Posted on 06/23/2005 7:30:08 AM PDT by Helmholtz
U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.
The lack of the office building did, like I said. I am not backing down on this one. The wording on FR's poll on this one is quite amusing don't you think? Despite the wording, I voted statist in any case. :)
Do I understand you correctly as wishing he really were a real, honest libertarian? Hell must really be freezing over.
I've been waiting to hear Mark on this since the decision broke earlier today. He's all over it!!
"'Creator of law'?? The Supreme Court's duty is to interpret the law, not to create law. This has been a worsening problem."
You say that is the US Supreme Court's "duty", but when I look at the US Constitution, I do not see language that is clear and says that.
And when I look at the US history, I certainly do not see anything of the sort.
When I look at the Common Law of England, I see that law originally was created by the Courts. Later, Parliament wrote statutes which modified the judge-made law, but certainly conceptually in the Common Law lands, judges are the original source of law.
In the US Constitution, I see that Congress can pass statutes, that the President can issue executive orders and his agencies, regulations. I see that state legislatures can pass statutes, and that state governors can issue executive orders, and their agencies, regulations. I see that city councils can pass ordinances and mayors can issue executive orders. And I see that the police will enforce all of these things, whether they be called "statutes" or "executive orders", "ordinances" or "regulations". I see that you will be deprived of money or liberty if you violate any of these variously titled things.
Therefore, what I see are all laws, by different names which simply identify who issued that particular law.
Then I look at what the courts do in the US, and I see that in the state and in the United States as a whole, courts examine whichever statutes, ordinances, regulations and executive orders they choose to examine, and the courts independently decide which are laws, and which are not. Court decisions put people in jail, impose taxes, and create new rights, such as the right for homosexuals to marry, or the right for women to abort, or the right for states to segregate black people. Court decisions eliminate laws. Court decisions are the most powerful of all laws in America, because they are the only laws that strike down statutes passed by Congress or legislatures, or executive orders of Presidents and governors, and replace them with new laws that suit the thinking of the judges who made these laws.
So, what I see is you and many Americans like you, very sincerely and honorably clinging to an image of what you think the constitutional order OUGHT to be, and what courts OUGHT to do, but disregarding their actual constitutional function and power. The primary source of all of the most disputed and controversed law in America is the Supreme Court of the United States.
Abortion, pornography, sodomy, the reduction of all human activity to a matter of commerce, which the government in general, and the courts in particular, can (therefore) regulate.
The Supreme Court today created the law that in America government can take all real property and re-sell it to a higher bidder so long as it pays a sum that, in the government's estimation, is "fair". No legislature passed such a law. The town in Connecticut that provoked this case did not even pass such a general law. Rather, it had a specific plan affecting some houses. But the Supreme Court of the United States, deciding that particular case, constructed a general principle of law that assigns the decision on private property ownership to the judgment of public officials in every community, however small or large, in America.
You suggest that this is a new problem.
But I recall that the Supreme Court of the United States described slaves as not human under the law, but property, and, on a different theory of property, struck down all Congressional power to regulate private property, thereby unwinding every compromise on slavery that had prevented dissolution of the United States until then.
Back then, the Supreme Court US established the law that slaves were property and property rights are so absolute that government cannot interfere at all.
Today, the Supreme Court of the US established the law that all property rights are relative to the most valuable use of the property in the opinion of the government official deciding the case, and that governments can redistribute property based on their concept of value and utility.
I fail to discern any difference or "worsening" of the problem in America. This has always been a fundamental flaw in the US Constitution. It caused a civil war. It caused segregation. It caused abortion. It is causing enemies of America, terrorists, to be released to go and kill more American soldiers (and people call the French stupid!). And today, it decided that private homes may be reapportioned to other owners based upon the decisions of local officials.
All of this seems quite bad to me, and this line of cases from the past 155 years of US history confirms to me that the problem is not THIS court, or some new departure from a golden past. It seems to me that the US Supreme Court has been doing this nearly since its inception, that Americans have known this, and that Americans believe that the structure itself should be retained, even though they do not seem happy with the way the US justice system works.
I hope the government comes along and confiscates your family's house so that it may be turned over to some big campaign-donor developer.
Well, the problem with making assumptions is that you tend to make an ass out of both "U" and Umption. I do not for a minute think that judges should have the power that they have simply assumed over the years, to the point where they are in fact both legislature and judiciary rolled into one.
As for changing the constitution, I do not think that is necesscary, as the power that the court has assumed, (the power to tell the other branches of the federal government when they have violated the constitution) is not contained in the constitution we have now.
Also, when I speak of the battle for the courtroom, I am talking about one side that wants to use the court to rewrite the constitution on a daily basis, and one side that simply wants judges to act like referees, applying the law as written, whether they agree with it or not. I am not talking about packing the court with judges that would do for conservatives what liberal judges now do for the left (enact policy that they could never get passed at the ballot box.)
And if I want someone to tell me what I really meant, in spite of the plain language of what I said, I'll ask my wife ... or a liberal judge.
Just got through watching all 3 network evening newscasts. All 3 had *small* pieces on the SC decision while devoting full, breathless reports chock full of Rat soundbites on the Karl Rove and Rumsfeld hearing issues.
In the SC decision reports, NO MENTION was made on ANY of the 3 broadcasts that the liberal wing of the Court was response for the decision. Bob Schiefer of CBS then proceeded to blame the fall in the stock market today on *oil prices* rather than the outrageous SC decision and its dire consequences for the economy.
response = responsible
Not all of us do.
There is NOTHING wrong with the Constitution, it is beautiful in it's simplicity.
The problem is with the black-robed bastards that decided THEY have the authority to 'interpret' it, and REFUSE to uphold the principles on which it was founded!
Yep!
"You can blame it on ignorance if you want, but a majority of the people do not want Roe v Wade overturned even though in other polling they disagree with its application."
I do not see any ignorance.
If what you say is true, than Americans are in favor of the abortion law as it exists, and are content to have the Supreme Court as the final arbiter and most powerful source of law.
If Americans are content with this structure, then it is democratic that it be just as it is.
Perhaps I do listen to too many Americans of the Right, and see what they say confirmed on information outlets such as FreeRepublic.
Given this, I would say that I prefer the French system of law and rights, though it is very far from perfect. The rights and restrictions I care most about seem to be more protective of the things I hold dearest, such as privacy and the sense that my home is mine own, in French law than in American. Also, the things I find most immoral, abortion for example, is much more limited in France than in America.
But that is democracy.
If what the US Supreme Court did today is not overridden by Congress, then I will know that it, too, is the democratic will of the people such as you have described it above in the case of abortion. I will also know that, while those who hold to a more traditional view of the private home as I do are very vocal at FreeRepublic, Americans in general support the law that the Supreme Court made today. The lesson I take from what you wrote is that if a Supreme Court decision is not overturned, it is therefore ratified by the American democracy because it wasn't overturned.
I will be watching, therefore, with interest to see if the American democracy overturns this ruling today or, by not doing so, if it is silently proven that the silent majority of Americans actually approves of the outcome, as they do Roe v. Wade, by what you have said.
Very interesting.
I had not looked at it that way before.
Slavery was not the will of the Americans, because they overturned Dred Scott with a Civil War.
But segregation was, because they did not overturn Plessy.
That there should be no labor protection was the will of the Americans under Lochner, until the Americans decided that they needed regulation of private property and the economy, starting with West Coast Hotel and continuing to this very day's decision.
Americans want gays to be able to practice sodomy, because the overruling of Bowers v. Hartwick has stood, and if gay marriage sustains in Massachussetts, the people there support it.
Fascinating.
I have to say, I do not like it.
It is too indirect.
I think there are far too many barriers to overturning the Supreme Court. I think that supreme power should repose in the elected branch, not the non-elected branch. But this is apparently a difference of philosophy. From what you have told me, I understand that Americans do not really trust themselves, and do not, therefore, want their elected officials to make the most important decisions. They want immune judges to make those decisions for them, and only if the decision is egregious enough to get two thirds of the House and of the Senate, and three-quarters of the states to agree to overturn the Supreme Court, should the democracy prevail when it disagrees with the judges.
As I say, fascinating.
Fascinating, but, I am sorry to say, strangely repulsive.
Thanks for that report. I don't watch any of those broadcasts. It's not surprising that they barely covered it. Let's not upset the population.
My first thought too with the market drop was the SC ruling. Funny how Schieffer doesn't agree.
Scroll back a bit, there are links to the DU thread and WE ALL AGREE!
Property rights supersede political affiliations, so it would seem!
"All it takes is nine fellow citizens to agree with you that your job loss is directly attributable to the city. "
That is usually true, BUT, the city can simply give the USSC decision and have the case dismissed. Happens all the time.
I rarely watch them either, but tonight I *had to* just to see their spin on what I consider to be the worst SC decision since Dred Scott. Their spin was sadly predictable (bias by ommission).
Oh, and also, on the CBS News, the CBS Pentagon correspondent openly pined for a "Tet-type offensive" (his words) by Iraqi insurgents as he compared falling support for the Iraq war to the Viet Nam war.
Already had laws, where? The laws created by the various constitutional legislatures apply to all, unless expressly indicated. ie. cops are allowed to speed to enforce traffic laws.
"...the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave. John Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772
Adams erred. It is well within man's power to alienate and take that gift of Freedom and other men's rights away. If that were not true,Adam's and his contemporaries would not have cause to clash withthe King's men and Tories at the time. Ultimately, respect for rights and the existence of Freedom is a gift from your fellows, just as it was a gift from God. Anything else results from a clash of wills and the imposition of sufficient coercive force.
" It's WHY the Declaration was separate from the Constitution "
The Declaration is a document stating the cause for and intent to cede from the Crown's rule. The Constitution is the document that created the new govm't. The only legitimate purpose of govm't is to protect rights and protect Freedom.
" It's WHY the Bill of Rights were separated from the Constitution"
The Constituiton is the blueprint for the US Fed gov. The Bill of rights limited the extent, scope and reach of the gov. created.
"It's WHY we're in such a major mess now because SO FEW PEOPLE understand the beautifully simple system of Natural law left to us by the Founders..."
The founders only recognized, to a limited extent, Natural Law. They are not it's authors and Natural Law is not written down, nor was it ever enforced. Franklin commented that the Constitution was imperfect and it should be left to future generations to perfect, or destroy.
The reason for the abandonment of the condition of Freedom and the prevelant idea that govm'ts purpose was to protect rights, is primarily in accord with deToqueville's observation and conclusion-that the condition of Freedom and enjoyment of rights would cease when the people learned to engage in raiding the public treasury. That means to seek their dreams with other people's time, money, resources and efforts. IOWs "nonviolent" robbery, serfdom and outright slavery.
"It's WHY America WAS considered FREE!
Freedom means rights are honored and an individual's sovereignty of will is inviolate. It now means folks living in the mannor, can pick their rulers from a pot of authoritarian lords.
You are being sarcastic, but your statements are almost completely correct: Americans as at the time of the respective rulings didn't want slavery,* they most certainly wanted segregation without question, there is no doubt whatsoever that a majority want gays to be legally permitted to engage in sodomy (a lesser majority also wants gays to choose not to do so), and a slight majority of people in Massachusetts want them permitted to marry according to polls (but we'll find out for sure when they get to vote).
*It's actually questionable whether a majority of Americans opposed slavery in 1857. It certainly was not enough of a majority to overturn the decision by constitutional amendment, and the Civil War was not fought over slavery but over secession. The answer appears to be that before the war a majority wanted slavery reformed, but not abolished.
that's because americans think that overturning Roe v Wade will immediately make abortion illegal everywhere, at any time. you and I know that isn't true, but I doubt the sheeple being polled understand that. those same sheeple won't care about this decision either, because for the most part, it will effect "the other guy" whose house is being taken, and they will be comparitively few in number.
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.