Posted on 06/23/2005 7:30:08 AM PDT by Helmholtz
U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.
I used to be very hostile to 'slippery slope' type arguments (everything is ultimately on a slippery slope). I'm not so sure anymore..
This is just another example of Justice Scalia being a "devicive figure" on the court as Ted Kennedy says. Voting to protect private property rights definetly disqualifies him from being Chief justice
Poop. That is SO disgusting. The court system is a liberal bastion.
I hate it when that happens!! I only hit the mouse button once....
This court is gotten so far out of line, it is almost treasonous. They are basing decisions on public opinion, on international law, on international opinion. What ever happened to basing decisions on THE CONSTITUTION??
---
Agreed. You are not overexaggerating. Now political contributers can get government to seize other people's private property.
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.
-James Madison
http://www.neoperspectives.com/foundingoftheunitedstates.htm
Justice O’Connor, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
"...Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded–i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public–in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property–and thereby effectively to delete the words “for public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent."
Too bad those bedrooms will be taken from you, so what good are they in the long run. /sarcasm or is it really irony???
Was that supposed to have some meaning to the rational?
This country needs a good nuclear war to burn away the moronic chaff that keeps putting anti-constitutional Alfa Hotels in office.
Supeme Court has ended the "housing bubble".
There is no point to high valuations for residential property that competes with business use since business no longer has to negotiate a price for it. There is no fair market price where the seller cannot refuse to sell or at least raise the stakes with the threat of an expensive court contest.
When this sinks in, urban housing values will plummet.
Kind of funny, they are making some of the same points there that we are here.
I live in Eastern IA, and I expect the city council to start taking property at an accelerated rate now.
Another sad part is that it doesn't work very well. Martin Anderson's "The Federal Bulldozer" discusses this very well (Anderson didn't like National ID Cards either.) The Government takes land and houses from "the poor" who can barely get by and puts "expensive buildings" in their place; the poor move to even less desirable property and build more resentment of society.
The government is a kind of a Robin Hood in reverse; they rob from the poor.
Soooooooooo
When do we march?
More from O'Conner's dissent:
"If legislative prognostications about the secondary public benefits of a new use can legitimate a taking, there is nothing in the Court’s rule or in Justice Kennedy’s gloss on that rule to prohibit property transfers generated with less care, that are less comprehensive, that happen to result from less elaborate process, whose only projected advantage is the incidence of higher taxes, or that hope to transform an already prosperous city into an even more prosperous one. "
It'll be during the next economic depression. People do not rebel in any significant way so long as they perceive themselves to be relatively prosperous.
the same day these homes are scheduled for demolition. Road trip to CT.
and more from O'Conner:
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.