Posted on 06/24/2005 5:11:41 AM PDT by beaureguard
You are right. And an ill wind blows.
How do you like your frog? Boiled I hope, because it's done.....
This is a must read – This was America and now this can happen to anyone unless we work hard within our states to protect and strengthen Eminent Domain Laws. Developers are working in wolf packs now having zoning changed to allow either commercial or multiple residents on other wise restricted land. Often destroying the continuity and integrity of existing property.
The next time your city or county wants to annex land for taxes, you had better thoroughly research their reasons.
With enough Republicans we can stop the dems from blocking conservative judges. And that's the key.
I met a guy once who owns prime property in the Florida Keys -- and some liberal radical environmentalist wanted his land for gazing out at the ocean and found some excuse of a bug that had to be saved on his property. It stopped him from building a home. It stopped him from being able to sell the property becasue no one would have a use for the land other than to stand there and gaze out at the ocean.
It's funny how liberals have to take the beautiful land - for their developer friends or their hiking buds. They never take the ugly land. It's an outrage.
This is a big issue and the fact that it's not getting wider play on FreeRepublic tells me we have a more subtle brand of troll.
From the Book of Mormon...
# Alma 10: 27
And now behold, I say unto you, that the foundation of the destruction of this people is beginning to be laid by the unrighteousness of your lawyers and your judges.
Here in Dallas, a portion of land containing 140 or so homes is being taken to build the new DALLAS COWBOYS STADIUM. A homeowner of 40 years is planning to chain himself to the tree in his front yard, a way of protesting his loss, when the bulldozers come.
This is the way I think we should handle this. I plan on boycotting the Dallas Cowboys, no stadium tickets, no watching of the TV games, no buying of the Cowboy's paraphenalia or whatever that concerns the Cowboys. This may be tougher on someone else, someone who loves football, but I will have no problem whatsoever. Will the rest of you guys do the same?? I think it would be an excellent way to get the point across!!!
This last travesty has turned me away from Bush utterly. He didn't do it, but he could have lobbied for a better outcome.
A democrat would have done less damage.
"That struck me as odd, since the eminent domain function was part of what the federal government was supposed to administer."
What made you think that? It's always been something allowed by local governments as well. The federal law is now technically what the Supreme Court says it is, that private property can be taken for private use as long as there is some public benefit (I think that's what they said but I didn't read the opinion). But states are free to have more restrictive laws that make eminent domain available under more limited circumstances.
I hate this Supreme Court decision, but realistically we aren't going to dissolve the Supreme Court and we aren't going to be able to get it changed anytime soon. The best course of action is for those who don't live in a state with statutes or a Constitution protecting against this sort of thing then they need to make a lot of noise until their states also protect them.
We need to organize a national tax protest. Refuse to pay income tax and property taxes. Defund these assholes!
What needs to be done is demanding that developers pay the potential land value, not the city assessed value.
A parcel of land worth 500K, with a potential to developers of 50 million, needs to be negotiated from that point. Not the 500K.
It's hard to let those words pass my lips, but I agree.
In the minority, Republicans at least pay lip service to rights. In the majority, they will do anything to retain power. It's pathetic.
Somehow the word dismayed doesn't quite capture
the reaction our nation should be having to this
travesty!
This scares the bejeezus out of me. I can easily see where I live now being in the line for a super-mall in about 10 years. And I don't wanna move or sell.
That's because the media reported the story as if it were a "Republican" decision, and allowed let the viewers to assume it was Republican. Not once did we hear a breakdown of the vote.
For those of you who still fail to see the importance of Federal judicial nominations -just read the majority opinion in this case - and shudder. The "Least Dangerous Branch", having abandoned even the pretense of Constitutional interpretation, has become the most dangerous. The time to "Go Nuclear" is now.
Thanks!
Some of them are. Last night on his radio program Alan Colmes was trashing "his favorite SC judge" Stevens and this ruling.
It was strangely unsettling to find myself agreeing with anything uttered by Colmes.
"Our Ageless Constitution," Bicentennial Edition (1987), outlined those principles, one of which it titled, "Private Property Rights." Another section of this Bicentennial Volume dealt with the 200-year history of court and legislative decisions that eroded those principles.
One essay is reprinted below, with permission:
Private Property Rights
-- A basic Premise Of America's Constitution
"Tired of having the fruits of their labors confiscated by an overpowering British government, America's Founders declared themselves free and independent.
"Most American schoolchildren can recite their claim that '. all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ... to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Less familiar, however, are these lines from their Declaration of Independence:
"'He ( King George III ) has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance .... He has combined with others to subject us, ... imposing taxes on us without our consent.'
"What, then, did the Founders consider to be the real cornerstone of man's liberty and happiness? On what basic premise did they devise their Constitution? Let them speak for themselves:
"John Adams: 'The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God ... anarchy and tyranny commence. PROPERTY MUST BE SECURED OR LIBERTY CANNOT EXIST.'
"James Madison 'Government is instituted to protect property of every sort .... This being the end of government, that is NOT a just government,... nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has ... is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.'
"Their guiding principle was that people come together to form governments in order to SECURE their rights to property - not to create an entity which will, itself, 'take from the mouths of labor the bread it has earned.' What was wrong for individual citizens to do to one another, they believed, was equally wrong for government to do to them.
"The right to own property and to keep the rewards of individual labor opened the floodgates of progress for the benefit of the entire human race. Millions have fled other countries to participate in the Miracle of America."
End of quoted material. Underlining emphasis added
As homes and schools have failed to study, understand, teach, and pass on the principles which produced a constitutionally limited power in the various levels of government, we see the constitution's protections eroded.
The 'redistribution of wealth' advocates of the past several decades, some of whom were dedicated to other philosophies, but many of whom were well-intentioned, have provided a gate by which tyranny and oppression threaten liberty.
America's Founders understood the human tendency to abuse power, and they meant for both elected and unelected persons with delegated power to be bound down by the "chains" (Jefferson) of the constitution. It is up to our courts, especially our Supreme Court, to heed Jefferson's admonition:
"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
As late as 1968, Justice Hugo Black's words constitute another wise warning:
"The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges' view of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation."
I am not ordinarily much of a believer in conspiracy theories. However, if a terrorist, border or other event of sufficient magnitutude to distract the public from this decision occurs this weekend or next week, I will change my mind.
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