Posted on 06/23/2005 7:30:08 AM PDT by Helmholtz
U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.
I concur.
On another off-topic post, Home Depo has got a great sale on rope. This rope is rated at 300 lbs.... more than the weight of a man.
"Read: Individuals can no longer own their land if you see a way you can profit.
I'm glad this Soviet-style ruling makes you money. After all, that's all that counts, right?"
It does not make me HAPPY.
It does make me RICHER.
What I think is good or bad is hardly relevant anyway.
If Americans do not LIKE this outcome, it is incumbent on them to DO something about it.
In France, it would provoke a general strike were Parliament to do this. And this is one reason why investment in land development projects in France is so damned hard all the time. The old lady with her pigeon coop can block everything, and DOES, and you just have to wait until she dies.
In America, the laws are much more oriented to business and investment. Land is a commodity, and the freer it can be traded up to maximize the economic return of its use, the better. Americans have structured their system of law to favor business, and this is incredibly favorable to the real estate development business.
If Americans don't LIKE this...and I certainly do not like the implications of this law were I looking at it from the perspective of the old lady with the pigeons...then it is incumbent upon them to make their government to CHANGE it.
But there is really no effective vehicle to do that in America. There is no tradition of the general strike at all, and there is no override of the US Supreme Court. Business interests dominate both US parties.
I not only expressed my outrage of the SC decision, but also indicated that it is way past time that TurbanDurbin should resign or be expelled from the US Senate.
When I told them that I had already called 98 SINators and e-mailed the 55 Republicans, he said "WOW" you did?
Keep calling - keep e-mailing.
Well said. A plague on both houses. They will use us when it suits there purposes and cast us aside when it doesn't. Anyone who believes otherwise is fooling themselves.
Done. I've also passed it around here at work to like minded folks and have posted it to several other forums and e-mail chains as well.
Okay. I understand.
Here's an interesting anecdote: In the 1970's and 1980's, it was common to hear people make comments like "Why shouldn't I do (whatever)? America's a free country, isn't it?"
You don't hear that so much any more.
America has rapidly donned the machinery of a police state during the War on Drugs, and now is enacting the laws to make the individual powerless. This is not a free country. I am seriously looking to emigrate, but I'm not sure which countries are free any more.
Indeed it is; it hadn't occurred to me, but you are right, we may well see some additional FDI coming in on the heels of this deplorable decision.
How about Sealand?
http://www.sealandgov.com/
Which other commodities that I own would you support the government forcing me to sell to someone against my will, as long as he could make more efficient economical use of it? Presumably all of them.
And who defines what is the most efficient economical use of a commodity? In my world, it's the free market; in yours, it seems, it's the government.
People like you frighten me.
Don't be frightened be happy, what he describes is simply Eurotrash economics.
Private property ownership means litte if it doesn't mean having the right to refuse to sell to another private party for any reason or no reason at all.
What you are are advocating is legalized theft in which one private citizen rationalizes the theft by claiming to know better than the victim what the "true" value of the property is. Are you really ready to go down that road?
I think The Comte is just pulling our leg in his latest string, to roil the waters for his entertainment. Be that as it may, even this statist finds the comment a mouthful. Generally free market capitalism is viewed as having two consenting parties to a contract, rather than just one. But then, France is not a common law country. Maybe the Napoleonic Code is well, Napoleonic or something.
You see, this intermittent statist admits when he is statist, while some other statists sometimes pose in false and misleading veneers.
And there you have it.
Signed. The signature count is going up : )
Ironic, your use of the word "free"!
The owner of a commodity should have the right to say, no, I do not wish to sell to you for the price you're offering. That's freedom.
You're advocating the government forcing an owner to sell to someone against his wishes. That's fascism.
Uh, yeah. "Perhaps". Is that the same "perhaps" as the one used in "Perhaps John Bolton will be confirmed"?
Or were you thinking of something more along the lines of "Perhaps the GOP will grow a spine"?
Personally, I lean more toward "Perhaps the GOP will start dieting and working out to burn off its squishy middle" and "perhaps we'll use the Constitution again someday".
Is this going to cause a drop in property values?
"I am seriously looking to emigrate, but I'm not sure which countries are free any more."
No country is free.
All have laws that you will hate.
It just depends on what you hate the most.
For example, if you are truly committed to the sacredness of life, and do not wish to be a part of a state that permits any abortion, cloning or euthanasia, then you should emigrate to Latin America, any country but Puerto Rico or Cuba will do. Latin abortion law parallels the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. You will have to put up with a great deal of things which you otherwise do not like, but your nation will not permit the murder of children in the womb, nor fund it.
If personal privacy, and the ability to live in your house until the bitter end without being disturbed is your highest objective, then France or Switzerland would be good destinations. Personal privacy is a fundamental human right in France. And your home is your castle. Of course you will have to put up with the endless parade of strikes, and Jacques Chirac and his ilk, and if you are at all interested in business, you will either be crippled by taxation and work laws or learn to artfully evade them and rely on the privacy laws to remain out of the possession of the police.
If the ability to conduct business and hire and fire people with ease is the most important aspect of freedom to you, in the civilized world, you cannot beat the United States.
Personally, were I to choose another country and could not shuttle between Paris and the US, I would go and live in Asia. But the attractions of that place would be of a more pragmatic varient and have nothing whatever to do with the law, freedom or principle (or, for that matter, morality).
What's more, in addition to the existing restrictions and irritations of all countries, there is nothing to prevent a paradise of freedom from turning into an unhappy place of oppressive laws other than the adoption of new laws, and nothing can stop that.
I would say that if you want to emigrate, do so for pleasure, not principle.
"Which other commodities that I own would you support the government forcing me to sell to someone against my will, as long as he could make more efficient economical use of it? Presumably all of them.
And who defines what is the most efficient economical use of a commodity? In my world, it's the free market; in yours, it seems, it's the government.
People like you frighten me."
I did not create the legal regime you describe.
That which "frightens you" is the law of the United States of America, imposed by your Supreme Court. I did not do this to you.
In fact, if I were a US Supreme Court justice, I would define "public use" as being DIRECT public use: bases, roads and the like.
I would go farther and read the word "necessary" before "public use", making it such that only the government could take private land, only for direct government ownership and purposes, and that the government would have to show, before the appropriate tribunal (which would NOT be controlled by the unit of government proposing the taking) that it was necessary for the government to take the land. In other words, I would make the presumption of taking against the government and make the government prove that it needed to take before any taking was permitted.
And then I would go further and read the sphere of privacy of family life around property that is specifically people's HOMES, because this property is more emotionally important than mere commercial property. In this US case, there is an 80+ year old couple who have lived in a house for 50 years of marriage. They will be evicted, and all experience has shown that, so deracinated so abruptly, they will probably die very soon afterwards. Taking old people's homes is usually a death sentence if they do not want to go. So, I would make it impossible for even the government to take private homes, except for national emergencies in which life or limb were at stake. Economic growth would never be an argument for the taking of a home under American "eminent domain" were I am American Supreme Court justice or Parliamentarian.
But I am not.
Your Supreme Court has made takings for purely economic efficiency reasons the law of the land, and there is no counterpoise to this decision in the United States.
It is now the law of the land in America.
And I merely see the enhanced business opportunities presented by it, and intend to profit therefrom for myself and my social partners.
Do not blame ME that this is American law.
If I ruled you, nobody could remove you from your house unless the Germans were invading the beach in front of it.
Blame the government of the United States.]
And don't blame me for seeing the enhanced profit potential in land development when the old lady and her pigeon coop cannot block my project in Connecticut. It can block it, and does, in Paris.
If I were making the laws, I would side with the lady and her pigeons, because I might be her one day.
But I don't.
French law is where the law should be on this.
American law is where the US Supreme Court has put it.
This is unjust, but it opens opportunities, and those opportunities will most certainly be exploited by me and others.
If you don't like that, then change your laws.
"Don't be frightened be happy, what he describes is simply Eurotrash economics."
Au contraire! I am describing the constitutional law of the United States of America, as determined yesterday by the US Supreme Court.
Europe does not have this law.
America does.
Europe did not do this to you.
The US Supreme Court did.
Don't be angry at Europe about this.
Be angry at America.
Oh I know exactly what V stands for, Vichy.
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.