[Busemann]

Originally Posted by KevinK

It's like that anywhere. Admit it or not.

I mean take France for example. They didn't trade oil for guns because of socialist ideals.

Very bad example since Chirac is a conservative.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Busemann

Very bad example since Chirac is a conservative.

France is a socialist country. Their version of conservative is a bit different.

Actually that really proves my point.

Our Left party is different because our country is NOT a socialist one.

The Right in the US would laugh saying there is no Conservative party in France anymore under your view.

Simply not true.

[cpt kangarooski]

SimeyTheLimey--

But surely though the constitutional language in the 5th Amendment isn't "public good." The words in the Amendment are "public use." I would have thought there is quite a distinction between the two. Almost anything can be called a public good. But a public use seems to me to be narrower. It implies to me not just an economic effect, but actual use by the public.

To take your railroad example, sure, title is held by a private corporation, but the use the railroads were put to was still public. Railroads are common carriers. The public rides them, and ships its good on them, much like a public road or waterway. By contrast, Pfizer's plant isn't going to be used by the public at all. It seems to me that is unambiguously private use. Drawing the line there would have been consistent with the Constitutional text. Your interpretation seems to require rewriting the Constitutional text. You have to substitute the word "good" for "use."

A question for you: under your (and the court's) theory of public good as anything that raises the tax base, what wouldn't be a permissible basis for a taking? Have the words "public use" been read out entirely? What line do they draw, bearing in mind that the purpose of the Bill of Rights is to limit government power?

Literally interpreting public use has long been found unworkable, and so for a very long time, the clause has been read as meaning public good. This is generally agreed upon to be sensible, I think. For example, if the government condemns some land to build a road way the hell out in the sticks, it's considered a public use despite the issue that only a handful of members of the public will ever even maybe use it, and it probably serves their interests far more than anyone else's.

So if we're looking for a public good, it's just a line drawing question. It seems to me to be very like the post-Lochner commerce clause. If the court doesn't meddle, it risks letting Congress do more than it's empowered to do. If it does meddle, the court raises itself above the legislature, replacing the wisdom of a political branch with its own. It's not a good situation to be in, and we've seen the Court generally favor Congressional freedom, since there is at least a political check. I think this is similar in that the Court doesn't want to unduly interfere.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by cpt kangarooski

SimeyTheLimey--


Literally interpreting public use has long been found unworkable, and so for a very long time, the clause has been read as meaning public good. This is generally agreed upon to be sensible, I think. For example, if the government condemns some land to build a road way the hell out in the sticks, it's considered a public use despite the issue that only a handful of members of the public will ever even maybe use it, and it probably serves their interests far more than anyone else's.

That's still public use, since the highway is open to the public. It might only be of interest to some members of the public, but it is still public. No member of the public could be ejected from it.

Now, if you want to make that analogous, you'd need to set up a gate in your hypothetical and exclude everyone but the people who live at the far end of the road and give those people the right to eject anyone they don't like who tries to use it. Then what you would have is a private use facilitated by the public condemnation of property, only made "public" by the tangental fact that the government taxes the property at the far end of the road. That is a definition so broad that it excludes no use at all. All private property could be taken.

So no, I disagree. The Constitution could easily be enforced as written. The Court did not need to rewrite it in this way. Use could be interpreted by its plain meaning as use. That would do what the Bill of Rights was supposed to do -- which is to frustrate the desire of government to aggregate power to itself. What you call "unworkable" is simply a reflection that this would be a limit that actually limits. Yes, that's the point! Ours is supposed to be a govenment of limited powers!

I'm surprised by your "whatever the legislature decides is ok" argument. Are there any other rights protected by the Bill of Rights that you don't think the courts have any business policing? How about free speech? Shall we leave that up to the discretion of the legislature as well?

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by SimeyTheLimey

So that is why this is such a bad decision, and why it is important, even though it is evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.

That's consistent with my non-lawyerin' reading of it too - that it was more of a failure to reverse course than it was setting some new precedent.

And that's what is strange to me about the reaction to this case. I think what's going on - like with my friend wearing the black armband - is that it just seems so wrong to everyone that the government can simply decide that they can take your home. But the fact is, the Constitution permits it. In that sense people really have a problem with the 5th Amendment. The issue of whether, once they take it, they use it for literal public property or not seems to be a very minor issue relative to that basic fact.

There's even an irony that, according to the dissenters, it would be OK to take property as long as the government owned it. In some circles, especially out here in the West where I live, that's probably worse than taking property for private use.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by BRussell

And that's what is strange to me about the reaction to this case. I think what's going on - like with my friend wearing the black armband - is that it just seems so wrong to everyone that the government can simply decide that they can take your home. But the fact is, the Constitution permits it. In that sense people really have a problem with the 5th Amendment. The issue of whether, once they take it, they use it for literal public property or not seems to be a very minor issue relative to that basic fact.

There's even an irony that, according to the dissenters, it would be OK to take property as long as the government owned it. In some circles, especially out here in the West where I live, that's probably worse than taking property for private use.

People have never liked eminent domain, but it has always been seen as a necessary evil. The reason why people don't object so much to the power of eminent domain for public use as opposed to private use is that there is much less risk to private property. The national park service or state transportation department don't have a profit motive to take land. Private developers do, and therefore are much more likely to do it.

It's also got something to do with living in a community. Government is I think in most of our minds supposed to be a neutral player as between private interests. This is the government taking sides and using the most powerful power it has on behalf of one part of the community at the extent of the other. Think of it this way. Suppose you had a squabble with your neighbor. It's nothing violent, its just a personal squabble. Now suppose your neighbor is buddy-buddy with the chief of police so that if you argue with your neighbor, he'll have the cops come arrest you. Not because you broke any law, but just because he has that power and influence. Don't you think that would be a misuse of the police? Aren't the police supposed to be there for the common good, not the private good?

I think that is the nub of the distinction. Yes, the government has always been able to take your home, but only when what you have was going to be used by the public -- not just to hand it to another private entity.

[BRussell]

So, that altruistic, beneficent government can only be corrupted when that ugly profit motive of the capitalistic robber barons gets involved. Alright, Karl.

[NYCFarmboy]

I'm still in shock over this decision, this decision's enormity is beyond grasp right now,....

the entirety of the following post is from:
http://www.blogsforbush.com/


Quickest Way to Reverse the Kelo Decision
By Mark Noonan at 06:47 AM

This is from National Review Online's The Corner:

The quickest way to reverse Kelo is to find some conservative town in Utah somewhere to shut down an abortion clinic in order to make room for a Wal-Mart. Also, that would be the most fun way to get Kelo reversed.
If, as the Supreme Court has ruled, a locality may take property because other uses will generate more tax revenues and other benefits for the local community, then this makes all kinds of sense - I'd like to see the abortion clinic which generates tax revenues even 1/10th that of a Wal-Mart store. There's no ban on abortion here - and the owners of the clinic would be paid full market value for their property; but don't you just know that our liberal friends would scream bloody murder if we did this?

You see, the fact that the four most liberal justices concurred in the Kelo decision indicates what it was really about - its not that they really wanted to transfer valuable real estate to private businesses (they'd probably have preferred that New London was taking the property in question to make a bird sanctuary, or homeless shelter or some such thing), but that they really hate private property and this was a nifty way for them to essentially terminate the right of Americans to own property. We should shove it right back at the liberals - make them overturn their own decision.

[jasonsRX7]

Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by jasonsRX7

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

I was about to post this!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHA!

That is great!

[NYCFarmboy]

Originally Posted by jasonsRX7

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

I hope they follow thru on this.

[driven]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi

It's a little back-asswards, ain't it? Usually it's the republicans who are all for big business.

but regardless, it's f'd up.

That appears to be a long held stereotype, but it does not appear to be true any more. In a lot of cases the right HAS stood up for the poor and the minorities, and in more and more cases the left has been the ones for obstruction and big business.

Brave new world I guess.

[porieux]

...

[saab95]

Originally Posted by porieux

Or, they knew it would pass anyway so they paid lip service to the layman definition of 'conservative' which only applies in mindless diatribes but not in the real world.

Both parties are in the pockets of big business, who this benefits the most.

Big business in partnership with the government is an instrument of the State and does not really operate in capitalism.

We have to be more specific when we hold big business responsible for the failings of property rights.