left about this issue, always use the magic W word - Wal-Mart. Today's decision means the left's most hated icon can build a store wherever they want to. We may be able to get the nation's first bipartisan lynching out of this.
I really don't need my ulcer to get any bigger.
Thanks ... and I'd like to apologize for wishing on that monkey's paw I found that people would see how far we've departed from the Constitution.
Oh please. The left is angry about this ruling not because private property is being taken but because of *who* that property is being taken from and given to. If this land were being given to some conservation group to protect a spotted owl or some cave bugs, they wouldn't blink an eye. And if it were being taken from some Big Evil Corporation, they'd be doing cartwheels in the street. They've been taking people's stuff and giving it to others for decades. Now suddenly they're shocked, shocked! that the government is taking someone's stuff, even though they've spent years begging the government to do so. "But nooooo, we don't want to give it to *those* people; we want to give it to some *other* people." Oh well, too late. As long as they have no respect for property rights, they have no principled leg to stand on with their complaints. All they object to is the End, not the Means.
BINGO! Well put and completely accurate.
She started this with the sodomy case in Texas and the affirmative action case dealing with the University of Michigan.
Must be a Commerce Clause thing. It's not "your" home anyway, since it's simply a rented communal asset.
Unfortunately, by the time the Feds come for your property, the taking of property will have become so common that no one will pay any attention.
its not granted to anyone, which means the legislative body can regulate it.
Looks like we just took way too many steps backwards into history.
The case presented does not deal with an attempt to prohibit the amalgamation of the races. The right which the ordinance annulled was the civil right of a white man to dispose of his property if he saw fit to do so to a person of color and of a colored person to make such disposition to a white person. It is urged that this proposed segregation will promote the public peace by preventing race conflicts. Desirable as this is, and important as is the preservation of the public peace, this aim cannot be accomplished by laws or ordinances which deny rights created or protected by the federal Constitution. [245 U.S. 60, 82] It is said that such acquisitions by colored persons depreciate property owned in the neighborhood by white persons. But property may be acquired by undesirable white neighbors or put to disagreeable though lawful uses with like results. We think this attempt to prevent the alienation of the property in question to a person of color was not a legitimate exercise of the police power of the state, and is in direct violation of the fundamental law enacted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution preventing state interference with property rights except by due process of law. That being the case, the ordinance cannot stand. Booth v. Illinois, 184 U.S. 425, 429 , 22 S. Sup. Ct. 425; Otis v. Parker, 187 U.S. 606, 609 , 23 S. Sup. Ct. 168.
Here is the full opinion.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=245&invol=60
Don't count on him. He just wants to get along.
you libertarians are "out there", you want to turn opposition of this ruling today into some "you can do anything you want with your property" right. so if I want to turn my home into a nuclear waste repository, its OK?
take that approach, you will lose 99% of the people opposing this ruling today.
Now it is safe for the Home Depot to return.
No doubt there is a large segment of unintelligent people in America. The premise is that even if millions of people ignorantly surrender any particular right, understanding that it's our collective rights that fade, and desperately deserve preserving.
Irony or Justice?
I am so amazed at this decision I have no words. God bless.
True. America is too important to be given up on. As long as there is hope there is, well, hope. This nation cannot be let to fade.
I also have less problem with that than with the taking of our land to give to a corporation.
If you are going to capitalize Freepers, you should at least capitalize Americans.
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