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I know a guy who moved to a small town and opened a store, selling certain kinds of things needed by local ranchers. He was doing quite well, and his only competition was a similar store owned by a local man.

The town declared eminent domain and claimed the outsider's property, putting him out of business, ostensibly so that they could install some kind of road bypass. As far as I know the bypass was never put in. The guy who was put out of business found out that the other store was within a few months of going bankrupt until they once again became the only game in town.

This abuse of eminent domain has been going on for years. With the recent Supreme Court decision, crooked politicians know now that they can get away with anything.

This kind of sounds like some of the corrupt counties in Georgia a few years ago. Except back then, instead of taking a competitors land away, they would just burn the place down and let the people know that to rebuild would just result in more fires. Many of the people who ruled these counties have died or reached an age where they can no longer get away with that stuff.

The funny things is, a Democratic Governor Lester Maddox went to one of the worst counties to end the corruption. The county was beginning to give the State a bad name. He got in the Governors Limo and went down to Long county to check it out. They wrote him up with all kind of traffic tickets and then threw him in jail when he said he was the state Governor. The head man of the county looked at him and said, well I'm the president of the United states.

When the Governor got out of jail he ordered big billboards be put up at all roads leading into the county. The very first night they were all cut down. The next day they all went back up and had 24 hour protection from the Georgia State Patrol. It didn't take long for the county to begin changing it's ways.