Posted on 01/03/2010 6:23:22 AM PST by Kaslin
BROOKLYN -- On Aug. 27, 1776, British forces routed George Washington's novice army in the Battle of Brooklyn, which was fought in fields and woods where today the battle of Prospect Heights is being fought. Americans' liberty is again under assault, but this time by overbearing American governments.
The fight involves an especially egregious example of today's eminent domain racket. The issue is a form of government theft that the Supreme Court encouraged with its worst decision of the last decade -- one that probably will be radically revised in this one.
The Atlantic Yards site, where 10 subway lines and one railway line converge, is the center of the bustling Prospect Heights neighborhood of mostly small businesses and middle-class residences. Its energy and gentrification are reasons why 22 acres of this area -- the World Trade Center site is only 16 acres -- are coveted by Bruce Ratner, a politically connected developer collaborating with the avaricious city and state governments.
To seize the acres for Ratner's use, government must claim that the area -- which is desirable because it is vibrant -- is "blighted." The cognitive dissonance would embarrass Ratner and his collaborating politicians, had their cupidity not extinguished their sense of the absurd.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
The Aristocracy of Pull.
Or call it the Brackley Center.
He wants to put the Nets there..talk about a “blight”..the WORST team ever..
Agree. Will showed his true colors during the last election as one of Obama's butt-boys of the right. His primary concern is interesting conversation over dinner on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A true dilettante.
He is like an African of a couple of hundred years ago: a novelty to be shown off at parties.
Ratner - any relation to Ellen Ratner, or just the same last name?
I think G Will appeals to Northeastern Republicans, which is a whatever for me at least, what troubles me about him is his lack of consistency, he more or less is a Romney Republican but yet here is trying to cloak himself in the Revolutionary War.
what happened to the effort to take Souter’s property in NH by eminent domain and build a hotel?
I thought he still lived in Chevy Chase. When Reagan was president and wanted to have diner with someone, he had them over to the White House, with one exception: He often dined chez Will.
Give Will credit, at least he calls for repealing the IInd Amendment, unlike most pundits who object to it and call for courts to arbitarily nullify it. Whether of not I agree with someone on the specifics, as a matter of principle I am unwaivering on the issue of rule of law, and so is Will.
I remember reading Will’s moronic screed against the Second Amendment and deciding right then and there that he wasn’t worth reading any more. He’s what passes for a “conservative” to the liberal elitists that think they own this country.
Paging Glenn Beck....
FYI ping in case you’d find this thread of interest :)
Hmmmm ... So we are to respect Will because he is open about his foolishness. Sorry, not buying it.
Will is just the kind of faux patriot who will get us all killed.
Here's the original:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Here's my improved version:
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed
It’s not his honesty, it’s his respect for the rule of law. Most elites try to have the courts impose their preferred “solutions” by judicial fiat. The entire liberal agenda would have died on the vine if it had to go through the excerise of representative democracy.
I live about 8 blocks from the site in question--it is an outrage that they are attempting to seize such a massive parcel of land in the middle of a transportation hub--it will turned downtown Brooklyn into a traffic clogged and unmanageable magnet for trouble. There is a dormant railyard below street level on Atlantic Avenue (less than 20% of the targeted area) but the surrounding area consists mainly of brownstone buildings and other residential properties and small businesses. The stadium will not only consume large parts of the surrounding residences but it will also create a spacial nightmare as it will sit in the middle of 5 interesections that criss cross and connect 5 different Brooklyn neighborhoods and provide access to the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges several blocks away. The environmental impact will be disastrous for the residents. Ratner is a pig.
Every once in a while Will gets one right.
There are a couple of points to remember here . . .
1. This Atlantic Yards situation pre-dates the Kelo case in New London by some years. There have been various plans in the works for something or other on this Atlantic Yards site for decades. I may be wrong about this, but I believe this was where the Brooklyn Dodgers wanted to build a new Ebbets Field -- and the City's failure to provide the necessary land use and/or zoning permits is what led the Dodgers to move to Los Angeles -- in 1958.
2. The Kelo case exposes some serious dangers for governments that engage in specious eminent domain condemnations on behalf of private developers. Several years after the infamous Supreme Court decision, that project is basically dead. The lands were condemned, the owners chased away, and the properties removed from the city's tax rolls. And now the project is indefinitely on hold because it was recently announced that one of its main components -- a major office/research center -- won't be built because the prospective occupant (I think it was the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer) is scaling back its operations Connecticut and maybe leaving entirely.
Item #2 should not be overlooked. The underlying collapse in commercial real estate may kill the Atlantic Yards project in a way that nobody ever envisioned.
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