A War of Words (Thomas Sowell)

Townhall.com ^ | May 29, 2007 | Thomas Sowell

[SaltyJoe]

You say potato, I say...oh let’s call the hole thing augh!

Yes, I goofed. Thanks for correkting my spelling misteighk. It’s been known to happen b4!

[mjolnir]

I agree with you on O’Conner, who as usual saw herself as a super-legislator in Kelo.

However, the majority did not simply uphold precedent-— they enlarged it from “public use”-— which is in the Constitution-— to “public purpose”-— which is most definitely not.

You may disagree with Sowell on this one, but I think it is just that, a disagreement rather an “error” on his part.

[CDHart]

I would love to see him on the Supreme Court.

Carolyn

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Conservatives are no less prone to euphemize. It didn’t take long for anti-abortion to become pro-life so as to render an impression of less negativity.

That is nowhere close to reality. The truth is that journalists dominate political discourse, and in order to do so they promote the idea that journalism is objective. Who do you know besides a journalist that a journalist would accept as "objective?" The reality is that journalist's claim of objectivity is supported by nothing except propaganda power, and the solidarity of other journalists.

And the reality is that journalists label people politically as to whether they support the presumption of the objectivity of journalism. If you assume journalists are objective, you are a "liberal," or a "progressive" or a "moderate." Those are meant as positive labels because in fact Americans believe in liberty, progress, and moderation. If you do not assume that journalists are objective, you are a "conservative" or a "right winger." Those are meant as negative labels; indeed there is scarcely any such a thing as a truly conservative American who is labeled as such. People who promote liberty as a traditional American value are called "conservative," and that sounds logical until you consider that liberty means the ability to do things in new ways, and to do new things that your father never did.

So the idea of liberty actually has belief in progress embedded within it. Conservatism is actually not what we believe in, what we believe in is pragmatic evaluation of ideas with a view to furthering progress. We believe in giving credit to the person who actually accomplishes things, not to the person who merely talks a good game. And journalists and fellow travelers known as "liberals" believe that talking a good game is all that matters. See my tag line.

[rlmorel]

Well put.

I wouldn’t have approached it from that tack as an inital foray into that subject, but given that journalists often control the lexicon of the political discourse that takes place between the professional politicians, it makes sense.

[edsheppa]

Initially after the Kelo decision I shared the reaction of many that it was judicial activism at its worst. But, unlike just about everybody else, sadly including Sowell, I actually looked into the judicial history and, to my surprise, I had been wrong.

The precedents were very clear that states have very wide lattitude in deciding what constitutes public use. For example, in the 1800s there was a SC decision that it was OK for a state government to take one farmer's irrigation ditch to improve and extend it so that an adjacent farmer could make use of the water. The taking was justified by the state on the basis it would increase economic activity - two farms fed by one irrigation ditch rather than one. IOW they said it's OK to take from one person just to give to another so long as there is some public benefit. There's no difference in principle between that and taking a property to give to a developer as in Kelo.

Now maybe if one were to delve more closely into it, those precedential decsions might have been radical departures from what came before, I don't look further back so I can't say. But Sowell's claim that Kelo was radical is just false.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I wouldn’t have approached it from that tack as an inital foray into that subject, but given that journalists often control the lexicon of the political discourse that takes place between the professional politicians, it makes sense.

I wrote,

If you assume journalists are objective, you are a "liberal," or a "progressive" or a "moderate." Those are meant as positive labels because in fact Americans believe in liberty, progress, and moderation.

In so stating, I assert that the difference between "objective" journalists and "liberal" politicians is only in the style book of the journalists who will never call anyone but a journalist "objective," and never call a journalist "liberal" - notwithstanding that Walter Cronkite became a liberal when he retired, and George Stephanopolis executed the opposite "transformation" when he changed jobs from political operative to journalist. Without changing one jot or tittle of their political perspectives in either case.

"Objective" journalists are "liberals," in all but name.

[mjolnir]

There’s a pretty clear distinction between “public use” which means the government needing something for, say a highway, and public purpose-— which can mean just about anything. It's this distinction that Kelo explictly overturns. Thus, because in Supreme Court decisions, words have power,it was the EXPLICITNESS of the rejection, as well as the rejection itself of said principle that Sowell found radical.

But you’re right, when Sowell refers to “judicial activism” he generally means deviation from the text of the Constitution, not from precedent. In that way, Sowell is perhaps a bit more in line with Clarence Thomas than with Scalia, and it should be noted that Scalia didn’t join Thomas’s separate dissent.

[rlmorel]

Yep.

I am with you on that completely.

It is why nearly ALL journalists view themselves as centrist, and anyone else not at their side or to the left of them is an extremist.

[edsheppa]

There’s a pretty clear distinction between “public use” which means the government needing something for, say a highway, and public purpose-— which can mean just about anything.

I guess you did not read the example in my post. It was an actual 1800s case where property was taken, not because the "the government [needed] something for ..." but because another private party needed it, just like Kelo.

I reiterate, if you look into the actual history of eminent domain in the US you will see that the Court has always given the states wide latitude in deciding constitutes a "public use." Naturally the question did not even arise before 1868 - until the 14th Amendment was passed, a state's power to take property was not limited by the US Constitution, although state constitutions might have had provisions.