Posted on 06/29/2005 9:52:55 AM PDT by HonestConservative
Liberty hangs in a noose, in the name of 'public use' Wednesday, June 29, 2005 Cloaked in justice and disguised by the mind-numbing language of the law, a strange and dangerous hybrid of fascism and socialism came to the United States last week.
It was a group of "liberal" Supreme Court justices who gave fasci-socialism the green light, while it was the four conservative justices who stood firm against tyranny in favor of the individual rights of the "little guy."
As the nation buzzes this week with news about a potential Supreme Court opening, last week's case of Kelo vs. New London dramatizes, as few cases could, why the stakes are so high -- and why, if it's not already too late to stem the tide of repression, the appointment of a conservative, "strict constructionist" justice is of utmost importance for this free society.
In Kelo, the town of New London, Conn., wanted to clear out a stable, working-class neighborhood -- not ritzy, but certainly not blighted -- so that Pfizer Corp. could build a new facility there. The idea was to spur more economic development (and the tax dollars that flow from it).
But some of the residents didn't want to sell their homes. One woman, indeed, had lived in the same house since 1918.
Too bad, said the city. It invoked the power of "eminent domain" to force the residents to sell. By that power, governments can expropriate property "for public use" if, according to the Fifth Amendment, the prior owners are given "just compensation."
The residents fought back by filing suit. Pfizer is a private corporation, they noted, so how can it qualify as "public use"?
Traditionally, public use has meant exactly what the words indicate: something owned jointly by the public -- or which gives the entire public a necessary access to a good held in common -- such as roads, parks, or rights of way.
In a series of court cases, though, public use was expanded to include the ability of the government, through its police power, to protect the health or safety of its citizens. By extension, property that was blighted or otherwise in dangerous conditions could be seized (again, with "just compensation") for community redevelopment projects.
Reasonable observers could see those decisions without being terribly concerned -- but the outer edges of what 19th century leaders called "the despotic power" of eminent domain surely had been reached.
"Thus far and no farther," in effect, was the message of Susette Kelo, the plaintiff in the New London case. Her neighborhood wasn't blighted. And the city didn't want it for public ownership or direct public use. It merely wanted Pfizer to get the properties so the company could bring in jobs, money and taxes.
By the plain meaning of the words, private ownership by Pfizer doesn't qualify as "public use."
But the courts these days are populated by judges all too willing to twist the meaning of words in service of policies they consider to be for the public good. In many cases, the judges see the public good as something provided by an ever-more-powerful government.
Thus did the Supreme Court change the meaning of the Fifth Amendment from "public use" to "public benefit" or "public purpose." Writing for 5-4 majority, Justice John Paul Stevens used the language of a 1954 "public use" case involving urban blight for the New London case in which no blight was involved:
"The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive. ... The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well as carefully patrolled."
How nice, how noble, how utopian.
Tyranny, as ever, creeps in on little cat feet. Listen more closely, and you'll hear the insistent whisperings of Big Brother, plotting to confiscate our most cherished liberties.
Way back in the Calder vs. Bull case in 1798, Justice Samuel Chase explained why this notion of seizing land for the private use of another is an affront to freedom: "A law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it."
Or as James Madison, the author of the Fifth Amendment, wrote: "That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest."
Madison and Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were all devotees of the political theorist John Locke. All believed, as Locke did, that private property is the foundation of, indeed the very reason for the establishment of, any legitimate government.
Over and over, Locke explained that it was to secure property -- not capital or wealth, necessarily, but a homestead, land, the fruit of one's own labors -- that men entered into the social compact of a government in the first place. Without private property, government by its very nature becomes a tyranny.
"The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property is the end of government," Locke wrote. "Hence it is a mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any common-wealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily."
As of last Thursday's Supreme Court decision, however, 87-year-old Wilhelmina Dery, who was born in the same house in which she still lives today, will be forced to sell her property so that a pharmaceutical company can set up shop.
The same goes for Ms. Dery's son and his family, who live right next door. Out they will go. The stench of autocracy is in the air, and the jackbooted brigades are taking over.
But private development is not public use. The public does not benefit when its most basic freedoms are eroded. And this is not the America we know.
Be very afraid.
Quin Hillyer is an editorial writer for the Mobile Register. Readers can call him at 219-5650 or send e-mail to qhillyer@mobileregister.com.
The Left likes to accuse conservatives of being fascists, however the facts are that it is the Left that is fascist...and as proof we have the "liberal", Leftist judges who have removed the right of ownership in the guise of the "greater good" of society. Once again the Left is proved to have been wrong all along.
The term 'blighted' has become a joke in the emminent domain debate. In one case, whole neighborhoods were declared blighted because they... lacked attached two car garages! And don't you know, those houses occupied prime riverfront real estate.
Our country died with Kelo v. New London. It just hasn't fallen over yet.
Corporations come in many flavors. Pfizer is organized as a legal person under the laws of at least one state and the FedGov allowed for such creation under its own public agency. Pfizer is classified as quasi-public and is regulated by the gov't under corporate law.
Two Americans are arguing over who owns a particular piece of land.
The first person says, "I want this land."
The second person says, "No, you can't have it, it's mine."
The first person replies, "Where did you get it?"
The answer, "From my father."
"Where did he get it?"
"From his father."
"Where did he get it?"
"From his father."
"Where did he get it?"
"He fought for it."
"Well, I'll fight you for it."
The only answer is to start breeding snail darters or some other protected species.
It's clear tax-paying americans aren't afforded protection of their habitat
The most chilling part -- perhaps the beginning -- of this turn to fascism was a case cited in this Kelo decision: they allowed Hawaii to force a big apartment owner to sell the rented apartments to the tenants because ownership of real estate on the island was "too concentrated" or some such hand-waving.
And why is this of benefit to the public, you ask? Because it goes to prevent monopolies etc. And why is this not simply transfer from A to B? Ah, well, you see, *cough*, because the "mechanics" of the transfer were not the issue, the "reason" for the transfer makes it ok. *That* is where we started swirling, I believe.
They started knocking the "renewal" down in 1972. In my view, the return of the small-scale urban vision (thank you, Jane Jacobs) and the rise of public choice urban theory began with Pruitt-Igoe.
Interesting that it's suddenly a point of conversation and consternation.
In the past NJ took land tht was occupied by the very very poor and gave it to private developers.
Suddenly it's the middle class getting thrown out of their homes and the shreiking ensues.
Why did no one complain when it happened in Atlantic City for Donald Trump's casinos. In Morristown for AT&T to build an office complex????????
Times have changed. America was once much more tolerant of statism than it is today.
Perhaps a lesson has been learned, but it's doubtful.
There are ways to revitalize neighborhoods without resorting to demolition.
It takes a strong will and a strong leader.
We can do better and we can demand our elected officials do better.
It's a point of concern now that the Supreme Court has issued a precedent setting decision that authorizes government entities to take private property for the "public good" not for "public use". Instead of some isolated corruption in New Jersey, city councils and private developers across the country on immediately on the prowl for ways to exploit this new precedent.
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